Friday, September 11, 2009

September 11, 9/11

When the moment of silence was observed this morning for the victims -- the dead and the living -- of Sept. 11, 2001, the sound of my Twitter application, TweetDeck, punctured the silence with bursts of tweets.

At this moment, Remembering 9 and Sept11 were Trending Topics (or the most popular subjects) on Twitter.

Twitter was nonexistent on Sept. 11. We've leapfrogged ahead.

Everyone has their memories.

I remember driving to Travel Weekly's offices in Secaucus, N.J., and as I was listening to Howard Stern on the radio that morning, cars on the New Jersey Turnpike were halted on the shoulder, with people gawking at the World Trade Center in the distance.

Once at work, the staff gathered in front of a radio and listened as there were unconfirmed reports that a bunch of jets were unaccounted for and then we heard the news that a third hijacked plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

Later that day, and for days to come, we watched from a window as the World Trade Center towers emitted a gray reminder of their one-time existence -- a steady stream of smoke.

New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania recovered. The U.S. survived. The travel industry, led by major travel websites, rebounded.

People continue to travel today. It is a basic human right and instinct.

I will always remember 9/11.

When you talk about 9/11, it is superfluous to state the year that it happened.

It is just 9/11 and will remain so.

We will always remember.

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