Where Were You 9/11/01?

This is the day for remembering where we were as the events of September 11, 2001 unfolded.

I was working at a radio station in Jacksonville, Illinois at the time. My wife and I were carpooling to work that morning. I dropped her off around 8 a.m. and headed across town to WLDS/WEAI.

I hadn't had the radio on up to that point. I turned it to KMOX in St. Louis, and heard audio from WCBS in New York, which was, of course, very strange. The first plane had hit, and that's about all that was known at the time.

I got to work, and joined some of my co-workers huddled around the Associated Press wire. There, we learned the second tower had been hit, and the Pentagon had been hit.

We spent the morning using our various news resources to get and pass along what information we could. I did a half-hour talk show on Tuesdays. That was the first time in all my years in radio that I had to go off in a corner and pull myself together before I could go on the air. Otherwise, the news gathering effort that day is pretty much a blur.