With 5G melting our brain, it's hard to imagine someone can still stay oblivious to what's going on around them. But they do. Whether they choose to disconnect themselves or not, there are people who live off the grid and seriously fall behind the world. To us strangers, the most interesting part of their detachment is probably its end. The sudden mind blow that sweeps across their entire perception of reality.
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Jesus. Could you imagine being his family seeing him walk in the door that evening?
They'd think they were seeing ghosts.
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What, but, how..? How do you go from train delay to 10 hours later? Seems like I'm missing a few hours here.
His train was stopped, not delayed. They likely held the trains for several hours and you can't just get off if you aren't near a station. What surprises me more is that he didn't hear what was going on outside while stuck on the train.
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I've heard a similar story. My teacher once said she had a student that after hearing about what was happening on 9/11 started crying. Her father had been sent to work in the twin towers that day. My teacher let her call him trying to see if he was okay, and he picked up and told her his meeting had been cancelled.
I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Only relevant if you know Spartan school of Aeronautics is located here.... Which some of the terrorists supposedly went here to learn to fly. My friend, (in his 30's)went to school thinking it was a normal school day, he's middle eastern, and halfway thru his day he's coming home to his gf who calls me bc he was treated like trash by everyone at the campus bc of 911. Ever see a grown man cry and be humiliated bc he's been spit on and harassed by his "school mates" bc he "looks like" the horrible people that committed those crimes was a super eye opening experience. I was only 20 and cried with him, his "American" gf, and all his friends by the sheer injustice. What happened was unforgivable but he, nor any of them, had NOTHING to do with it and was always super gratiful for the opportunities he had for schooling here. It was so devastating to witness.
Actually I learnt about 9/11 quite late after it happened. We were going on holidays, driving hours in our car, listening music, but not radio. It was Tuesday, so we didn't meet anyone until our destination. At 8 pm, when I called my family from a phone booth to say I was OK, my father told me with a broken voice "they destroyed the empire state building" and was unable to explain more. I quite didn't understand. Afterwards, we couldn't get proper information (we were camping and not having a clue of what really happened). The radio repeated "Al Quaida" but again, we didn't make the connection. When we went back home 2 weeks after, we saw the videos, shown on and on, everywhere on TV, all the day. We then realized what it really was, how horrible, sudden, terrifying it was, and I can't even explain the dissociation and the shock we felt. I spent 8 days looking at these horrifying pictures before my brain admitted it was true.
I had a close friend that worked in the towers and after the small plane hit it before 9/11 he transferred out to the company's Connecticut office. He missed that jet that would have killed him.
In my first job (a very long time ago) a manager went to Nanjing (China) for his honeymoon. A couple of days after he left we heard on the new that the plane he was (supposed to be) on crashed with all souls lost. We all had a scare when he called the company in the afternoon - apparently he and his wife were last to board the plane, and then got kicked-off by some government officials on 'urgent state business' (happened a lot in China back then). The couple had to take the train as flights were few and far between. He learned of the place crash after a few hours when the train stopped at a biggish town.
That must have a joyous occasion when he walked in the door, safe & sound.
Totally clueless? During the age of cell phones when someone actually got the message out from the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania saying, "LET'S ROLL!"
What planes? Trains and planes? Did the writer mean 7/11? Was there a holdup?
I would say he dodged a bullet, but planes aren't exactly bullets, are they?
It waa 2001. If they had a cell phone they didn't have service underground nor did they have access to the internet.
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2001? Cell phones? Internet? And I'm pretty sure the train staff were busy managing a stopped train.
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2001, not everybody had cellphones and for most of that time, his family thinks he is safe at work for all he knew. Also congratulations on making a new account and starting your first comment with f...
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They had to bring his former commanding officer over to convince him the war was over. He did not believe people when they told him. He thought it was American tricks.
HAHAHAH OOPS! the things that happen when you go on vacation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You'd probably always wonder if you somehow stumbled into an alternate dimension.
Someone posted asking if he was assassinated but got downvoted and removed their comment. Not everyone is familiar with US politics from the 1970’s, so others may have a similar question. Richard Nixon was not assassinated but resigned due to withholding information about individuals who were stealing political information from the other party. He knew he would likely be impeached, so he resigned instead. His name has come up frequently in the last four years as many drew a parallel between him and the 45th US President and the difference in how they handled similar charges. If this is interesting, check out information on Nixon and the Watergate scandal, but hopefully I saved some people from having to do a Google search.
Me too. Went camping in Europe and completely missed the collapse of the USSR!
I remember I was at a meeting when 9/11 happened. I'm an English teacher in Europe, and this happened in literally my first month of teaching at a school with primarily Muslim kids. Let's just say that the first two weeks were mostly talking. The kids were incredibly scared that they'd be blamed ...
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There was a reality TV show being filmed on a Scottish island, with the expectation that they'd live there for a year and they'd show updates on TV over the year. The show went a bit to pot because they didn't have a great balance of skills and characters, so the show was already being pared back, but some of the people remained on the island till the end of the year. At the end they had to explain to them that Britain was leaving the EU and trump had been voted in as president in the US. (although after the last few years that feels less shocking than it did at the time!)
Are you sure about this? Seems to have the years mixed up, the people on the island were there years before the voting for Brexit
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Not away from social media, but I did go in for emergency surgery on a Tuesday morning after suffering a severe gall stone attack. When I woke up, San Francisco was in chaos after suffering a 6.9 Earthquake that collapsed bridges and killed 63 people. I sat in my hospital bed watching the horror unfold on the news.
my husband was in a coma due to covid for about 2 months, and despite what they show on tv, coming out of it is very gradual. He was out from April 5 to early June, 2020. I had so much to tell him when he woke up, not just in our personal lives (which were hell) but the world in general
This reminds me of reverse culture shock a bit. I lived in China for four years. When I came back to the US, I had no idea what cell lots were at the airport and it took me a while to figure out what "struggle bus" meant.
Oh goodness.... in my mom's family they still oten only listen to/pay attention to news from back home, so they had no idea for *weeks* that any number of things happened in North America. Took them a while to even figure out Justin Trudeau was the new guy in charge, LOL, and they live in Quebec now!
My ex when on a 3 week camping trip in 1992. The first question he asked me was "What's up with OJ?" He missed the bronco chase and everything. Meanwhile I couldn't get away from it.
Someone with a deep knowledge of TV soap operas can, I hope, provide the details, but the basics are these: In the '70s I was an editor at TV Guide magazine. A writer in our NY office sent in a profile of a woman starring on one of the soaps. She was as the French say "of a certain age"--in her 40s at least. And, critically important, she was German, only arrived in the US years after World War II. So inevitably and hesitantly our writer had raised the question of her experiences in Germany during the war. (Younger BPs should be aware that in those years (1939-1945) Germany was under the sway of Hitler; that Jews, gays, gypsies, the mentally ill and physically disabled were being systematically murdered in a vast network of concentration camps; and thatBerlin, Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg and other cities were razed to the ground by ceaseless bombing raids.) So--what WAS her experience of the war? Well, she said, "our family was on vacation." And TV Guide printed it.
Nowhere near as big as any of these, but I went to Woodstock '99 with 3 friends (and none of us had phones back then). The 3rd day started with riots, so we packed it up and left early. But we got stuck in traffic, and we lived several hours away, so we didn't get home until close to 9 at night. When I walked in the door (I was 21 but living at home before my Sr year of college), my parents and sister jumped up and started hugging me. They had been watching the riots and problems on tv all day and since we weren't supposed to come home until the next day, they thought we were still there and caught in it all. Meanwhile, we knew nothing about what was going on, and all I wanted after a weekend of drinking, camping, and overflowing latrines with no access to showers, was to take a hot bath and go to sleep.
Also remember being a kid while your country is currently having a civil war and everyone is trying to keep you peppy and whatnot so you don't realize everything's going to s**t? ._.
I went into boot camp in August of 2001, so I was there on September 11. They told us about it, but I didn't see footage until we finished in October. When I went in, no one really cared about people in the military unless they were a veteran themselves. When I came out, the whole country was plastered in red, white and blue.
I was working nights and came home from a terrible job which I planned on quitting later that day after 2 weeks. My mom was watching the news, so I sat down to watch with her. When I finally had to go to bed, I had a seizure on the stairway. On 9/11, my seizures that had been controlled for 13 years returned and became resistant to medications.
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These are very interesting, but soo sad! I got chills at the first one. So glad they are okay. :)
There was a reality TV show being filmed on a Scottish island, with the expectation that they'd live there for a year and they'd show updates on TV over the year. The show went a bit to pot because they didn't have a great balance of skills and characters, so the show was already being pared back, but some of the people remained on the island till the end of the year. At the end they had to explain to them that Britain was leaving the EU and trump had been voted in as president in the US. (although after the last few years that feels less shocking than it did at the time!)
Are you sure about this? Seems to have the years mixed up, the people on the island were there years before the voting for Brexit
Load More Replies... Not away from social media, but I did go in for emergency surgery on a Tuesday morning after suffering a severe gall stone attack. When I woke up, San Francisco was in chaos after suffering a 6.9 Earthquake that collapsed bridges and killed 63 people. I sat in my hospital bed watching the horror unfold on the news.
my husband was in a coma due to covid for about 2 months, and despite what they show on tv, coming out of it is very gradual. He was out from April 5 to early June, 2020. I had so much to tell him when he woke up, not just in our personal lives (which were hell) but the world in general
This reminds me of reverse culture shock a bit. I lived in China for four years. When I came back to the US, I had no idea what cell lots were at the airport and it took me a while to figure out what "struggle bus" meant.
Oh goodness.... in my mom's family they still oten only listen to/pay attention to news from back home, so they had no idea for *weeks* that any number of things happened in North America. Took them a while to even figure out Justin Trudeau was the new guy in charge, LOL, and they live in Quebec now!
My ex when on a 3 week camping trip in 1992. The first question he asked me was "What's up with OJ?" He missed the bronco chase and everything. Meanwhile I couldn't get away from it.
Someone with a deep knowledge of TV soap operas can, I hope, provide the details, but the basics are these: In the '70s I was an editor at TV Guide magazine. A writer in our NY office sent in a profile of a woman starring on one of the soaps. She was as the French say "of a certain age"--in her 40s at least. And, critically important, she was German, only arrived in the US years after World War II. So inevitably and hesitantly our writer had raised the question of her experiences in Germany during the war. (Younger BPs should be aware that in those years (1939-1945) Germany was under the sway of Hitler; that Jews, gays, gypsies, the mentally ill and physically disabled were being systematically murdered in a vast network of concentration camps; and thatBerlin, Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg and other cities were razed to the ground by ceaseless bombing raids.) So--what WAS her experience of the war? Well, she said, "our family was on vacation." And TV Guide printed it.
Nowhere near as big as any of these, but I went to Woodstock '99 with 3 friends (and none of us had phones back then). The 3rd day started with riots, so we packed it up and left early. But we got stuck in traffic, and we lived several hours away, so we didn't get home until close to 9 at night. When I walked in the door (I was 21 but living at home before my Sr year of college), my parents and sister jumped up and started hugging me. They had been watching the riots and problems on tv all day and since we weren't supposed to come home until the next day, they thought we were still there and caught in it all. Meanwhile, we knew nothing about what was going on, and all I wanted after a weekend of drinking, camping, and overflowing latrines with no access to showers, was to take a hot bath and go to sleep.
Also remember being a kid while your country is currently having a civil war and everyone is trying to keep you peppy and whatnot so you don't realize everything's going to s**t? ._.
I went into boot camp in August of 2001, so I was there on September 11. They told us about it, but I didn't see footage until we finished in October. When I went in, no one really cared about people in the military unless they were a veteran themselves. When I came out, the whole country was plastered in red, white and blue.
I was working nights and came home from a terrible job which I planned on quitting later that day after 2 weeks. My mom was watching the news, so I sat down to watch with her. When I finally had to go to bed, I had a seizure on the stairway. On 9/11, my seizures that had been controlled for 13 years returned and became resistant to medications.
Load More Replies... These are very interesting, but soo sad! I got chills at the first one. So glad they are okay. :)
