Suze, over at Obsolete Childhood has introduced a new prompt called “Answer Me This.” Suze says it’s “an alternative daily prompt” to the WordPress Daily Prompt, which she characterized as “ones that totally suck and are focused upon the young people here.

Anyway, her prompt question is this:

What were you doing when you first heard about the attack on the Twin Towers in NYC and how did your daily routine change (if at all) as a result of the news?

I was in Merrimack, New Hampshire sitting at my desk at work when Phil, one of my co-workers, ran into my office. “A plane just flew into one of the World Trade Center buildings in New York,” he said.

We ran together to the company cafeteria where a small group of people had already started to gather in front of the TV mounted on one of the walls. Phil and I got there just as a second plane flew into the other tower.

More and more employees came into the large room and gazed fixedly at the television screen. Some stood around the TV, some sat down at the cafeteria tables. All were mesmerized and horrified by what we were seeing and hearing.

No one was speaking. Everyone in that cafeteria was shocked into a frozen silence. The only sounds that could be heard were those coming from the TV and the sniffling coming from those watching, as most of us were crying. Even I, a typically stoic, unemotional man, was crying.

I spent a lot of time that day — and much of that week — crying. And being angry. Very angry.

It was a day that changed everything.