9/12
If I told you the following people were going to do a benefit show, what do you think it would be a benefit for?
-Neil Young
-Eddie Vedder
-Wyclef Jean
-Mariah Carey
-Dave Matthews
-Celine Dion
-Willie Nelson
There were lots more singers too. Now, what if told you these were some of the hosts?
-George Clooney
-Jim Carrey
-Tom Cruise
-Julia Roberts
-Chris Rock
-Robert DeNiro
-Clint Eastwood
How much would you bet you could guess it correctly? Now: What if I told you the benefit was called America: A Tribute to Heroes?
The title of this post gives it away, but if you didn’t know that or are below a certain age, you would likely lose a bet about what it was. But this actually aired on tv…on all of the major networks and cable channels, on September 21, 2001. It was a telethon meant to raise money for the victims and people like the New York police and firefighters. The songs came out as an album in December 2001, and that was about the time everybody in the U.S. getting along started to crumble. I wanted to post this on 9/12, just as a reminder that all of the above actually happened, and even though everyone was trying to cope, getting along was not the worst feeling.
Here is what I did on 9/11/01: I was teaching high school English. We heard the news somewhere around third period; one of my 9th grade classes. I remember we watched the news for a few minutes between classes, and then I watched some more when my planning period started. I also remember trying to call one of my good friends who lived in New York at the time because as the news reports got wilder and wilder, and we started hearing about attacks on other planes, I got concerned (he turned out to be nowhere close to the scene). The students were talking about it the rest of the day, and for days afterward. We may or may not have set up some kind of “grief counselor,” but I don’t remember any students being outwardly that distraught. The bowing up with pride and anger started pretty soon, on top of a constant, low-boil nervousness underneath for a long time afterward. Also, lots of “I Heart NY” shirts.
I was doing my Master’s degree nights at UGA at the time; classes that night were cancelled. Seems a little strange to think now – did Athens, Georgia really seem to be a likely follow-up target? – but it’s hard to describe now how no one knew what was going on that day, and the craziest things seemed not totally crazy. Wild rumors were everywhere (the Washington mall being set on fire was one), and they all turned out to be untrue, but so many of them seemed plausible at the time.
I read somewhere that to people who were born after, say 1990, the killing of bin Laden must have seemed similar to the killing of someone like Darth Vader or Voldemort. He was just the personification of evil to them at the time, and the U.S. actually got him. I bet it’s inconceivable to them that on 9/10/01, hardly anyone had heard about bin Laden, we didn’t talk about Muslims very much at all, and most people knew the twin towers mostly as those buildings that were in the opening credit scenes of about 98% of movies that were set in New York.
Back to my class. High school freshmen tend to be self-absorbed, melodramatic and clueless about a lot of things, but this really had their attention for a while, and they were mature about it. The main memories I had of current events intruding on my own school years (I’m late Gen X) were the Challenger explosion (awful, and my brother or I had put a “Teacher in Space” sticker we got from school on a little radio we had before it happened – not the happiest souvenir at that point, but it wouldn’t come off), and the Berlin Wall coming down.
Anyway, America: A Tribute to Heroes really did happen. I think all of our new hybrid schools and microschools have a chance at turning down the shocking heat that has risen since 9/11, and I like to write about how they can help turn that heat down from time to time.