This has been a long day. My son’s class headed to Washington D.C. this morning bright and early. Very early. (A similar trip to the one that the Hale eighth grade students went on last week.)
I’ve since heard my son’s group made it down there safely, but in the meantime, the news flashed a bulletin that the Capital Building had been evacuated due to an unknown emergency. I have to admit, my heart skipped a beat at the potential for something to happen while my son is there. My oldest daughter’s class never got to go on the Washington trip because she was in eighth grade in 2001 and all such trips were canceled after September 11. My son was just an infant at the time.
The Capital Building incident today turned out to be a malfunctioning smoke detector, according to news reports, and all was back to normal in no time. But back to normal now is not what used to be normal. In my every day life, I admittedly no longer think about Sept. 11 on a daily basis, but it is times like these that I’m acutely aware of the differences in our lives and thoughts since that day. A minor incident in the nation’s capital makes the newswire and sets off alarms in my head. This is the new normal, 14 years later, and I can’t say that I like it.
Cyndy Bremer, managing editor; [email protected]
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