Zeeyolq Photography/CC BY 2.0
I remember the day, of course. It was a Tuesday. Stunningly beautiful weather. We overslept and did not do the one thing that my husband and I always did in the morning back then: turn on the news, either on the radio or television. My husband, then the news editor of Isthmus, headed off to work on his bicycle while I lagged behind, watering the garden.
The phone rang. I remember thinking, “This better be good,” because the garden watering was putting me even further behind. It was Bill on the phone, having arrived at Isthmus in time to see the second tower collapse, on a small black and white television that had been set up in the art department on the first floor at 101 King St. He was saying something about hijacked planes, the World Trade Center collapsing, and the Pentagon being in flames. None of it seemed to make any sense and I’m sure I said “What?”
“Turn on the television,” he said, and hung up.
I soon bicycled to work myself and remember seeing the flag at Mautz Paint on East Washington Avenue already at half staff. About 11:30 a.m. people appeared on the Capitol Square selling the day’s special edition of The Capital Times, front page with a photo of the second plane slamming into the second tower like, I always thought, a knife plunging into a birthday cake, just that much resistance. I left the office to buy a copy, thinking that it felt like what I imagined the onset of World War II felt like, right down to the newsie hawking the paper on the corner.
Here are some of the other reflections on 9/11 that have appeared in Isthmus over the years.
Civil liberties are at risk in the fight against terrorism
By Marc Eisen
Sept. 14, 2001
Local blood donors respond to Tuesday's terror
By David Medaris
Sept. 14, 2001
Even in the heartland, people are paying a high psychic price for the acts of terrorism
By Tom Laskin
Nov. 16, 2001
By Alexander Cockburn
Don't listen to the nuts; the truth is not that far out there
Sept. 21, 2006
The Daily Page Forum: Madisonians recall 9/11, eight years later
A time capsule and oral history
By Kristian Knutsen
Sept. 15, 2009
Memories of being a UW-Madison freshman on 9/11
By Alan Talaga
Sept. 11, 2015
Citizen Dave: 9/11 did not kill American cities
By Dave Cieslewicz
Sept. 11, 2012
