March 28, 2024

Why I will never forget 9/11

Working at this job, I’ve gotten to talk to lots of older members of our community. Those who are old enough to have been around in 1941, can tell me exactly where they were when they heard the news the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.

The same thing can be said of my generation and 9/11. I’ll never forget where I was and what I witnessed that day.

I was in Mr. Bodenner’s freshman English class at Washington High School when I got this call over the intercom, “Mr. Bodenner, could you send Mr. Rushing to the office with all of his things. His mother is coming to get him.”

Naturally, I assumed the worse. I rarely left school early and never got in trouble. A call to the office felt like a death sentence to me.

When I got there, Mrs. Jett, our secretary, told me that “A plane had landed on the roof of the Pentagon and that somebody had bombed the World Trade Center.”

It was still early in the morning and the facts weren’t quite clear yet, but hearing this seemed unreal to me. I grew up thinking, “This is America. We are the strongest, most powerful county in the world and we are untouchable.”

That day proved me wrong. I never thought at 14 I would witness something such as those terrorist attacks on our country

When my mom picked me up, I went home and just watched the news all day. I remember watching live as the second plane hit.

I still get teary eyed remembering seeing all of this stuff live on TV. I watched innocent people jump out of buildings, run from debris and I saw first responders become heroes that day.

At that moment, I no longer began to feel safe, in what I felt was the most secure country on the planet.

9/11 is a something I will never forget as long as I live.  I’m really glad the Newton Community School District is placing a huge emphasis on today, as well as Veteran’s Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year.

This is a day where we just need to come together as American citizens and be thankful for the liberties and freedoms we have. I hope everyone takes some time out of their day just to pay some sort of tribute to everyone who was lost.

Football Season

For five months of the year, there is a single day of the week where I don’t bathe, put on clothes, or care about what I eat and there is only one single thing that I care about. That day is Sunday and the thing is NFL football.

I live and breathe for this stuff. I dictate how my Monday will be by how well the Chiefs played. Needless to say last year’s 2-14 season led to a lot of bad Mondays, angry tears and depression-induced naps by halftime.

However, this is a new year and a whole new era for the Chiefs. We have a new GM, coach and starting QB. This change was very necessary for us to become a better organization and I felt a little bad for our former GM, Scott Pioli (I met and interviewed him during my internship, which you can read here: http://news.allaboutjazz.com/news.php?id=98032) but the change was necessary for us to thrive as a team.

I’m excited about this season. My team has a legitimate shot at being No. 2 in the AFC West (Peyton Manning throwing seven touchdowns killed any notion of us being No. 1) and maybe even the playoffs.

This is huge. To go from the first overall pick in the draft to the playoffs would be a startling turnaround, one worthy of manly tears being shed (I don’t cry, but instead shed manly or angry tears.)

I may be dreaming big, but who cares?

The beauty of football is, every year, for a few weeks, you can believe your team may go all the way. As a Chiefs fan, I need this hope. The last time my team made the playoffs, they lost to the Baltimore Ravens — on my birthday.

Before that, the last three of our four recent playoff losses came via the Indianapolis Colts. Even though I was 8 years old at the time, I still want a piece of Lin Elliot for that choke job in ’95.

I mean, who misses three kicks in the freaking playoffs?

Another thing you can look forward to seeing from me is Red Fridays, which also counts for the Cardinals. In Kansas City, all Chiefs fans are encouraged to wear red on Fridays; it’s like a city-wide pep rally.

It’s great and I will continue the tradition here for both the Cards and the Chiefs, who both happen to be rocking my favorite color.

One thing that is a bummer is the Chiefs games aren’t shown consistently here and I am too poor/cheap to get cable or satellite. My Sundays just don’t feel the same without having the Chiefs on my TV.

I’m grateful that Daily News sportswriter Dustin Turner has NFL Red Zone, but the Chiefs get such a small share of screen time on there. Tthe experience isn’t the same.

At least the Chiefs won this week and Blaine Gabbert, a former Missouri Tiger, once again struggled, so it’s looking like a good week for me. GO CHIEFS!