A Norman Rockwell Day

A Ranney Landscape by second grader, Gianna E.

Nine Eleven, two odd numbers that will always be forged together in our memories. Nine Eleven, a day that happens every September, but in 2001, in a brand new millennium, it became a date for future students to memorize, numbers to associate with terrorism.

Just as people of my mom's generation will always remember what they were doing the day JFK was assassinated, our generation can't help but remember where we were when the first plane hit the first tower. I heard what happened over my car radio. It didn't take very long for me to run into Staples for some supplies and listen to the cashier rant on about how we were being attacked, for me to question her paranoia since at that moment it appeared to the broadcaster on the radio that it was just a freak plane accident, and for me to return to the car, turn on the news and be faced with reality. "You give us 22 minutes, and we'll give you the world," says 1010 Wins. They did.

Norman was a Dean in Wagner High School during that brand new school year. He should have been safely ensconced on Staten Island, away from the targets of the planes. That day, he was asked to travel into the city for a suspension hearing. Some folks trek into the city on a daily basis and shrug at all kinds of horrors and adventures in their travels. My husband picked quite a day to make that trip. He didn't hear the news over a car radio, he saw the plane hit the tower through the windows of New Jersey Transit. He spent the rest of the day frantically finding his brother downtown and racing with Peter to get out of the city.

I began teaching at Ranney one year after the attacks. Nine Eleven worked its way into my art lessons on many levels. We were still living the terror of al-Qaeda, we were still writing that event in the history books. And Nine Eleven defined how I taught art. Second graders, my seven-year-old artists, understood what Nine Eleven meant. We learned about architecture for a Norman Rockwell inspired landscape and we talked about the construction of the buildings at Ranney School. In quite a few years following 2001, we still discussed how safe we felt in our classrooms and in our school. When Ranney changed the landscape of its campus, the memories of those tall towers falling were beginning to fade and we all got to watch a new school building rise from the ground. Our new Lower School building had thick steel pillars holding the roof of Panther Hall proudly up to the sky. My seven-year-old artists had a first-hand glimpse of how to draw a building, not just as a rectangle with a triangle up on top, but as a sturdy structure that kept them safe.

Norman Rockwell, "Freedom from Fear"

The attacks on Nine Eleven were 17 years ago. Some of my early students, now college graduates, still remember 2001 and the art lessons from their second-grade year. But students entering second grade this year were born in 2011, ten years after that fateful day. Unless their families were personally affected or they make a trip into the city to see the living memorial to the 3,000 who lost their lives, Nine Eleven will be just another set of numbers to memorize in a history lesson.

The other day, I wrote about a dear friend from our camp, Mikhl Baran. As a Holocaust survivor, he makes it his mission to tell his stories to every new generation of campers so that his legacy is not forgotten. Yet there are those in this world who question if the Holocaust ever happened. It was too long ago for some to fathom the breadth of those the horrors. Even 17 years as the anniversary of Nine Eleven is a long time. These days, we walk around, shaking our heads in confusion under the leadership of this country, but we go about our immediate business, hoping just to survive another rainy day or the threat of another hurricane.

Today, of all days, Norman and I are going into the city to visit our friend, Vicki. It is just another day in a city that never sleeps. There's always lots going on. But it is the anniversary of September 11th and this is quite a day to drive into lower Manhattan. We will not be able to forget 2001.

I have a wish for the next generation and for my future grandchildren. I hope my sweet little nieces, Lillie and Emma, will not have to live through the horrors of history in the making as we did. I hope they can dance through life and only know fear as something unimaginable in a history book.