‘All of a sudden, the room echoed a collective gasp’: Former teacher looks back on 9/11 – The Gardner News

Mike Richard| Special for The Gardner News

It seems as though every generation experiences its own significant day of infamy.

For my parents, it occurred on Dec. 7, 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into World War II.

For me, it occurred in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

For my children, it was 9/11; so significant that it needs only those numbers and no other explanation.

Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, started out like every other day, early in the school year at Gardner High School. It was crisp and sunny; just a picture-perfect late summer day if there ever was one.

I had a free period and was making my way through the schools main office when the secretaries had the TV monitor tuned to a breaking news story out of New York City.

It seemed as though an airplane had struck the World Trade Center.

My mind quickly flashed back to an event I had read about from 1945, when a B-25 Mitchell bomber flew into the Empire State Building; the pilot misjudging his whereabouts in a heavy fog.

However, if the skies over New York were as bright and clear as those over Gardner, that couldnt have been the cause.

All of a sudden, the room echoed a collective gasp as the TV showed a second airplane crashing into the other Twin Tower.

We quickly realized this was no accident.

The bell ending the second period and heralded the beginning of homeroom which occurred on Tuesdays around 9:30 snapped us back into reality.

Before long, the students were made aware of the terrorist attacks on our country, as news began to filter in about another plane crashing into the Pentagon and a fourth plane downed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

As I stood before a room full of freshmen my daughter, Lindsey, among them who were in their second full week of high school, it was nearly impossible to attempt to assuage their emotions of fear and uncertainty.

For generations, students have looked to their teachers in the quest of getting right answers.

I had none.

The rest of the day went by in a blur with a pall cast over the assembled student body who ambled through the school session in a trance-like existence. It was quite impossible to try to get high school kids in my English class to focus on their studies.

No doubt, anyone else who can recall that day and their own experiences in the workplace can relate.

After school, the football team practiced, half-heartedly going the motions in preparation for Friday nights game at Fitchburg.

Suddenly, everyone on the practice field froze in place and looked skyward as a medical helicopter from UMass Memorial zipped above toward its customary landing spot on the field at nearby Mount Wachusett Community College.

All air travel had been grounded that day, and the appearance of the emergency Medivac caused an unexplained panic among everyone on the ground.

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Upon arriving home that evening, I had the urge to just burrow into my living room chair and gather the family around me to take in the full scope of what happened that day.

However, we had dropped our son, Casey, off at Providence College just prior to Labor Day, and having that void in the family felt like an empty hole to me.

Then I realized the empty holes that many other families were experiencing that night, having lost one or more of their own members to the terrorist attack.

We kept vigil by our television, so reminiscent of the bleak weekend back in November of 1963 when our country experienced all of the details of the Kennedy assassination on our black and white sets.

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A few days later, Gardner would make the national news.

The Federal Aviation Administration indicated that the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 out of Logan Airport had gained control of the flight over Gardners airspace.

American Airlines Flight 11 had left Logan Airport in Boston and was en route to Los Angeles, the Associated Press dispatch reported. According to the controller, it was first noticed that Flight 11 was having difficulties when its transponder suddenly shut off while in the Gardner area.

As the weeks progressed and a nation tried to heal, students of Gardner High did their own small part to help the families whose lives were so devastated that day.

For several Saturdays through the months of October and November, students organized and volunteered for a program they called De-leaf for Relief.

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Residents of Gardner who wanted students to assist with raking the leaves in their yard paid a pre-arranged fee to have the job completed; the money going to a New York City relief fund.

Later that fall, a busload of those same students took the trip to New York City to deliver a large donation from their efforts. It was a unique kindness that was typical of students at Gardner High in that era helping them heal, as the nation tried to heal as well.

Eventually, the world would get back to normal; a new normal.

However, on that crisp and sunny September day 20 years ago, life as we knew it and the innocence we also once knew was robbed from a generation.

Comments and suggestions for The Gardner Scene can be sent to Mike Richard at mikerichard0725@gmail.com or in writing to Mike Richard, 92 Boardley Road, Sandwich, MA 02563.

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'All of a sudden, the room echoed a collective gasp': Former teacher looks back on 9/11 - The Gardner News