I’m sure that when many of you awoke this morning, today felt a little bit different than yesterday. Today marked the one year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks…September 11th, the day that will never be forgotten. Or will it? I had to attend work this morning at 8am at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. Though I would have much rather been gathered outside of UC, with my fellow peers around the bell tower, I had already planned to remember and take a moment of silence at 8:46am where I was. I closed my little store a moment before and glanced outside at all of the adults getting ready to board the train. I took my moment of silence and asked God to be with the families of the victims and all those whose lives had changed because of that day. When a opened my store a moment later, nothing had changed…the only concern that the people on the train now had was if they had film in their camera or whether they would get cold from riding on the open air cars. It just amazed me how these people, these adults, these americans didn’t even bother or seem to care what the date was or take one minute to remember a day that caused the whole world to change. My frustration then dissipated into pride as I checked the WCU webpage and saw so many students gathered around the bell tower. It’s truly something when the people whom we are supposed to look up to are shown up by some 21 year old student, who seems to take more pride in their country than they do. So I would like to say thank you to all of my fellow peers, staff and faculty who took the time to let the world be silent for just one minute, in rememberance of a day one year ago that changed the lives of so many…
S. Leigh Bartles
