On September 11, 2001, I was sitting in first grade in a classroom in New Jersey. I live right near the bay and can see the New York City skyline when I go to the beach. I remember sitting, listening to a story our teacher was reading, when other students started getting called down to the office for dismissal one after an another. I was racking my brain, trying to remember if it was a special holiday or something, when all of a sudden, my name was called. My brother and I left school and kept asking my mom why we were leaving early as we got in the car, but she wouldn’t tell us. We drove across town to get my little brother from preschool, and as soon as my mom left the car for a minute, my other brother and I turned on the radio. I remember hearing “a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center” on 95.5 FM, but neither me or my brother understood what that meant (we had only known them as “The Twin Towers”) until we got home and our mom turned on the news. A lot of people went to the beach to see the smoke rising from the city across the bay, but my mom wouldn’t let us. It was definitely one of the scariest days in my life.