Like today, 9/11/01 was a Tuesday. I remember this because I was working that morning, Assistant Manager at Sam Goody. I was initially focused on the new music releases that came out that day.

It often seems like 9/11/01 was just a few years ago. But when I think about the details, it gets in my head more about how 17 years have gone by. Most record stores are dead and new releases mainly come out on Friday now. I didn’t fully understand what happened for several hours until I got home and watched TV. It wasn’t like today, where most of us can immediately pull up video on our smartphones. Heck, I didn’t even have a cell phone.

Looking at footage of that day, the clothes people were wearing seem like such an old style. Clothes were baggier. Eyebrows were thinner and relatively few beards are seen.

I guess when something so altering happens, our perception of time can be skewed. We remember how we felt and what we were doing, so we feel like we are taken back to that day.

I think about the lives cut short and their terrifying last moments. I think of the kids who grew up with a parent gone. Most of them are adults today.

I get angry at the unnecessary wars fought in the name of security and my friend David Branning and those in other countries who are dead now because of that. David was 21 when he died in 2004. He’d be 35 today. I wonder how time perception is for the families of those affected by this. My heart goes out to all of them.