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Dear readers, its due time that I confess something to you all. I used to be a fan of rap music. Yes, I know the questions will soon start pouring in: "How stupid were you, DeCruz?" or "Now I know why you turned out that way" All well deserved quips, and I suspect that I shall hear them for the rest of my life. Somewhere around my middle school years, I had judged from the progress my friends were making that in order to be "cool" one had to listen to rap music. This notion continued well into my sophomore year of high school which is where my story really begins. See, my story is about my  attitudes before and after a life changing event. I had a habit back then of turning on my tiny clock radio before I went to sleep so I could wake up with Jammin 95.5's "Playhouse" program early in the morning. So, fatefully, on the night of September 10th, I went to sleep listening to Slow Jams. Now I'm not sure about this but I think I can, based on previous evidence, claim that they probably played LL Cool J that night. They always do. I went to sleep peacefully that night, fully expecting to wake up to the usual tomfoolery on morning radio. They would probably do a few prank calls on people, perform stupid stunts with their fat chum "Scooter", and finish it off with some good hip hop.

As I awoke on the morning of September 11th, 2001, I had only one question after I had fully woken up: "What happened to the obnoxious banter?" Actually, to be completely honest, I didn't say that. I think I managed to squeak out a groggy "Wha--?" Instead of Scooter being strapped to the top of a truck which would go at high speeds along Portland city streets, I heard him speaking softly. Everyone else was also strangely quiet. Recollecting now, it's hard to remember a full sentence. I remember words like "planes" or "terrorists". I remember hearing sentences that seemed to have question marks floating in the air. I arose, still in shorts, and ran to the television room. "Mummy! Did you he-" My question was answered for me by the pictures of the two towers in flames. I stood there in utter disbelief as I watched the events unfold on live television. With shame, I remember my first thought when I saw the World Trade Center under attack: "Man, imagine the movie they're gonna make about this." For the first time in my life, I saw that the world had been equaled in it's helplessness and fearfulness. The wealth, security, and status that had separated one person from another had been destroyed by passenger jets turned into missiles. I got ready and headed out to school. I had never seen my high school like this. Wild rumors and theories were flying around everywhere about a plane headed towards Oregon. In another example of me using the worst possible humor at the worst times, I quipped, "What are they gonna hit? The fairgrounds? Most Americans don't even know that Oregon is a state in the Union."

Once everyone in the classroom had finished giving me dirty looks, our eyes were focused once more on the sight before us. A teacher stated the obvious: "Like it or not, you guys are witnessing history." I sat back and thought about listening to Slow Jams the night before; the spoken word of  LL Cool J and the croonings of 112 were all trivial compared to this. Thousands of people had lost their lives in an instant and absolutely nothing else seemed to matter. This was my generation moment. The "where were you when this happened?" moment. The rest of that week is a blur now: a lot of hype, a lot of American flags being waved, my Iraqi friend coming to my house because his parents wouldn't let him go to school since being Middle Eastern and living in America wasn't exactly the best combination at that point. "It's the Sunnis man, I swear it, it's those Sunnis-- they always do stuff like this." I said nothing and simply listened. The world would never be the same for my Iraqi friend and I.

That night, before I went to sleep, I went turned to my clock radio to turn my volume up like I always did. I stopped and listened closely: there were no Slow Jams, just more talking. I turned off the clock radio and laid back, still wide awake and staring into the darkness. I had heard enough banter for one day.