I remember that day, Sept 11th, 2001

[TayTay]

I was at work. We heard that a plane had hit the WTC andat first thought it was a little plane that had just gotten lost or something. Then I remember going to the wire services and seeing the confusion cuz nobody knew. Then the second plane hit and we all knew.

It was tough that day. We couldn't go home, we have to process the news, never more than on that day. In the days that followed, occasionally someone would see a plane manifest or something come up on the news wires and would recognize a name, which is a damned cold way to find out about a death. (Stop, breath, excuse yourself for a second. Go back to work.) So-and-so from Lowell was on that plane. The new 24 yaar old teacher in my town lost her husband on that plane. (She was 8 weeks pregnant. She lost the baby too.) My brother's friends died in the planes, he knew others who died in the Towers. (New York lost the most people that day. New Jersey lost the second most. Massachusetts lost the 3rd most, around 200 human souls. We all knew someone.)

I spent the morning in nervous anxiety. My brother took flight 11 (The one for San Francisco, I think it was 11) every other week. It was not his week. I didn't know that for a few hours.

Change the date: Library Hill, Nashua, NH. 11/3/04. We are holding signs for Kerry on election day. One of the people who is also holding a sign was an air-traffic controller at the nearby center. He hadn't been back to work since 'that day.' He couldn't do it. He watched those planes go off course. He frantically tried to do everything he could. He lost 'em. He lost 'em both. He spent so many days crying about 'em. He spent a lot of time trying to find out why those planes could be 'lost.' I can't think of Sept 11th now without thinking about 11/204 and Library Hill and the guy who told us about his job, his sorrow, the stop-and-start effort to go on with his life and hopes for the future. I dearly pray the hope is still there somewhere and may God be with him.

[kerrygoddess]

1. I remember too

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the day, tay Tay. I actually just posted mine on the Dem Daily - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=4148

[beachmom]

2. My Mom had a flight scheduled for September 11th

We got up that morning, had breakfast, loaded my baby (she's 5 years old now) in the car, and drove off headed for the airport. Normally, I listen to CDs, but for some odd reason I put on the radio to a rock station. They were still playing music, but more reflective kinds of music, and then the DJ came on and said a plane hit on of the WTC towers. I thought the same as you, Tay -- a SMALL little plane that got lost. Then everything seemed to happen very fast -- reports of the other tower being hit, the Pentagon on fire (even a report of the West Wing on fire, but that obviously was false), the announcement that both towers were "gone", and a plane crash in Pennsylvania. It was frightening to be hit in so many places all at once.

Denial is a funny thing. My Mom and I proceeded to the airport to find out how long the delay would be -- a couple of hours? We got there, and the place was pretty empty, and the guy said at least two days. We decided to go to the grocery store. We came back to my house, and watched TV all day. I still will never forget Dan Rather comforting another reporter who was on the scene when the tower started to collapse and the fear she felt. Say what you want about Dan Rather, he was very good that day. We watched President Bush's very weak performance on 9/11, and thought, "Oh my God, what are we going to do with HIM as president?". My Mom noted that he changed ties between two appearances -- her theory? He threw up on the first one. Later, Guiliani came on, and comforted us and reassured us -- say what you want about him, I will always thank him for his words, confidence, and courage that day to make up for Bush's lack of any of these qualities. We needed it. My husband came home ANGRY -- those f***ing terrorists. His company had sent everyone home at about 11 AM.

My Mom started looking into how she was going to get home, and then her airline went bankrupt, so she eventually found an Amtrak ticket, and left on Friday. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law who had a plane ticket for 9/12/01, rebooked and came exactly one week after 9/11. She was flying from Germany, and simply was not going to let the terrorists scare her away from meeting her first grandchild. Europeans don't seem to be as terrorized as us, probably because they have had to live with terrorism a lot longer than we have.

A few weeks later, I found out, unbeknownst to my immediate family, that my 2nd cousin who I hadn't seen since my Uncle's funeral, had been working in the World Trade Center and had sprinted out of the tower just in time before it collapsed.

I think the reason for the solemnity of John Kerry's defeat on November 3, 2004 was not just a "political defeat". It was BECAUSE of 9/11, that people felt his loss was a catastrophe to the national security of this nation. I continue to think that to this day.

[TayTay]

10. I have mixed feelings about Guiliani, but I thank him for this

The guilt around here was terrible. As the Los Angeles Times reported, it felt funny to even mourn in Bosotn for our dead after the attacks. Those planes came from Logan Airport, from Boston. I will never, to my dying day, remember how shameful that felt, how utterly and completely awful to know that two of those planes left here.

Hizzoner, the Mayor of New York asked us to stop feeling so guilty about it, more than a year after 9/11

GIULIANI PLAYS FAIR
Boston Globe, THIRD, Sec. Metro/Region, p B1 10-08-2002
By BY BRIAN MCGRORY



Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called last night with a long overdue message for all of Boston: There is no reason for this city to feel even a speck of guilt about its role in the Sept. 11 attack.

To be fair, I raised the issue, not him. He was pitching his book, "Leadership," and his favored candidate, Mitt Romney, prior to his publicity and campaign trip to Boston this morning.

But from this vantage, ours has been a city plagued by guilt since the hours after the attack. Maybe it's the Irish-Catholic heritage or maybe it's something else, but while the rest of the nation mourned the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, Bostonians were busy assessing - and accepting - blame. It is, Giuliani said with an uncharacteristic softness, a needless exercise of self-flagellation.

"The thing I've learned going through the horrible crash, and the days after that, and the other plane crashes I've dealt with along the way, is that when a horrific incident occurs, there's almost a natural response for people to assume guilt, and then there's finger-pointing, and a lot of it is unhealthy.

"The responsibility for this is on the terrorists who planned it and carried it out," he said. "There's no one who should feel guilty but them, because for anyone else to feel guilty, it takes the responsibility away from them."

But what of Logan Airport? Local pundits and talk show hosts spent an inordinate amount of ink and time excoriating the people who ran Massport. And unlike every other airport in the nation, officials here were publicly humiliated and fired. Our state and city leaders let perfectly decent underlings dangle in the political winds as they themselves ran for cover.

Foolishness, Giuliani declared on his cellphone in New York.

"The issue of airport security is a national issue. It's not much different in Boston than the airports in New York and the rest of the country. There is nothing about it that's unique to Boston. They were issues we had before Sept. 11, and hopefully we're addressing them now."

He added, "Those planes could have come out of anywhere and attacked any American city."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the unvarnished truth.

[babylonsister]

3. Goodwill totally squandered:

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/09/today.html

[beachmom]

5. His site has been very good today

He decided to drive Islamists CRAZY today with the Van Gogh film (for which the director was brutally murdered on 11/2/04), one of the Danish cartoons (for which extremists threatened death to the cartoonists), a Norwegian Muslim singer (who was threatened with death for dressing too "sexy"). Do you notice a pattern? They are haters and only know how to kill -- well, to hell with THEM I say. We have suffered losses from them, but IF WE STICK TO OUR IDEALS, we will prevail, there is no doubt in my mind.

We just need to survive until the idiot is out of office.

[Island Blue]

4. I remember what an absolutely perfect day it was.

Crisp, cool air. Blue sky with not a cloud to be seen.

My mom called me just after the first plane hit to asked me if I had heard. I hadn't so my boss and I went to the county's public relations office where there's a tv. The room was crowded with people just standing and watching in silence. I remember a guy from IT said, "there's no way the building will fall, they're built to withstand this kind of thing". I believed him A.) because I wanted to and B.) because he's a guy - guys know about this kind of thing. He was wrong.

Just as we got back to our office, we heard the news that the second tower had been hit and shortly after that, the Pentagon. Although I'm five hours from the Pentagon, it was close enough to make me think that Norfolk might be attacked next, and that would be hitting much closer to home.

I remember being worried about my brother who flys almost every day. Soon we heard that he was fine, and had managed to secure the last rental car to be found in San Fransisco. He drove home to his family in Kentucky without stopping.

That night I prayed, something that I don't often do. It was a simple prayer, "God grant President Bush and our leaders the wisdom and the courage to do the right thing." Not all prayers are answered.

It's strange but I don't think I really ever cried properly for our nation and for the victims of 9/11 until after Katrina. The tears that I shed after that were the result of (at the time) four years of frustration, disappointment and most of all intense anger.

[babylonsister]

6. I was out of the country.

We had just started another vacation in Bali and, after a long flight, had gone to bed early. At 10:30pm over there (the 12th of Sept) our dear friend who works at the airport called and told us to turn on the TV. He told us what happened and we thought he was kidding. He said his last flight to Guam was ordered to return to Bali and he had work to do. All we could get on the tube was CNN financial channel, but they were covering it. For most of the rest of that night we watched on this little tube with our mouths hanging open.
The next day and for the following week we were across the street. There's a sports bar there with numerous TVs. The bar/restaurant was open 24/7 and aired only news channels including CNN and BBC. And the place was packed with all different nationalities of people. Everyone came together and that was lovely in a very bittersweet way.
I remember at one point I HAD to leave and ran out blubbering. Very overwhelming to see my country being attacked and to be so far removed from it, though there's obviously nothing I could do. I'm from NY originally and my dad lives there in summer, as do friends, but out on LI so I wasn't unduly worried about anyone. Trying to e-mail anyone was another story. The lines were jammed and the service was hit and miss at best. All I really wanted to do was connect with home.
We had to get tickets off-line to get there because flights were packed. We got a seat in first-class coming home, on CO (husband works for them), in a nearly empty plane.
Then I got home and cried for two more weeks watching the coverage.
I am glad this anniversary is almost over, and cannot imagine anyone having to fudge the facts of a movie when the truth was so compelling.

[ProSense]

7. Missed

mom by a day! She visited often when she lived in New York and made her way home via a Path train connection to the subway below the WTC. Actually, it was a day and about 90 minutes, as she typically made it home between 8 and 8:30. There are a lot more surreal stories. It was a day of near misses and overwhelming tragedy!

[globalvillage]

8. I flew out of Logan on the 10th.

to Denver via DC for a meeting. We were working on a big project, and many of my coworkers were planning to fly out on the 11th. Some were already at Logan when it happened.
On the morning of the 11th, I remember waking up in my hotel room to see the plane hit the first tower. When I'm out of town, I often sleep with the TV on, and there it was.
I went to my meeting. Everyone did, no one wanted to be alone in a hotel room, and we watched TV and tried to reach our families and our friends who were also traveling.
I was stuck in Denver for days, and finally took the train home. It seemed to take forever, most of the people I was traveling with were in the same boat as I was, just trying to get back to our families.
Funny, the things you remember and those that you don't. I recall a woman in K-Mart, shopping for something clean to wear and talking on her cell phone. She was stuck, too, and unable to get home. I remember how nice the rental car and the hotel people were, even though they were overworked and just as frightened as everyone else. I remember that our train hit a truck at a crossing just outside of Omaha, and we all wondered if it was an attack. And I remember being afraid then. But now, I'm not afraid, I'm angry. And every time I see bush* on TV today, I just get angrier. These people have spent the entire day and the past five years capitalizing on this tragedy, and the more of it I see, the more furious I am.
It's just insane that they're all using their failure to advance their policies. Anyone who still believes the BS they're ladling out today is just beyond hope.

[rox63]

9. I'll never forget where I was and how I felt that day

I was at work, and we had already gotten a couple of calls from customers in NYC whose systems had gone down. Then I got a frantic email from a friend who had recently taken a transfer from his employer to work in Amsterdam for a year. It just said "What the hell is going on in NYC? I can't get to the BBC, or CNN, or any other major news site." I also tried to reach those sites, but couldn't connect. I finally connected to the web site of a Boston tv station, where I saw the news that an airplane had hit the WTC. I don't recall whether the 2nd plane had hit the other tower yet. It probably had, but the web site hadn't been updated with that news yet. Before long, I found out about the 2nd plane, and a bit later, the other 2 planes. I remember feeling dazed and horrified, and still having to function, because we kept getting call after call from our customers. But now they all wanted to know how to adjust their systems so that they (mostly bill collectors and telemarketing companies) wouldn't inadvertantly call the NYC and DC areas. They knew it would make them look really bad to call people in that area trying to get money from them.

Around noontime, the CEO of the company sent out an email, saying that all our employees were confirmed safe and accounted for, and that we could go home for the rest of the day. Our offices in other parts of the world would cover for the American employees. I went home, and was practically glued to the tv for the rest of the day, and late into the night.

I didn't personally know anyone who was killed on that day. But friends of mine did. I did what I could to comfort them over the phone, and the next time I saw them.

And so began our long national nightmare. I wish I could wake up. I wish we all could.

[fedupinBushcountry]

11. I was at work

and my work involves traveling all day and the only thing I had was the car radio. I first heard that the two planes had hit the WTC and then it came on that the Pentagon was hit. The first thought that came to my mind was that we were being attacked but I had no idea by who, and I just wanted to go home and see for myself, listening and seeing it is 2 different things. The second thing I thought of was where are they going to attack next, living in a military community I did not rule it out.

I got home in the afternoon and my kids and husband were all home and glued to the TV, I don't even remember cooking or eating that day. The last time I remember being so glued to a TV was when President Kennedy was killed. I remember every place I went the grocery store, K-Mart, the mall, there was always a donation bucket and I put money in each and every one of them, it was all I could do. The memorial service in N.Y. that following Sunday was almost to much to bare, it was so so sad.

Then as weeks went by, I saw something happening right here in this red state that I live in. I saw people who if I didn't agree with everything the President said I was labeled a traitor, and this was before Iraq. I remember pacifically this one woman with a Love it or leave it T-shirt, I thought to myself I'm an American too, and I grieve for those who die, but I will not praise one man for politicizing such a tragic event.

The following March I think it was March, my middle son moved to NYC, and although I wasn't thrilled about it, I wasn't going to deny him to live out his dream and do what he wanted to with his life. While there, they had the lights representing the twin towers, it was surreal. I had to go to ground zero, I had to say a prayer for all those lost souls and it gave me a feeling of at least I did something. It was in no way the way it was on that September day, but to be right at the little church that survived made me think of that woman with that demeaning T-shirt, this is my country too and damn it no one person or political party is going to take that away.

P.S.
While I was trying to post this DU went down, but if anyone missed Keith Olbermann tonight he was awesome,he made me cry for his total honesty and truth. Thank you Keith, we need so many more true journalist like you.

[globalvillage]

13. Want to cry again?

Listen to this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2823189

[europegirl4jfk]

12. That was the day I started paying more attention to your country

I spent the afternoon (it was around 3pm here in Europe) in a pub at the harbor with some friends, as we always did and still do every Tuesday afternoon. The guy who runs the pub had the TV on and we saw live what happened in New York. We were totally under shock and I remember the young French pub owner in tears when the towers collapsed. When I came home this evening I started watching CNN and stopped never since. My English was very bad back then but I watched and watched everything they had on. I remember watching Larry King during these nights for the very first time in my life and I remember that Kerry was on too. I didn't know him then but I instantly thought that he was a nice and honest guy. I remember also that I saw Bush speaking and that I thought: OMG, this guy is the US president?! Unbelievable! I had have American online friends who had reacted with outrage to Bush's (s)election but I didn't really pay attention to American politics until after 9/11.

Well, what else can I say. My English got better by watching CNNi and reading a lot of stuff on the internet, I got to know your country better and when I joined my daughter for a few month in L.A. in 2004, I'd already made up my mind that John Kerry was a wonderful presidential candidate. I was as devastated as you all were when he lost the election, but then I found you great guys online and that helped a lot. It's sad to say that, but without 9/11 I wouldn't be here on DU today.

[TayTay]

14. Oh thank you for that.

I often wonder what the rest of the world thinks about us and how this country is being run and if they will ever trust us again. I think America used to be about optimism and helping people. That seems like a fuzzy vision of some other place all too often now.

It would be nice to actually have peole in Washington DC who have traveled abroad, who know a little bit about the world and who value the opinions of our neighbors on this planet. That just can't come soon enough for me.

[europegirl4jfk]

18. I can tell you what the people here think

75% of the people here in Europe hate Bush but that doesn't mean that they hate America. My friend Vreni still wants to live in your country one day and she hopes that the Bush regime will soon be history. When I tell people that I'll visit the US in October most of them envy me. The guy who fixed our air-condition the other day told me that the USA is still the country of his dreams and that he tries hard to learn English right now (and believe me for a French guy it's not that easy to learn English *g*). People still make the difference between the government and the people. A lot of French people feel with you because they also don't like Chirac and can't wait to get rid of him next year.

[TayTay]

20. Again, thank you for that.

Sometimes you don't see yourself clearly, you need to see yourself in someone else's mirror.

I think back to truly great things tht this country has done, like the Marshall Plan for Europe after WWII and want so much for America to be like that again. (We didn't kick the nations that had been our enemies in that war when they were down. We helped them to rebuild their countries and extended help in order to build friendships. I want that back and I want the country that did that back. Now.)

[karynnj]

15. My September 11 - far less dramatic than others

On September 11 th, the oldest and youngest of my two daughters woke up with Streph Throat symptoms. The middle daughter got ready for school at the private school she had just started the day before. The Freshman class, half from their middle school and half new, had had a two day retreat the week before. I left for a short car appointment. After about a half hour, the car was ready. Driving home, I heard the confused story of a plane hitting the first tower and very near my house, I heard about the second and knew it was not by chance.

I chose not to wake up the other girls and turned on the tv and heard about the other planes. I called my husband, who works in NJ in a town very near NYC with an excellent view of the city from one side of the building. I called him because I needed to talk to someone - and I bizzarely had to make sure he was in NJ, even though his company's NYC site is in Midtown (nowhere near the trade center) We talked and he told me they were closing early and would leave soon.

I then watched the TV in horror as the first tower collapsed. I had worked briefly in the late 70s in a small WTC building. What was odd was that I could see in my head completely clearly how it looked to come up from the PATH (the subway from NJ), and to walk through the lower level - usually stopping to get coffee and a danish or bagel and then go up our elevator. That mental picture of normality was in complete contrast to the destruction on TV.

I called my mom who had just heard from my VA (DC area) sister - her husband, who did work in DC was on a project in Eqypt (we never thought we would breathe a sigh of relief because he was in Eqypt, not DC). Within about an hour I heard from all 8 siblings by email or phone - all of us wanting to make sure where everyone was.

Driving the sick ones to the doctor, I could see smoke way in the distance on one road where we could normally see the towers. My middle daughter called when we were at the doctors - just to verify that everyone we knew was ok. She didn't want to be picked up yet. Her teacher had taken the class to the arboretum, named for the family of our Republican congressman which donated it. The 12 kids and the teacher simply sat under some pretty trees talking. Those that had cell phones, shared them. Many kids were in hysterics because parents worked in lower Manhattan. Later in the day, she called and asked to be picked up.

It was so strange driving in the area - it was one of the most beautiful days I've ever seen - that whole fall was spectacular. It was weird that everything looked exactly the same - calm and beautiful, but nothing was right. Our town lost 4 people and their were loses in all the neighboring towns. (The public schools in my town used the emergency weather phone chain to verify that someone was there for all the middle school and elementary school kids. They had opted not to let anyone hear anything had happened. They kept kids for whom no one could be reached until they were picked up.)

[whometense]

16. I feel kind of funny talking about it,

especially in the light of all the remembrances from people who lost everything. We were lucky.

Our older son had moved to New York for grad school about a week earlier. My story is the same as a lot of other peoples' - as I was pulling into the parking lot at work I heard the first news report on NPR about what they thought was a small plane hitting the tower, which seemed freakish and horrible enough in itself. By the time I'd walked the few blocks to my office the news was very different.

I don't remember a lot about that day except for the phone call I finally received from my son sometime around midday to let me know he was fine. The school had herded all the kids into an underground theater, and they were passing around the few cellphones available so everyone could call home. In my heart I knew there was little chance he would have been downtown - his school was on the upper west side, and musicians aren't known to be early risers - so I didn't realize until we hung up that I'd been holding my breath until I heard his voice. I managed to be calm on the phone with him, but when I called my husband right afterwards to tell him that he was okay I started sobbing. My own reaction shocked me at the time, but it makes a lot of sense to me now.

I remember leaving work and looking up at that blue, blue sky and half expecting something to fall from it.

I wonder if anyone else has had the same reaction - in some ways it feels like I've been holding my breath for five years. I have so, so little faith in the government to do what it takes to protect us as best they can. The cynicism of these people is stunning. And as someone who escaped that terrible day having suffered very little personal harm but who can still feel the aftershocks 5 years later, I stand in total awe of those who suffered the most and who have moved on so bravely with their lives.

[karynnj]

19. I think I have very similar feelings

Both the initial need to know that everyone important to me was safe - even when the likelihood was extremely remote that they could have been involved and a sense of fear that was incongruent with the pristine sunny world I was looking at.

We went into NYC about 3 or 4 weeks afterward because we had tickets to an off-broadway show in a theatre about 4 or 5 blocks north of the WTC. It seemed there were sirens and fast moving police cars every 10 or so minutes, each one creating a wave of fear. We have always stayed in NYC for 2 or 3 days over President's Day weekend. That year I considered not doing it - but saner minds (my husband's) prevailed. The terror warning was scary the first day, until my husband pointed out that throughout most of the city, the police did not act differently than they had in the past. It was easily a year after 911 before I was comfortable going into NYC and I am still tense going through the tunnels from NJ.

As to the burden of stress and fear, I realized I felt that most clearly on election day in 2004. I had gone into our County headquarters to help with GOTV. Late in the afternoon, we were hearing that not only was NJ solid but it looked like an impressive Kerry victory. The Republicans across the street had likely heard the same thing - there were very few people outside their headquarters and the 3 inside had very sober looks. There were easily over 100 people outside ours.

As there was nothing to do, many of us walked to the town's green a block away and held Kerry signs. The county seat is a Democratic island in a Republican county, so people were honking their horns and even rolling down windows and cheering. A wave of intense euphoria engulfed me and others - many of us saying it felt like we were breathing easily for the first time in years. Stress that had likely been so constant I didn't notice it rolled away. It also surprised me that the sigh of relief that we had survived to be led by a wise, trustworthy leader was if anything greater than the normal happiness of "our" side winning. But as we know, it was not to be.

[whometense]

21. Exactly.

I was thinking about what I'd written last night and realized that I'd left something out, though maybe it was implied. The incongruence you mentioned was very much a part of it. For the past five years I've had the pretty much constant sense that I can't afford to relax, to let my guard down. Against what, who knows? It makes no real sense. But I've had the feeling that I can't afford to stop paying attention for a second. That feeling lessened a great deal in 2004, when a Kerry presidency seemed a real possibility and I could focus that energy on helping to get him elected.

Since then, it's mostly gone back to a mild (non-debilitating) form of free-floating anxiety. I realized yesterday that I am absolutely more afraid of my own government than I am of any terorists. The terrorists exist, no doubt, and I also have no doubt that they wish us harm. But Bush has a negative effect on my life every day, in a thousand ways. I do truly believe that Bush and his cabal have made real what bin Laden only threatened to do.

We also went to NY in mid-October 2004 to visit our son. There was another terror alert while we were there. We were staying on the upper west side, but it was an amazing time to be in New York. People were witing patiently in line for security checks in practically every single building, but they were being so uncharacteristically gentle with each other. I found it very moving.

[WildEyedLiberal]

17. On 9/11/01 I was 16 and a junior in high school

It was my school's Homecoming week and I was on the homecoming parade committee, so I was manning a booth in the main hallway of the high school registering students for the car parade. One of my friends walked past and called out "hey, did you know a plane hit the World Trade Center?" He said it with kind of an incredulously amused tone of voice - he had assumed that the plane was a small single person aircraft and that the pilot was stupid or drunk or both. Kind of "Darwin Awards" scenario. This was just before 8am (I'm an hour behind the east coast). I took down the booth as class was getting ready to start and went into my biology teacher's room, which functioned as an informal gathering place for students before school started (our bio teacher was really cool). He had a TV in his room and CNN was on. It was there I learned that the plane hadn't been a small plane at all, but a big jetliner - then the second one hit and we knew something was horribly wrong.

I made my way to my first period class about 15 minutes late, but my Calculus teacher also had the TV on and we didn't bother with lessons that day. We watched as reports came in of a plane hitting the Pentagon, and a fourth crashing in Pennsylvania. So much in such a little time - I think that's when it really hit me that this would be one of the most historically significant days I'd ever live through. The first tower collapsed just as the bell rang to adjourn us for second period. No one went to class. My chemistry teacher tried to pretend nothing out of the ordinary was going on and held a quiz, but only three kids showed up. I wasn't one of them.

I remember almost every detail about that day but I don't remember who won our homecoming game that Friday.