On September 11, 2001, after the first tower fell, it was time to go home. I watched it live from the trading room television at GM, and we were all kind of dumbstruck until then. I don't remember standing there for as long as I did, but I remember watching the smoke clear and realizing the building wasn't there anymore.
Time to go home.
I had only been in my apartment for a little over two months. Many of my friends were still up at Fordham, and there wasn't really any getting up there. The subway and Metro North was shut down. So, when I arrived, there wasn't much to do but watch... and when I turned on the television, there was Peter Jennings.
He came on and he stayed on.
I distinctly remember IMing with Brian saying how unbelievable it was how much time he was on the air. It just seemed like anytime you turned the television on, there was Peter Jennings. Amazing. Comforting. I watched. I checked the internet every now and then, but for the most part, I was watching TV. I needed to see it and I needed to hear someone talking to me... and not just some talking head. This was someone we all knew.
The disaggregation of media and television probably means that there will never be another bigtime network news anchor. Brian Williams? Charles Gibson? Not quite so much. Good, but not great. I'm glad, though, that for what I hope to be the most dramatic and tragic moment in my life, I had one of these guys to sit down to and watch.