I remember ...

It was Sept. 10, 2001. I was working at a newspaper in Florence, S.C., designing the next day's pages. I looked down, saw something interesting and looked up to the copy editor sitting in front of me.

"Do you know that tomorrow is nine-one-one? Wouldn't it be weird if something freaky was to happen."

More than anything else, I'll never forget saying that. It was a Monday, and that night I had to drive across town after the paper was done to proof it, then go home. I had just moved into a new condo and didn't yet have cable. I stayed up goofing off, which is custom for me after I get off from work, and didn't go to bed until late.

At 9 a.m., my roommate started banging on my bedroom door to get me to wake up. I was still mostly asleep.

"I'm on the phone with mom ... they're attacking New York."

I was still somewhat asleep and not quite thinking straight yet.

"Who's attacking New York? What?"

"Something hit the World Trade Center. They think it might have been a plane."

Three minutes later at 9:03, the other plane hit the south tower. I didn't know that. I was in my truck, heading toward the newspaper. It was the only thing I could think of to do and I did it instinctively. We didn't have cable, so I had no idea what was going on ... all I knew was that something bad was happening in New York. Something very bad.

As I drove in my truck, I tried frantically to call my friend, Marci, who lived a couple of blocks away from the towers while attending NYU. The lines were jammed and I couldn't get in touch with her.

I was listening to the radio, trying to understand what was going on. A motorcycle cop pulled me over as I went to work for doing 40 in a 35. I was so shocked, I didn't say anything. I just took the ticket and raced to work.

Once I got there, I found out they had called my condo not long after I left wanting me to come in. They were doing an extra edition to hit the streets within the next couple of hours. It still hadn't really hit me what was going on. Then I went over to the crowd around the television to see what was going on.

That's when it hit me.

The towers were burning. Both of them. Each had a distinctive, gaping hole with smoke and fire billowing out. At that point, my mind switched into journalist mode, telling me "None of this is real, you have a job to do now. Worry about this once you're done." And I did my job.

Most people didn't get to see until much later what I saw that day. The Associated Press moved photos that we couldn't run in the paper. Horrible, disturbing pictures. People jumping out of the towers. People landing at the foot of the towers. People screaming, begging, praying for help they knew deep down inside wasn't going to come.

Then the south tower fell.

Again, the loss of life didn't hit me at that point. I was kind of numb to all of it in a way. I guess at the time it was a good thing, or there wouldn't have been any chance I could have done my job.

Then the north tower fell.

That one punched me in the gut. It was then that the first tiny thought of "How many people were still in there?" hit me. I swallowed and finished what I had to do.

That night, more horrible photos moved. So many that I had to ask the editor what we could and could not show. Most of them were struck down. Thousands upon thousands of photos were moved on the wire that day and the days following.

I finished up that night and went home. I finally found out that Marci was okay. Then it all just came down on me like a flood. I went home that night and wept. I wept thinking about all that had happened. I wept thinking about everthing I saw and hoped that no one would have to see. I saw what a group of people determined to do something could do.

A lot of younger people have said that this is our generation's Pearl Harbor. That's true to a point. People back then didn't see the attacks at Pearl Harbor live. There wasn't around-the-clock network coverage then. Pearl Harbor was horrible in its own right. Sept. 11 was horrible on such a broad scale.

So, when people ask what I was doing on Sept. 11, they get a condensed version, but the memory will be with me, etched into my mind.

I will always remember.