In a recent comment to the “But April 19” re-post, CP links us to this Ze Frank vidcast. A view asked Brooklyn-based Ze where he was on 9/11, and Ze tells it all.

I was just a few miles away from the Murrah building the morning of April 19, and that next year I moved to Boston to go to seminary. It seems that everyone, when the subject of my being from OKC came up, asked me, “where you there?” or, worse, “what was it like?”

I went to the church across the street from the Murrah building. A good friend who worked in an office across the street lived because he was running late to work that day. In the days that followed, my girlfriend (now my wife) worked with visiting New York Times reporters and picked up PTSD from being downtown so much.

I didn’t really feel like answering.

After a while, when folks would ask where I was from, I would say, “From Oklahoma City…and, yeah, I was there.” I didn’t have a pastoral-care tone to my voice. But at least they didn’t ask then.

Voyeurs, the lot of them. Maybe it was the Yankee fascination with anything west of the Hudson River—ooh, he’s an exotic! But most people in Boston aren’t from Boston, so I can’t let them off for that.

As Ze notes, the correct response is “I’m sorry.” Not “what was it like?”

Looking back now, I can say this to the 9/11 survivors of the world: Sometime around the five year anniversary, people quit asking me. Maybe it was old news. Maybe it had just found a fixed place in their minds where it could settle down. I don’t know.

But to those of you who were there on 9/11 I can say this: If you’re experience is anything like mine, now people will quit asking you impertinent questions about it. It’s not much, but it’s something to look forward to.