When we arrived, we were already having a great time. It was much different than when we were in Bloomington. Heck, they allowed vendors to sell beer right on the street corners and, believe me, we took advantage of that.

We met a black woman with a heavy African accent selling mahogany statues. When we asked her where she was from, she replied "South Bend, Indiana." On another occasion, an Atlanta man came up to us at our car asking to bum two bucks so he could "get a burger at Wendy's". We offered him a sandwich instead, but he declined, saying that he needed the money because he just loved those burgers so much. Sure, right.

We even had the opportunity to see a women's basketball game, Canada vs. Russia, on tickets given to us by a stranger. There were more players and coaches in the Georgia Dome than fans. It was awesome to be able to get a bucket full of scrap concessions and sneak down to front row, center court to obnoxiously root for Canada. Their point guard actually busted out into laughter as she took the ball up the floor because of our antics, which may or may not have been aided by alcohol.

However, at around 1:30am on July 27, that all changed. Randy and Pat (another friend of ours) decided a couple hours before to go into town while I hung out near the park. I can't remember what our agendas were, but, for whatever reason, I decided to stay put. We were planning on meeting up at the entrance to the park at 1:00 and I was miffed that they hadn't arrived yet. So, after pacing for about 20 minutes, I decided to plop my fat ass right there on the sidewalk at the park entrance.

There were still tons of people at the park and a rock band was cranking it out. Then, the atmosphere was shattered by a blast that actually picked my 230-lbs. frame completely off the concrete and set me back down hard. I immediately thought "transformer" since the music stopped at the same moment. But, after a few seconds which seemed like a few hours, a flood of people came running out of the park as fast as they could. It was like something out of a movie. I was troubled, but didn't know what to do. I stood up and watched the people go by. No one had any idea what it was and after almost five minutes, someone blew past me talking to a friend and said the word "bomb."

I thought about freaking out. I really didn't have any idea of what to do, where to go. Then, I thought about Randy and Pat and I began wondering where they might have been. Were they in the blast zone?

I panicked, but only for a few seconds, then I went on the hunt for my compadres. I started my way toward the interior of the park at first, but then I thought about the fact that I really didn't feel like seeing anything graphic, so I backed off. I never did see blood or anything; I was too far away from that. But, I was plenty close enough to be scared.

I moved on toward the phone bank. It was a large set of pay phones set up at the end of a large carnival set up by Coca-Cola. I didn't see them. I then started to just meander a bit, take in the chaos. Fifty, seventy, one hundred squad cars. I've never seen that many before. The most amazing cascade of red-upon-white-upon-blue shimmered across the side of Peachtree Plaza. I just stared. I couldn't take my eyes off of everything along Techwood Drive. The constant blast of sirens going between their regular and intermittent pulses echoed throughout the Atlanta canyon.

I looked at the people. Crying, wandering painfully around. Calling for their friends, their families. Searching their rendezvous points for the missing members of their groups. Doing what I should be doing. Yes, what I should be doing! I began the fast-paced walk toward the car, something that I had practiced so many times in the past on my way to Ballantine Hall from Briscoe Quad. I got confused a bit on my way through the carnival, which seemed to still be going on, but no one was operating anything. I was as if the Midway at the 4-H fair had been switched on and everyone went to lunch. I finally got out of that rat race and paced myself well as I headed toward our parking spot.

By now, I was getting close to the car. We actually had a damn good parking spot considering about half of America was in Atlanta. We had taken the shuttle buses the day before, but it took forever, so we decided to brave it and drive into downtown. I think they scared everyone away by telling them that it would be crowded, but I believe we only paid $10 to park within a couple blocks of the park area.

The slate color splashed across the northside of town would have been black if the Olympics weren't in session. I reached the lot and found the car. Randy and Pat weren't there. At that point, I really started to panic. I stood there for only a couple minutes, pacing around the car the whole time. With my hands in my pockets, I started back to the park. Maybe I'll find them there. I'm sure their fine. Randy probably took it all in to write something later.

"Drew!"

I looked up. Randy and Pat were walking toward me, toward the car. I immediately fall to one knee and began sobbing uncontrollably. I didn't know what else to do. Randy and Pat both began to pat me on the back; they didn't know what else to do. I had never cried in front of any of my friends before. I felt embarrassed, but I felt more relieved than I felt embarrassed, so it felt right.

After I cleaned up my face and we shared a smile, we walked back to the phone bank. We tried to joke around a bit with each other to take our minds off of the immediate past as we walked. I found out that they were near the edge of the other side of park from where I was when the bomb went off. There was a video broadcasted over CNN several times an hour in the coming weeks that showed the blast; I believe this was the same vantage point that they had.

At 2:30 or so, I called my Mom in Missouri first and she had no idea what was going on as she was asleep. She was borderline hysterical after I told her what happened and she flipped on the TV, but I was able to get her calm before we hung up. My Dad, however, on my second call, was worried as he stayed up watching the coverage. He was heavily relieved on hearing my voice and could hear him sigh several times during our call. After hanging up, I sighed myself, smiled that I was alive, mentally brushed myself off and decided to stay the course.

"What now?"

After a long pause, Randy responded to Pat: "Well, I'm game for staying if they don't cancel the Games. Drew?"

"Oh, hell no. We're not leaving. We're here for the long haul."

We all smiled again, high-fived each other and went back to the car. Around 4:00, we got back to Pat's aunt's house in the northern suburbs where we had been staying.

Remembering like it was yesterday has been a bit hard for me, but I appreciated the experience. Being part of history helped me to put into perspective so many aspects of my life, from my job as a history teacher to my spirit. A couple weeks later, I was able to share my experience with the 7th grade class that I started student teaching for. They were more interested in hearing about how we saw the "Dream Team" with Michael Jordan win the gold medal than anything else, which one would expect from seventh graders. Randy continued to work on various political campaigns and Pat continued work on computer programming at IU. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this was really our last time together as college students, the last time to be part of the surreal world. But, believe me, despite the tragedy, we can truly say that our four years after high school finished with a bang.