The twin towers of the World Trade Center burn behind the Empire State Building in New York, Sept. 11, 2001. In a horrific sequence of destruction, terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center causing the twin 110-story towers to collapse. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)

Where were you, and what were you doing, when you first heard what was happening?

Any American older than 35 – perhaps even older than 30 – who cannot respond instantly, and precisely, when that question is posed in the context of “8:46 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001,” needs to think a little harder about what was going on outside their own little universe at that moment – and in the many moments that followed.

Obviously, it goes without saying that those first horrific, hard-to-believe, confusing and frightening moments of America’s second “day that will live in infamy” were destined to become another of those “where were you when … ” events.

It doesn’t take a consult with one’s shrink to understand why such momentous events – the majority of them terrible, or at least unfortunate – automatically imbed themselves in our memory banks in remarkable detail.

And, forever.

As a baby boomer, my first “where were you when” experience happened on an otherwise typical early Friday afternoon in Miss (Martha) Moriarty’s classroom on the second floor of the pre-renovations Mount Pleasant Elementary School.

I was 9 and one of Miss Moriarty’s more, shall we say, active and sociable fourth-graders. As the minutes ticked away toward dismissal and the weekend, a buzzing sound came from the classroom “telephone,” that square, two-piece device in the middle of the blackboard that never worked right anyway.

Naturally, it being Friday, we were almost certainly rambunctious and noisy, and Miss Moriarty couldn’t hear what the caller was saying.

She gave up, and with a futile request that we “please behave,” went down the hall to the office to see what the failed call was about.

Miss Moriarty later told us she stood outside the door for a few minutes, wringing her hands and trying to come up with the best way to break it to us that our president had just been shot and killed in Texas.

The room went silent. I mean, pin-drop silent, until a couple of soft sobs broke the quiet, starting with Miss Moriarty. Dabbing her eyes with tissues, she managed to tell us that school was being dismissed early, so gather your books, go get your hats and coats and get in line.

My next major “where were you when” moment came a little more than 22 years later. I had stopped into Cameraland, the former photography and photo-finishing shop on Main Street, probably to hassle Brian Lawrence, owner Fred Lawrence’s son, about why my order of photo supplies – including, yes, film – hadn’t come in yet.

The phone rang, Brian answered, hung up 15 seconds later and went over to the closest TV and turned it on.

“My wife said the Challenger exploded,” Brian said as the TV lit up. I recall being in disbelief, quite sure that while something may have gone awry with the Challenger launch, surely it didn’t “explode.”

On the TV screen by then were images of the Challenger rocketing skyward, leaving the trail all rockets leave when they blast off.

A moment of relief quickly became many moments of horror as we suddenly realized we were watching a replay of the launch. Our worst fears were confirmed.

The Challenger mission was a special one for us Granite Staters. Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher from Concord, was aboard, making her hometown and state proud as “the first teacher in space.”

Once again, as editors have been telling reporters since newspapers were printed one at a time on flat surfaces in a corner of local bookstores: “All news is local.”

That longstanding news-business credo played out again on Sept. 11, 2001, a Tuesday that dawned bright and crisp in this neck of the woods, as it also did, I’d soon find out, in New York City.

I was already awake when the clock-radio set to WBZ clicked on. In the midst of finding the clothes I’d wear that day, I heard something on the radio about a plane having crashed into the World Trade Center.

At first, like most everyone else, I envisioned a small aircraft, perhaps a privately owned 2- or 4-seater, or a slightly larger corporate jet, whose pilot tragically lost control, perhaps due to a malfunction of some type.

As I found the clicker and turned on the TV, the phone rang. “Turn on your TV right now,” the caller, then-Telegraph staff photographer Don Himsel, said firmly.

“Oh man, that’s not from a small plane,” I said out loud upon getting my first glimpses of the huge hole in the Manhattan skyscraper spewing flames and billowing smoke.

Despite staring at the obvious catastrophic damage on the TV screen, and hearing from dueling TV and radio announcers that the crashed plane was believed to be a commercial airliner that may have taken off from Boston’s Logan Airport, words like “intentional,” “terrorist” and “hijack” never crossed my mind.

Within minutes all cable and network stations were carrying live feeds from wherever their reporters and videographers happened to be. This being New York, many news folks needed only to step out of their station’s headquarters to watch the horrorific scene unfold in real time.

Back in Nashua, I stood maybe three feet from my boxy, pre-HD TV, shoes in hand, staring at something I thought I’d never see outside of a Hollywood production suite.

After a few minutes – I would later learn it was exactly 17 minutes – I figured I’d better slide into those shoes, grab my stuff and head to the office, but I’d call the boss first.

I was in the midst of dialing (or more accurately, tapping buttons on the cordless phone), when I next glanced at the TV.

“What the heck is … is that a plane?”

I distinctly recall watching the object, which was, indeed, a commercial airliner, seemingly floating in slow-motion toward the second tower.

The plane disappeared behind the tower. One or two seconds later, a giant, bright-orange ball of fire burst forth from near the middle of the second tower.

I stood, stunned, until I heard a breathless voice from either the TV or radio: “The second tower has just been hit! Both towers are now on fire … .”

I jumped in the car and headed for the office.

Clearly still in disbelief over the sheer magnitude of what we soon learned were attacks upon our country by terrorists from a half a world away, my colleagues and I forged on, gathering in the conference room to sketch out our game plan for the day, the evening, the next day, and so on.

Because we knew, even before we confirmed it, that all news is local.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.