For people of my generation (Baby Boomers) it is probably the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I was in the fourth grade, and he was the first president I was really aware of, so it makes sense that it would make a deep impression on me, and others of my age group. For my parents generation, I suppose it might be the end of World War II, or the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
I am wondering, for those too young to remember JFK, what momentous event holds a comparable place in your memory?
TT
“Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it.” --Andre Gide
Well,I was 5 when jfk got it. I do remember Dec.80 sitting on the couch eating spaghetti,my dad was watching football.Howard Cosell interrupted to say John Lennon was shot. Also,I was sitting at a computer at noon on April 12,1989 when I heard the worst news of all…dear Abbie…
I was in a computer data processing class (glorified typing, actually) my senior year of high school when the Challenger explosion was announced over the intercom.
At first we thought it was a prank (1st stage = denial).
At my age (50) I remember the date November 22, 1963, very well.
I was a high-school freshman at Lawndale High, in Lawndale, CA. The science teacher had just showed us what happens when you touch a flame to a strip of magnesium–it burns with a bright white flame (used in flashbulbs). He went in the back room for something…then he came back out and told us the President had just been shot. During lunch period, shortly after this, there was a public announcement on the school’s PA system; I saw some girls crying.
Ever since then I remember that day every time I see magnesium burn or read about the metal’s chemical reactions.
For me, it would have to be the mass shooting that occurred in Montreal in December 1989, when a madman burst into the Polytechnique screaming he hated feminists, separated men from women, and shot and killed 14 women.
I simply did NOT want to go back to school the following morning.
I was in a bar in Tilburg when The Netherlands won the 1988 European Soccer Chamionship.
Everyone went apeshit.
I’m sorry if it isn’t a ‘serious’ memory, but it sure made a BIG impression. Socialogists have labeled that event something like “the largest mass effective event to the Dutch since the liberation after WWII”. 'Nuff said ?
Yeah I remember where I was when I heard about Diana - but not for the reason you might think.
I was at a cook-out at some friends’ house. They happen to be black. I was one of the few white people there. My one friend’s aunt was in another room watching football when she saw a news bulletin about Diana being in the accident (this was before she was known to have died). The aunt called out to the rest of us “Princess Di was in an accident”. And my friend went “Prince has died in an accident?” (Prince, as in “The Artist”.) And everyone started getting upset, until we got clarification, and then it was like “Oh, Princess DI.” and we all went back to our BBQ. No big deal.
I think of this often as a reminder of how the dominant culture is not necessarily everyone’s culture.
Sad to say, but I really can’t remember where I was on most of these so called momentous events. I think I was skipping school the day of the Challenger explosion, and I was at home in my living room when I heard Diana was dead. I thought, “Oh wow,” and then went on with my life. I have yet to experience any real emotion over events such as these.
Hey, Wireless: Here’s an example of purely offensive chutzpah–and from someone I knew who is black, not Jewish.
I used to work as a guard in a county school building in Downey, CA. One woman there is probably the most arrogant employee I have ever met (Arrogant employees–that sounds like an interesting thread!!)
Anyway, I found out that another employee told the arrogant woman that Nixon had just died. (This other employee is a union steward and likely detests everything Nixon stood for, but hey, he was a President!)
She told me the arrogant woman said, “Well, he was your president!”
Good Lord! Don’t you have an ounce of compassion in your system?
Michelle, I think that means you’re more sane than most. You save the emotions for the people you care about, rather than for the people you don’t know, who just happen to be famous.
That having been said, I feel more emotional when bad things happen to normal people. I was fine for Princess Di, JFK Jr., and the like. During the news coverage of Columbine, I wept like a baby.
Hell if I can remember where I was when I first heard about it, but I know I was glued to the TV for most of the next couple of days.
I was watching television and they interupted for a current news story. The German citizens were ripping down the Berlin Wall and the communists weren’t stopping it. It was the begining of the end of the USSR as a communist state. I watched all evening. The Cold War I grew up with was over.
The one news event I really do remember being personally impacted by and exactly where I was at the time was during the Chinese students’ uprising. When that guy stood in front of the tank in Tienanmen (sp?) Square, I was frozen on the sofa at my (then) boyfriend’s house. I remember both admiring him terribly for his bravery and fearing for him. (It was an ugly floral sofa, brown and orange - that’s how much detail I remember.)
I was in the sixth grade the day JFK was shot. They announced it over the PA during recess, and announced his death about an hour later. Remember the rest of that weekend fairly well.
I was at work at GE when the Challenger blew up; I remember watching it on TV.
I’m 25 and for me, that would be the Challenger explosion when I lived in Joisey. For some reason, we didn’t have school that day.
One thing that always intrigued me was how fast the Challenger jokes spread in those pre-Internet (as we know it) days. When I later lived in California, Hawaii, and Nebraska, everyone recalled hearing those jokes shortly after the explosion.
I was little when JFK was shot; we were loading onto school buses, but the buses weren’t starting. All the bus drivers and teachers started congregating and crying. They told us the President had been shot. I mainly remember the days of the funeral, and how scared I was because the grownups were so shaken.
And yeah, it really hit me, John John saluting his father’s casket. He was a little kid, too, and that seemed to make it more real for me.
The Challenger explosion: I’d just left from looking at the house we ended up buying, and the news came on the radio. I pulled to the curb to listen, numb with shock, and then noticed cars all along the street pulling aside, too.
Okay, I’m totally shallow. My much beloved pet died the day of Princess Diana’s funeral. I buried him in the yard, then spent the day in floods of tears, watching the funeral. Sad to say, I still associate the redone “candle in the wind” w/ the pain of missing my critter.
Veb
In college, all my buddies would meet at a common room with a bigscreen TV before reaching critical buddy-mass and moving on to the dining hall for lunch.
The day the Branch Davidian compound in Waco burned I walked in just as the first flames appeared on CNN. We watched the whole thing live.
What I recall being strange is that in this whole room of people glued to the television screen, not one of us sat down.
