Chernobyl–Dnepropetrovsk, about 400 miles away.
Diana’s Crash–Watching TV in a Connecticut hotel.
9/11–4 blocks away from the WTC.
Columbia Shuttle Explosion–At home, asleep.
I first heard about 9/11 in my signals and systems engineering class. The professor was trying to get a radio broadcast and all we could hear was static. At first I assumed that we were going to learn about how radios work, but gradually it occurred to me that some big news event must have happened. Just then a fellow student walked in and told me. For some reason, his information was that both towers had “partially collapsed”. I pictured one side and part of the upper stories falling down while the other side stayed up. Then I saw the picture on TV.
I was coming back from a football game when I happened to walk through the dorm lounge and learned about the Columbia disaster.
Adding Jackie O’s death to the list - I was in a hotel room in Boston on my 8th grade class trip.
OJ’s verdict - In my 10th grade biology class. My teacher had a tv rolled into the room so we could watch.
9/11 - Getting ready for class in my dorm room. My suitemate came in to my room and told me to turn on the news. At that point only one plane had hit. Off to class I went, which was in the library building. I ran into one of my supervisors when I walked in the building (b/c I worked there) and she said “I heard that a plane crashed into the WTC?” and I told her yes. School was cancelled after that first class and the campus was absolutely mad for the rest of the day.
I remember sitting on my grandma’s living room floor watching CNN when the plane crashed in Lockerbie and then during the Tienamen Square massacre.
I vaguely remember the start of the first Gulf War. I was at home watching the weird blurry green lights over Baghdad and was worried my dad would get called up. Guess my worries were just a decade early.
The OJ verdict: I was in 6th grade in a school with some harsh racial problems. Unlike most of the teachers, mine refused to turn on the TV to let the class watch the news. Instead, I heard via kids screaming “Not guilty!” down the halls when the bell rang.
When Princess Diana died, I was in the living room at home putting together a puzzle with my mom and sister. I went upstairs to talk to my dad, who had the TV turned to the news. He told me they were reporting she had been in a bad wreck. I went downstairs and told my mom, who turned that TV to CNN. We stayed up until they announced that she was in fact dead. She had been something of a role model to my mom and she was pretty upset by the whole thing.
9/11, I was in my first semester of college. I just happened to have changed my usual routine and went through the student union to class. I saw a huge group of kids standing around the TV. I saw the smoking tower and my first thought was another terrorist attack. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went on to chemistry class. The teacher made some remarks in there indicating that Washington was under attack. Everyone was confused. I had to go on to calculus, where the jerk teacher gave us a test (he later yelled and screamed when all but one student failed it). Mississippi State refused to cancel classes. Apparently it was serious enough to cancel a danged football game, but not class. It wasn’t until that afternoon that I was able to piece together what had been going on. I was on the phone with my mom when I realized that the planes weren’t empty and that I had just watched so many people die. It wrecked me for a long time.
In no particular order:
I remember coming home excited about something when my husband greeted me with “I think the Princess was in a bad car wreck.” I seem to think my excitement had something to do with a cat - that may be the night I brought Cara home, but it’s kinda hazy. I DO recall that it was not long after that Mother Teresa died, and that I heard that on the radio in the car.
Reagan’s shooting - I was in art class in high school, and the principal made an announcement over the PA system. I distinctly remember taking very deliberate note of exactly what was going on in the classroom so if he died, I would actually KNOW the answer to the “where were you when?” question.
Challenger - I was working nights at the time, and so I didn’t get out of bed until it was nearly noon. I walked into the kitchen to get some coffee and spotted my stepdad in the living room with the TV on - I remember picking up on the serious tone of the news, rather than any actual words, and I immediately asked my stepdad, “What happened? Is someone dead?”
When I was in eighth grade, a teacher approached me in the hallway one morning and asked if I knew about a band called “Leonard something.” I hazarded a guess at Lynyrd Skynyrd, and she said, “I think that’s it. I think they were all killed this morning.”
9/11 - I had just dropped my daughter off at school and was pulling back into the garage when my cell phone rang. My friend was calling to ask if I’d seen the news, and said “A plane just crashed into the Empire State Building!” I ran inside and turned on the TV as my friend said, “Oh, no, wait, it’s the World Trade Center” and together we watched the second plane hit. My first instinct was to go back to school and get my kid, but I didn’t - I kept waiting for someone to be in charge and offer some advice of what we should be doing.
I’ll give you two delayed news stories.
On 9/11, my wife (then fiancee) spent the morning running errands for the wedding. I started work at noon at that time. We got home and about 11, my dad called:
“Are you going to work?”
“Yea why?”
“Well they still haven’t found one of the planes.”
“What planes?”
“You havn’t heard?”
“No”
“Turn on your TV.”
Also, when Hussein invaded Kuwait, I didn’t hear about it for 3 days afterward. I was in Africa in a small village that didn’t get TV or radio. Our group didn’t know until we got back to the city and were worried about trying to fly home.
Sept 11 - The planes hit about 2am NZ time, so I was asleep. My mum woke me up at 630 saying ‘America’s been attacked’. I was really confused -m in my head I had people storming up the Hudson or something. I had an early meeting at school, and we spent it trying to figure out what the hell had happened.
In a haphazard order, sorry…
John Lennon’s shooting: I was in 2nd grade at the time. I was at home listening to the radio in the late afternoon when I heard about his death. My mom was washing dishes in the kitchen and I remember feeling spooked by the news. I knew who he was from my parents Beatle albums and the news of his death gave me chills. I had to be close to my mom after that for the rest of the night. It really got to me for some reason, which looking back on it is very weird.
Ronald Reagan’s shooting: I was in school, 3rd grade, and we were having an assembly in the central library room. It was a cool room, it had three large, wide steps leading down into this big, oval “bowl”. They brought out TVs and we watched the news. I knew something bad had happened but I was confused, too many people were talking for me to hear the TV.
The Challenger exploding: I was at home sick from school and saw it on TV. It made me very sad to know all those people had died so horribly. I knew a teacher had been a member of the team and it got to me.
OJ trial: I was in Sam’s Club with my first major boyfriend (we lasted 7 years). They had a TV near the doors on and we watched him being “chased” on the freeway. We watched the whole trial on TV after that first footage of him driving with all those cops behind him.
Princess Diana I saw footage of it a few days after it happened, not sure why I didn’t know right away. It was sad and so unnecessary, it made me ill.
Desert Storm: I was at my boyfriend’s house watching it on TV (the 7 year boyfriend). It just seemed very surreal and distant. Same as this last war, which still feels surreal and unreal to me.
Kurt Kobain: I remember hearing about it but it didn’t matter that much to me. Just distant.
9/11: I was at home. I had just gotten up and my mom was crying, watching the TV. It spooked the hell outta me, it was like the end of the world. My daughter was still asleep in her crib and I just sat down in total shock and fear.
There are so many more that I can’t recall but here are the ones I do.
9/11 - I was at work, celebrating a co-workers birthday(!) in the meeting room with most of the other employees (This was around 4:00 pm our time).
One of my programmers runs in and yells - “A plane has crashed into the WTC!”. Initial reaction? “Yeah, right…”
Took us about 5 minutes actually to believe her and stop the celebrations long enough to turn the TV on… :eek: Talk about surreal experience.
Oh, and the orignial celebrant is stuck with a very interesting birthdate now!
Challenger, 7th grade geography with Mr. Cahow. We had a TV in the room and spent the rest of the class time watching the replay. I knew that I would always remember where I was when I heard the news.
Gulf War, my brother was stationed in the Army in Saudi. I was in my bedroom on the phone with my best friend. While we listened to Bush’s speech, we just sat on the phone in silence.
Oklahoma City bombing, things were slow at work so they sent a bunch of us home (not because of it, no one knew yet) and when I got home my then-fiancee/now-exhusband was watching it all on TV and briefed me. I spent the rest of the day watching. Even though I was an adult, I don’t remember being as scared about it as I was about 9/11.
OJ’s verdict, I was at work taking incoming customer service calls. The normally swamped phones went virtually silent. I remember thinking that was a bit extreme.
I don’t recall where I was when I learned of Diana’s crash.
9/11, I arrived at work shortly after the second plane hit the WTC. I just felt numb. Once it all sank in, I was afraid of how much more would be done to U.S. locations and how much the world as I knew it would change. The silence in the sky while they had all airplanes grounded was deafening, although the sound of the military planes gave me a sense of security. When they first started to allow commercial flights to resume, I remember looking up every time I heard a plane and feeling apprehensive of whether it was “safe.” Every once in a while when I hear a plane go over, I still think of that.
Does anyone remember where they were when the heard about Elvis’ death?
In no particular order, and just the ones I really recall clearly:
AUg. 16, '77. At 7am, CST, I got to work at the gas station on Old Pearsall Rd and turned on the radio for the day; only to hear that Elvis had died. I had a hard time all day trying to pump gas for farmers and truckers who for the most part didn’t care that The King was gone; mostly because my eyes kept leaking for some reason.
Jan, '77. John Wayne died. I cried all day. My hero, The Duke himself, was gone forever.
I can’t remember the date now, but when Mount Pinitubo blew up, in the Philippines, and destroyed Clark AFB. I had been there from '71-'73, dad being in the AF. It broke my heart to think of all that beauty destroyed in minutes, and somehow I knew it was a deathknell for the US presence there. I was right.
Spring and summer of '73, over in Clark AFB, Philippines. Between the Girl Scouts and the base church choir (Sights and Sounds), and our long distance running team (The Roadrunners), I met almost every plane that landed at Clark full of recently released POWs. Till the day I die I will never forget the look in each of their eyes. All the same, all so horrible it gave me nightmares, and still does on occasion. Their souls had been tortured far more than their bodies, and not a one had a single ounce of fat to spare. We laid out the red carpet for them all, cheered them, ran rings around the hospital in the dark with flashlights singing, anything we could to tell them we knew they were heros. Then sat in disbelief and shock at how they were treated once they hit mainland USA. 13 then, and I still remember those days clearly.
The Challenger disaster. I was sitting at home, watching the takeoff on tv, with my little kids playing on the floor. They didn’t understand why their mommy started crying suddenly.
The Columbus tragedy. I was sitting at home, watching the takeoff in my living room. Saw the whole thing as it happened. Not again, I thought. Dear God… some of the dopers up in the Dallas/Ft Worth area heard something, but weren’t sure what they heard. I hope we never give up our space exploration; not the least because to do so would be to demean somehow the lives of all who have been lost in the reach for the stars.
When the military overthrew the gov’t in Ankara, Turkey, Sept '80. Where Mr Bear had just arrived less than 3 months before. For 3 weeks, we didn’t know if he was alive or dead or what had happened. All we could see on the news were tanks and soldiers with guns, and a lot of terrified people. No way to reach him by phone. Finally, he was able to get a quick call out to me, that he was fine, just scared and stickingthisclose to his dorm.
Granada. I had a friend there, in the Army. Don’t want to talk about it.
Desert Storm. My best buddy was sent over, and I worried about him the whole time. Thankfully, hubby was too busy traveling here, there and yonder in the US, training those medical personnel who were sent, for them to send him. I didn’t see him for months at a time, but at least he called, and I knew he was ok here in the states.
The Berlin Wall. Man. What a day. I now can’t recall the exact date, but I can describe that day to a tee. Having lived just outside the 5 mile demarkation zone for 3 years as a young child (dad again) there in West Germany, I cried and cheered and sat in stunned amazement as the wall was torn down, often by bare hands. Lots and lots and lots of bare hands. The same buddy who was in Desert Storm was there when it happened, and showed me his chip of the wall. The free world won a great victory that day. My parents hated that wall and all it represented, with such passion. I wish they could have lived to see it torn down.
Princess Di. I was stunned to hear, and cried along with so much of the world. She was a true lady, a gentle soul, and will be greatly missed. Chuckie boy never deserved her.
This year: so many talented people… Kathryn Hepburn, Buddy Hackett, I can’t even list them all, there have been far too many. They don’t make 'em like they used to, and the world has lost a great deal of talent this year especially.
Way back in '68, my family barely made it out of Chile in time. Just days before they locked down the country, and Allende overtook the government. My parents lost good friends to that mess. Never heard from them again.
9/11. I had gone to a conference in downtown San Antonio, and my cell phone started ringing and ringing and ringing… (I should say vibrating). It was my son, up in Austin, Tx, so I went to the hall to see what was wrong. He wanted to know if I had heard, and if it was really happening. He was so scared, off at college alone. I turned to the lobby of the hotel, where a big tv in the corner open bar was on, just in time to see the second tower fall. I remember driving home, somehow, but have no recollection of the route or anything else. I sat in my recliner that night, and told my family that our world just changed forever, and would never be the same again. That our way of life as we knew it was gone forever. They all said I was overreacting, even hubby. Don’t know how I knew, just that I did. Spent that day watching tv, and calling everyone I care about to tell them how much I love them.
Enduring Freedom. My best buddy was over there again, but got to come home, safe and sound, thank God. Another friend is still over there, though, and I worry about him along with all the rest. One of my first thoughts was Thank God that it is President Bush in charge, and not Clinton. Each shock, the Pentagon, the plane in PA, added to the numbness and stunned disbelief. I don’t know if I ate anything that day or not. I have seen what Hero really means in real life, in a way I didn’t see even in the POWs that came home.
There are a lot more, but I’ve taken up my share of bandwidth for the day, I think.
The only thing I vividly remember is 9/11.
I was in bed on since it was my day off. My mom came into my room to ask me if I wanted anything to eat since she and my stepdad were going out to eat and she nonchalantly mentioned to me that “New York was under attack” before closing my door.
I jumped out of bed and raced to the living room to see what the hell she meant since it sounded like the beginnings of WW III and caught one of the viewings of the towers falling. I was completely stunned.
My mother and her sister were in the front yard shooting firecrackers and they seemed to be very happy. I asked them what or why and my mother said, “The war is over.” I remember thinking that war must mean party. The war was WWII. The day was V-J Day, August 1945. I was 25 months old. It was my first memory that I have been able to put a date to.
And yet I can’t remember how I found SDMB. 
I had been back from my honeymoon for about a week when the Challenger disaster happened. I was a teacher at the time and I kept thinking It’s not the one with the teacher, is it? I remember TV coverage of her classroom as they watched. I had had friends who had applied.
My class watched Ike’s inauguration and the parade at Snide’s house in the 4th grade. He was one of the few with a TV back then.
I remember watching a young upstart named Jack Kennedy put up a good fight for the Vice Presidential nomination at the Democratic Convention in 1956.
I had a virgin moon party for my summer school students the night before the landing. And I remember that the moon landing, Chappaquidick, Woodstock and the Manson murders all happened within about a three week period.
Bye, Bye Miss American Pie: I had skipped school that day for some now unknown reason. Probably because I didn’t like school.
Got to the drugstore where all of us hung out a little before 3 O’clock on the afternoon of February 3rd, 1959 and found out that Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper were dead. There had been a plane crash somewhere up north, was the news.
Some girl kept playin’ Chantilly Lace on the juke box, over and over, until another kid went over there and un-plugged it. Weird day.
Diana: I was pretty young. I was drawing something with unsharpened colouring pencils and I really really wanted a ruler so I could draw a straight line (It was a very important line!). I yelled out did anyone know where one was. People were in the next room with a radio on, and there were suddenly little noises of shock and/or disbelief. I yelled out again. Lots of gasping sounds in response.
I went in to their room: 'Do we have a ruler?
‘Shhhhh’
‘Do we have a ruler!?’ (yes, I was an annoying and demanding little tyke. I was becoming very frustrated that no one realized how important my straight line was.)
‘Princess Diana’s died!’
‘Well, did she leave us a ruler?’
The comment was not popular. I was sent back to my room. I never found a ruler.
Sep 11: It was eleven-thirtyish at night here when the first plane struck. I was watching the end of an episode of ‘The West Wing’. When I got the “We interrupt this program to…’ bulletin, I thought 'This had better be important…Oh, well, I suppose that qualifies, yes.” (Hey, I love The West Wing)
[ul]
[li]Ronald Reagan’s assassination attempt: I was in class in sixth grade. The teacher from next door came over to deliver the bad news. At the time it was unknown whether Reagan was dead or not. My sense of the world changed the day.[/li][li]Space Shuttle Challenger disaster: I was a sophomore in high school. I was going up the stairs when a fellow student, whom I hardly ever took seriously, told me that “the space shuttle just blew up!” I didn’t believe him, but I soon learned later on that day that for once he was being serious.[/li][li]Oklahoma City bombing: I was working at OfficeMax at the time. I went into the break room and the TV was on. All I could do was stand there and watch the news coverage showing the federal building on OKC having just been blown apart. It looked like a scene out of Beirut, but knowing it happened right here in the USA was quite unsettling.[/li][li]OJ Simpson verdict: I was still at Officemax. We brought the TV out from the break room onto the sales floor. Everyone in the store, customers and all-- about two dozen or more people in all-- crowded around the TV. The collective surprise in the announcement of the verdict was quite stirring.[/li][li]Princess Diana: I was with my family at a family reunion that evening. I had no idea what had happened until I got home that night and turned on the news.[/li][li]9/11: At 8:00 A.M. my time (10:00 AM eastern) a worker I was training came in after I had already been at work for an hour. I had already checked the news sites as I did every morning and nothing really noteworthy had been reported at the time (7:00 A.M. local). When the other guy came in he asked me if I had seen the news. I told him yes but saw nothing out of the ordinary. When he explained what had happened I went back to check again. Once I finally got through to the web site I was horrified to see images of the WTC towers billowing in smoke. Like most other people, all I could do that day was think about what happened, why it happened, hoping it wasn’t as bad as the news described it, hoping that maybe it was an accident and not a terrorist act, hoping that not too many people were killed or injured, hoping that maybe the buildings could be repaired, etc. When I got home from work I was glued to the TV like most other people.[/li][li]Space Shuttle Columbia disaster: It was a Saturday morning. I turned on the TV and there was news coverage of the latest space shuttle disaster on all the stations. I stayed fixed to the TV for about an hour or so. I called my mom to ask her if she had seen the news, which she already had.[/li][/ul]
sleeping, since you were only four blocks away from the WTC I’m sure you’d have quite a story to tell.
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster: I was getting in a mid-morning round of love making with the TV on. The shuttle blow-up and I said oh shit…my girl friend replied, tell me you’re not cumming…
Do you remember the day that you heard that Ricky’s Nelson’s plane had gone down overnight in a crash? That was my wedding day. His plane took off from Guntersville, Alabama – a place that we liked to go for the day when we were dating. I think it crashed in Texas.
Reading the following paragraphs in the preview pane, I’m struck by how impassively I reacted to these events–even Election 2000 and 9/11, both of which I’ve since spent plenty of time reading and thinking about. But I can’t remember a news event truly gluing me to the set and roiling my emotions. Odd.
Nixon resignation: I was almost 7, and I was playing in the front yard. My parents came out to tell me the president had resigned (and probably explained what “resigned” meant), and then I continued playing.
Reagan assassination attempt: 8th grade; we had a snow day so I wasn’t at school. A friend and I were watching TV at my house when the news flashed.
Challenger: Freshman year of college. The shuttle exploded just before German class. People were gathered around a TV in the next room. I don’t remember a lot of shock or grief. At the time it seemed about equivalent to an airplane crash: sad but not life-altering if you weren’t connected to the people. I remember being surprised when the whole country started mourning.
Princess Diana: I was visiting 2 friends in Winnipeg and celebrating my 30th birthday. The 3 of us were having dinner when our host’s sister called and said to turn on the TV; immediately we saw the subtitle “Princess Diana dead.” It seemed very strange. We watched for an hour or 2, then went to a pub.
US Supreme Court halting Florida recount: Mrs. Thorp and I were at the end of a visit to Toronto, and joked about whether the hotel would let us move in.
9/11: It was still quite early in Seattle. A friend in Wisconsin called me but I was in the shower and he didn’t leave a message. I called back because it was strange to hear from him at that hour and I thought something might be wrong. He said two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and another one had crashed into the D ring at the Pentagon. My first thought was, “why?” I didn’t turn on the TV, and in fact didn’t see any video footage of 9/11 until September of 2003, when I saw a couple of movies that use a few seconds of footage.
Columbia, I was asleep. My mom came and woke me up and told me it was gone. My dad was stationed in Alaska with the Air Force, but he also works for NASA and used to be fvery involved with the shuttle safety program. He called her the moment he heard and she woke me and my sister up. We watched the news for a couple hours… it took a while to sink in. It hit Dad pretty hard.