So.. where were you?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I’ve posted about 9/11 and the MLK, Jr. and RFK assassinations in the past.

John Lennon: Like millions of others, I heard the news from Howard Cosell during Monday Night Football. I was watching with Mr. TeaElle and he wasn’t paying much attention, he turned to me and asked “Did he say John Lennon or Jack Lemmon?!”

Oklahoma City: I heard the first broadcast on the car radio, I was on my way to a business meeting. The earliest reports said a bombing with a fire but didn’t indicate the extent of the damage to the building, but I instantly felt that the situation was bad, and I pulled over to the side of the road to collect myself and pray. I remember quite specifically praying that no one would mistreat Arab-Americans in the belief that it was Islamic terrorism, which was the immediate presumption that many had. It wasn’t until later that night that we learned that Mr. TeaElle’s cousin worked in the Murrah building; she got out with minor injuries but her little daughter was among the dead children in the daycare center. When our daughter was born last year, she was named for the little girl who died that day.

OJ Verdict: Being the only person in my church, in my sorority and in my family (except my husband) who thought that the man was guilty as sin and ought to fry, my phone rang off the hook for about two and a half hours after the verdict. No fewer than three dozen friends, sorority sisters, co-congregants and family members called to gloat about his acquital. When the civil verdict came down, I called them all back. When his house on Rockingham was leveled with a big bulldozer, I actually went to great lengths to procure a still photograph of the demolition and included it in a number of my holiday cards. I’m a wench like that, though. :smiley:

Gianni Versace: I only mention this because I remember hearing about his murder at work, and being completely shocked and perplexed at the idea of someone killing a fashion designer in that manner. I mentioned it, just because it was offputting to me, but not a single one of my co-workers had any idea who Versace was. I couldn’t get any commiseration until I got home.

Princess Diana: I’d fallen asleep watching Saturday Night Live, woke up to the news of the accident, dozed back off, woke up again to hear that she was dead. I couldn’t believe it, and was heartsick for her boys.

Stuff happens around the end of April, has anyone noticed that pattern? Waco, Columbine, Chernobyl and Oklahoma City all happened within that last week of April, I find it very disconcerting. I always get nervous during that time of year, waiting for the latest disaster or incident of mass death.

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First moon launch - As I was not quite 3, this is pretty hazy, but I do remember sitting in my bedroom, watching the little B&W TV we used to have, with my parents and sister asleep around me.

John Lennon getting shot - I was getting ready for school (8th grade) when my mom and I heard it on the radio. I remember being a bit upset by it because I had really gotten into early Beatles stuff a couple years before, and had recently bought the single for Woman.

Challenger disaster - I was at my weekly internship at the Museum of Broadcasting (now the Museum of Television and Radio). Someone came running the office I was in to tell us that the space shuttle had exploded, and we all crowded around a TV to watch the explosion scene over and over again.

1993 WTC bombing - At the time I was working on 7th Avenue, right across from the entrance to Madison Square Garden. I stopped at one of my usual newsstands for a magazine (don’t remember which one) when the guy behind the counter said, “Geez, I hope you don’t have to go across to Jersey, what a f—in’ mess.” I asked how come, and was told that a bomb had gone off at the WTC and that the PATH trains were shut down. Funny, in retrospect I can’t think of anything at all unusual about my homeward commute that night (via Grand Central) - no extra security, nothing. (Side note: I think a lawyer I worked with at the time was later Ramzi Yousef’s defense lawyer! :eek: )

OJ Simpson on the run - I was doing field work for my dissertation out in the bush, in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, camped at the back end of a national park. I was getting dinner ready for myself and as usual had the radio on when the ABC broadcast that snippet of the press conference in which it was announced that OJ was a fugitive, complete with gasps from the assembled reporters. I clearly remember standing there with cooking spoon in my hand, staring at the radio and thinking “WTF?!?!?” Oddly, I have no recollection of when I heard the verdict.

Northridge earthquake - It was MLK Day and a full-on blizzard was going when I trudged into grad school to find the seismology end of my floor teeming with reporters and seismologists giving interviews. Another friend and I hung around watching the media circus and gaping at the jagged lines slowly rotating around the seismograph drum.

Princess Diana - I was home working on a paper and I had the TV on for a bit of background noise when Tom Brokaw first broke in with the news she’d been in a serious accident.

9/11 - I was running late for grad school and still in the shower when my mom knocked on the bathroom door to say that a plane had hit the WTC. At the time I remember thinking geez, some tourist guy must have gotten out of control… I got out of the bathroom just in time to see the second plane hit, and hear the horror in the local newscasters’ voices when they realized that it wasn’t a secondary explosion from the first plane. Ran to the phone to call my sister, who at the time was 7 months pregnant and working just across the street from 7 WTC. She made it out okay, but there were some hours after the collapse of the towers when we didn’t know where she was or if she was alright. I still can’t watch footage without feeling all the fear and sadness of the day.

Columbia disaster - I had just woken up and was surfing through the SDMB when I saw threads about the shuttle being overdue, so I tuned into CNN right away… and heard the bad news.

Things I only remember hearing about on the news over dinner - Nixon’s resignation (hey, it was my 8th birthday!), Reagan getting shot, Mt. St. Helens erupting, Pan Am Flight 103, TWA Flight 800, Chernobyl, the Berlin Wall coming down, Oklahoma City…

LOL. That was me, exactly, although I found plenty of people willing to explain to me later, in great depth, just who he was. :wink:

It was a lovely memorial service, and his granddaughter has a lovely voice.

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I should also add that it can be a weird experience being abroad and seeing news about home that doesn’t mean much to the folks you’re seeing it with. The 1993 flooding of the Mississippi just boggled my mind, and I had a very hard time explaining to my Australian hosts just how mind-blowing it was to see that…

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Lockerbie–I was home watching TV. At that time the 4:00 shows were Geraldo, Donahue and Oprah. NBC cancelled Donahue and spent the hour on the plane explosion, Geraldo was on, then a news announcement, then Geraldo for 2 minutes, then back to Lockerbie for the rest of the hour.

Oprah was on the whole hour, with only a 4:30 announcement about the explosion. Who were her guests? The Donald and Ivana. I guess they were more important than Lockerbie.

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9/11: I was at work. Checked my personal email and saw a message from a friend on a mailing list, saying 2 planes had crashed into the WTC and “they think it’s terrorism”. I tried to go to the washington post website and it wouldn’t load at first. People all around me were hearing about it at just about the same time.

A few minutes later, I heard a loud “whoosh” sound and emailed my buddies saying “Boy am I jumpy, I just heard a plane fly over our building and it really startled me”. A few minutes I looked out the north window of our office building and saw smoke (I work about 6 miles south of the Pentagon). A little while later, I heard the secondary explosion and decided I’d had enough, and went home. I scared the hell out of my spouse and friends by pausing just long enough to send an email saying “Loud boom, I’m leaving NOW!”. In retrospect, that wasn’t the brightest thing I coulda done. Especially since cell phones weren’t working and my spouse couldn’t reach me.

Challenger: was in the restroom at work and overheard someone saying something but I didn’t process the info. Went back to my desk and someone said “The shuttle blew up”. My first thought was “OMG, the shuttle bus that connects the locations of our company blew up somehow” then almost instantly I realized. I remember someone commenting then that this was the sort of event that you’d remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard about it. I guess they were right!

Reagan: I was a senior in college, at a job interview, and someone came on the PA system and announced it.

Diana: A friend had come to our house for dinner. About a half hour after she left, she called to tell us she’d heard about it on the car radio on the way home.

Moon landing/first moon walk: in the family room at my parents’ house. I recall being disappointed at how grainy the picture looked and that it was black and white (we’d just gotten our first color TV that year). I don’t remember the “one small step” quote at all.

Rodney King verdict: I was working in NYC. We were dismissed from work early because of all the riots. Rumors were flying, including ones that said there was looting at Macys and Lord and Taylor. There was no rioting in NYC as I recall, certainly not those stores.

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This reminds me of what my boss’ 9-year-old son said to him a day or two later… That he didn’t want him to go to work anymore because the building is tall. And when things really heated up once so many troops were deployed, he said to his father very matter-of-factly, “I don’t want to live in a world full of war.” I cried when he told me that.

If only the people in power would listen to the children’s voices…

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Challenger: Walking to or from school, I passed by an electronics store which had it’s TVs tuned to the coverage.

September 11: One block away, on the corner of Broadway and Park Row in downtown Manhattan.

Zev Steinhardt

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9/11: In school. Math class, in fact. Principal announced it over the intercom, and forbade teachers to show CNN on TV (yes, the school squandered millions on having a TV in every room with the most extensive cable system available) because some might be disturbed or offended. I live near Princeton, NJ, so some people had parents working in the towers. The guidance counselor’s office was full that day; luckily, nobody’s parents were killed or injured.

Columbia: at home. Heard it only on the nightly news.

Saddam’s capture: on radio in the morning. Cheered.

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Ok, update with the Saddam capture…

My internet home page is one of the local news websites, so it was the first thing I saw/heard news-wise on Sunday morning.

The first thought out of my head… Ok, now where’s bin Laden?

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Reagan shot- Third grade class. I was interested in how and where he was shot, but that wasnt a topic being discussed that day in class.

Elvis Died- watching my mom iron, they announced it on the radio. Remembering my mother say it was such a shame.

Challenger- Walking into my 7th grade science class. We watched the news the entire 50 minutes.

OKC bombing-my brother called me to wake up and turn on the tv. I sat in horror watching the people on the street give their version of what happened and cried over and over about the children in the daycare center of the building.

9/11- getting ready to go to work- told my babysitter to not let the kids go to school. I went to work that was located 1/4 mile from busy Las Vegas airport. Carpool buddy and I were amazed at the absence of airplanes in the air. Both wondered if it was smart for us to have gone to work anyway.

Saddam captured-I slept in the hotel room with Fox news on. I woke up about 3am when the TV seemed to get louder with the press conference announcing the capture. I thought I was dreaming. I remember thinking in my sleep"ok, now what do we do? Where’s Osama?"

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9-11 - I was at home, getting ready for school. Saw the first plane crash being played on the tv. Before the second plane hit, when everyone thought it was an accident. I went to school, and we watched it all day.

'89 Earthquake - Since I was living in San Jose… when it happened. I was riding my bike, and stopped to watch my neighbors RV’s rock back and forth. I was too young to register how very scary it was.

Some texans might remember…
Tornado that destroyed Jarrell, TX. I was a not so very far south of it. Hiding in a bathroom as we had just spotted a funnel cloud and a tornado touched down a few miles from us.

Columbine - listening to the radio while I brushed a horse.

Saddam - I had just come downstairs, and my mom greeted me with, “Guess what?”

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In more or less order -

Typhoon Frieda - which hit BC in the fall of '62. I have just a vague memory of plywood over the windows and shingles in the yard. As far as I know it’s the only one we’ve had.

Robert Kennedy - I was in my parent’s room and heard it on the radio. I think he was still alive at that point.

Man on the Moon - Watching it on our old RCA B&W, which I still have! I went out onto 11th Ave and looked up at the moon. It was one of those days when it’s just visable in the afternoon. I think I expected to see something up there!

'76 Earthquake - I was in a grouphome (bad zoogirl!) and got bounced out of bed!

Elvis’s Death - Sitting at the kitchen table. I went to the PNE a day or so later and they were already selling posters with his “dates”. Way tacky.

John Lennon - It was the first time I’d gone to mr zoogirl’s Uncle Tom’s house. We watched it on his TV.

Challanger - watched it in bed with Mr zoogirl. We’d woken up and since we usually fall asleep with the TV on, we thought we’d watch the launch.

The Gulf War - We had gone down to the Sally-Ann store in New Westminster and stood with a bunch of other people watching the events start on the TV’s. There must have been a dozen people standing in the Electronics section. I was nervous because New West is a port city and I thought some over-zealous former Iraqui or Iranian might try something.

Diana - Again, the TV was on. I just caught the mention of her name and my first thought was that she’d got in trouble over Dodi. At that point she was still alive and I watched for quite awhile.

9/11 My friend Linda called to say the first tower had been hit. We watched the rest of it as it happened. Later that day we went fishing, in an area that is normally on the flightpath to Vancouver International. The silent skies are one of the things I remember most and I wrote three poems about that and the rest of it while we were at the river. Later that day the already-planned meeting that we had at church turned into a service. We all signed a letter of condolence that the pastors drafted that afternoon and later sent to New York.

The Seattle Earthquake - I was sitting at my dest in New Westminster, working at my AM job. I noticed the water in my bottle moving and said to my boss “I don’t think it’s a truck this time!” We all stared at each other as the shaking continued. After it stopped, I tried to call home, but couldn’t get through. The phone lines were out in patches all over town. My break was just a few minutes later so I went out into the street. (Believe it or not, I couldn’t resist - I was singing “Shake Rattle and Roll”! This was before I knew anyone had died. I thought it was a local shaker.) All the people from the office building across the street were out and they weren’t allowed back in for quite a while.

Saddam - mr zoogirl came in from work and the first thing out of his mouth was “Have you heard the news?!” I hadn’t, but I saw it on the 11 o’clock.

And next? Who knows!

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9/11: I’d finished work early and was round a friends house. One tower had been hit and it just seemed like a big news story about a tragic accident.
Then the second plane hit…
It seemed so unreal at the time that it’s hard to describe what was going through my head. Anger was one thing; I remember saying ‘Nuke Teheran, those bastards are behind it.’
Someone said ‘The towers might fall down.’
I said: ‘They’re designed to withstand the impact of an aeroplane - they won’t fall down.’ Within thirty seconds the first one fell.

Concorde: On a similar note, there was a news story about a piece of Concorde (tail?) falling off in flight. A workmate said ‘I’d never fly on Concorde’, I said : ‘They’re the safest planes in the world, they’ve never had a crash.’
I got home that night… you can guess the rest…

Diana: I got up one Sunday morning, put the telly on and saw wreaths and mourners. At first I thought the Queen Mother had died, then I heard the phrase ‘One so young’. It was about ten minutes before I realised it was Diana.

Harry Roberts: I was four years old in 1966 when he killed three policemen. I clearly remember seeing in the paper a line of policemen arms length apart doing a search and imagining that the line stretched across the whole country.

Munich Olympics: My older sister and I put the telly on hoping for news on our hero Dave Wottle and were greeted with the sight of those apartment blocks and shadowy figures on the balconies. Our mum took us swimming.

Desert Storm: Watching highlights of Spurs v Chelsea, suddenly a newsflash…

Lynyrd Skynyrd: I’d not really heard of them at the time but they will always be linked in my head with a coach trip back from Llanelli, Spurs beating Bristol Rovers 9-0 and Baccara’s “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie”.

Dunblane: Heard reports coming in on the radio at work. Seeing the class photo in the paper the next day really choked me up.

Apollo 13: Just remember a lot of tension… and diagrams of re-entry angles in the paper.
Anyone remember what it felt like during the Cuban Missile Crisis? I was only months old at the time, but I’m sure some older Dopers must have memories…

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during the gulf war, I was watching the game show Jokers Wild(the 1990 version with Pat Finn) when Dan Rather comes on to say that there was a explosion in Iran they go back to TJW for a few minutes then back to Dan Rather this repeated for about 15 minutes finally they cut off Jokers Wild to go to Dan Rather full time I think the rest of the days programming was preempted

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I can almost remember where I was the day this thread was started.

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Reagan shooting: I was at a job interview at IBM in North Carolina, and there was an announcement over the building’s PA system.

Challenger explosion: In the bathroom at work; I heard several women talking about something big, but didn’t follow what they were saying. I got back to my desk and a co-worker said “The shuttle blew up!”. My first thought was he meant the shuttle bus that went between company locations; a split second later I realized what he meant.

9-11: At work, at my office a handful of miles away from the Pentagon. A friend emailed a list we were both on, saying “2 planes hit WTC, they think it’s terrorism”.

A few minutes later, I heard a loud “whoosh” and sent out an email to that same list “ha, boy, I’m jumpy, a loud noise scared me”.

That “whoosh” was the Pentagon plane - either as it flew almost directly overhead, or as it hit. We could see the smoke from our office window. I left work a few minutes later before traffic became UTTERLY impossible.

Diana: At home. A friend had come over for dinner. A bit after she left, the phone rang - she had just heard that Di had been killed and wanted to tell us.

OKC bombing: My son was a baby, and I was working at a Federal building downtown (Washington DC). I’d gone out to get lunch, and when I came back in a security guard told me (they were not quite on lockdown but were stepping things up immediately).

Apollo 13 (the splashdown): I was in 5th grade. Because I had asthma, I was allowed to stay in the classroom at recess during cooler weather. Somehow those of us who were inside wangled permission to turn on the classroom TV to watch it splash down. Then we shouted out of the windows to let the rest of the kids know.

Huh - didn’t realize this was such a zombie thread!

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Since this thread refuses to die…

I was watching Saturday Night Live when the broke in about Princess Diana’s Death. I thought it was a really lame skit for a while, but when it went over a few minutes realized it wasn’t.

I was in 10th grade American History class when they turned on the TV for 9/11.

I was with Orange Skinner and her mom when they came on TV with the news we were going to war with Iraq in 2003

I was in my living room and remember seeing the headline on the local paper when the Gulf War started in 1990.

I was spending the night at my grandparent’s house watching the Olympics late at night when they came on about the Centennial Park Bombing.

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Maybe it’s just age or not paying attention, but I only clearly remember what I was doing on three occasions.

Kennedy Asaissination: I was in 5th grade and it was not announced at school; I found out when my Mom picked me and my brother up and was crying.

Challenger: I was at work in St. Louis when the word started spreading that the shuttle had blown up. At first I refused to believe it but then went to an area with a TV and watched it happening all again.

9-11: I was living in Abu Dhabi (about +9 hours EST) and had gotten home from work and was reading when my colleague called me and said a plane had hit the WTC. I didn’t immediately turn on the TV, as I figured it was some small aircraft and went back to finish my chapter. I then went to the TV room and turned on CNN–and didn’t leave my seat for the next 6-7 hours.

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yeah, I remember where I was for “historic” stuff.

**John Lennon’s murder: ** the afternoon after my 10th birthday. Saw it on the 13" black-and-white tv in my bedroom.

Challenger blowing up: High school lunch, which my friends and I ate outside. The school was maybe 20 miles from the Cape, so we would watch launches. We watched this one, and noticed something wasn’t right…suddenly there was a flash, and extra smoke trails. Wait, what? Then one of the teachers came out of a classroom and said, “The space shuttle blew up! I have to tell Mister Williams!” (our principal). Being horrible teenagers, we asked each other what he was going to do about it.

OKC Bombing: I was working on a government contract. The office immediately stepped up security procedures.

Princess Diana’s death: A friend and I had gone out bar-hopping. We came home, and my friend’s brother was watching NBC, and Diana’s death was being reported. Didn’t realize it was the news, and thought it was Saturday Night Live (it was around midnight), and I thought to myself that this was the least funny SNL sketch ever.

I’m glad I’m not the only one.
**9/11: ** I was at work. We heard about the first crash. A friend at work pulled out her little TV that she watched soaps on, and we all were watching the news, and saw the 2nd plane hit. I remember thinking, “Wait, what?” The scariest part of the day was that the entire downtown of the city was sent home.

On the drive home, I had to cross a bridge. At the crest of the high point of the bridge, I saw an unmarked black military helicopter flying low enough that I could see the color of the eyes of the guy sitting next to the gun.

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JFK’s assassination - I was 7 years old and at school. Our principal came into our class room and summoned our teacher. She came back into the room, weeping, and told us that the president was dead. I was wearing a blue dress with fish embroidered along the hem. It was my favorite dress. I remember looking down and starring at those fish.

Moon Landing - it was very late at night and I had been allowed to stay up late specially for the event. We were at our neighbors, all of us in our pjs, kids and grownups, huddled around the neighbors’ b&w tv. We kids were all space-crazy then and we thought the whole thing was beyond amazing.

Martin Luther King’s shooting - Our school was gathered into the auditorium where we were told King had been shot. We were sent home for the remainder of the day. Not long after, we were assembled again for the news about RFK. It was a Catholic school and everyone was in tears. This time they brought in a counseling nun for us.

John Lennon’s shooting - I was in the first months of pregnancy and had gotten up early to throw up. We had a radio in the bathroom which I’d turned on and the morning news was interrupted with the special bulletin. I leapt up from worshipping the porcelain god and ran to wake up my husband. I was distraught. John had always been my favorite.

Reagan’s shooting - I was off on maternity leave, big as the proverbial house, sitting in a recliner idly watching tv when I saw the shooting live. The whole JFK drama was newsreeling through my head and I kept watching until it was determined that the president would live. I wasn’t a Reagan fan, but I was appalled none the less.

9/11 - I was making a cup of tea in the break room at work. A small group of employees on break were watching something on tv. I could hear it in the background. I finished my tea and turned to leave the room when I heard gasps and a small scream from the group behind me. I turned and saw the first tower burning after the impact of the first plane. I will never forget the complete astonishment as we watched the second strike. It was as though the world was ending somehow and we were watching it. Work forgotten, we stood there transfixed as events unfolded and more and more employees came in to join us. No one said anything about getting back to work. Work was forgotten.