When World History affects Your history--or why my junior prom's location changed . .

In My Humble Opinion
1

at the last minute.

I invite you to tell your stories of how events that were, or would have been, noteworthy only to you and yours were influenced by world events.

Me first. Inspired by the prom thread going in in GQ.

My junior prom was scheduled for a Saturday in May. The same Saturday as the SAT, and the same Saturday as the Rodney King Riots.

OK, that last wasn’t planned in advance. But I have an indelible memory of waiting in the classroom on that Saturday morning, having finished the SAT. We had been told to stay put because the Junior Principal (as in Principal for the Junior class) was coming to talk to us. It had been decided that rather than have the Junior prom downtown, to relocate it to someplace in our suburb.

The administration was concerned that otherwise, if the city curfew stayed in effect (I think it didn’t, because things were quieting down all over) there would be some 16 year old girls, in high heels and long skirts questioned by Police because they couldn’t run as fast as their companions.

So prom got moved, they told people who took the SAT that morning, and I assume they made an effort to let other people know–via TV or Radio.

Given that I had never had any intention of going to prom, I think it is safe to assume that I remember the fact that prom got moved more than anything else about that prom. And given the high level of importance of the Rodney King riots in my life (not!) I bet I remember the approximate date a lot better than a lot of other people like me, because the Rodney King riots took place near a date that had other associations for me.

Likewise, my mother knows exactly when the first attack on the World Trade Center took place–the weekend they took me to spend the night at a college, so I could see if I liked it. (The answer, of course, was yes. Though apparently none of the other “pre-freshmen” I spent time with that weekend liked it enough to actually attend the school.)

How about you? What world events can you pinpoint in time by what happened in your life? And what events in your life were unexpectedly influenced by events far away?

2

I work at an airport, in the Aerial Photo & Mapping field.

After 9/11, we were all scared, we kept looking out the windows, we didn’t fly for weeks, and we had 707s parked where Piper Cubs were usually seen.

3

Back in 1991, my advanced high school chemistry class got out of a semester final exam because it was the day after the Desert Storm invasion started. As I recall, during class that day a couple people complained they didn’t have time to study because they were watching the news coverage. Much to the amazement of almost everyone, the teacher (who typically wasn’t a pushover) canceled the test and we never made it up. Best thing about that war! :smiley:

4

My alma mater included a semester in Europe as part of its standard curriculum. Gulf War I broke out a few weeks before I was all set to go. Being young and immortal, I wasn’t too bothered by it, but my parents freaked. So to spare them the agony of having their innocent, impressionable son just that much closer to a war zone, I opted out at the last minute. I finally made my European trek two years later, during the final semester of my undergraduate career. Things were more peaceful then, and my folks were only majorly worried, and not suffering fits of apoplexy as they would no doubt have been had I gone when originally planned.

5

9/11 - the security guards got armed and we got a torpedo down the corridor.

7/7 - I was at a party shortly afterwards and two guests dropped by to say hello but that they couldn’t stay because a relative was missing. And was later found dead.

6

I went to high school in Ohio because of the disaster at Bhopal in the '80’s.

I spent the first 15 (well, almost 15, anyway) years of my life in central NJ. My father was a chemical engineer for Union Carbide, which owned the chemical plant that poisoned the city of Bhopal.

As far as I know, my father had no direct role in the gas leak or the explosion. But after the disaster, Union Carbide ended up owning only about one-third of the total assets it owed in damages, etc. Since my father could see massive layoffs coming, he quickly scouted around for a new job. He found one in a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, so my family moved there.

In case you don’t know what happened at Bhopal, here’s some basic info.

7

A torpedo?
Que?

LIKE THIS?

:confused: