# Where were you when Reagan was shot? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 19, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223 "2011-03-19T02:22:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sami41](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c57346/32.png) [@Sami41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sami41)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/21 "2011-03-19T07:09:24Z")
I was too young to tell you specifically, but I can tell you that the 1st 4 wordly memories I have are Reagan being shot, The Pope being shot, Lennon being shot, and something about the Shah of Iran. Couldn’t put the memories in order for you. Couldn’t put the facts in order for you now. I remember my (incredibly Republican) Mom being upset about Reagan. I remember my (incredibly Catholic) Mom absolutely flipping out when the Pope took a bullet. I remember my (whatever) Mom calling Lennon a Hippie after he was shot. And I remember being incredibly confused about the Shah of Iran buisness, because my Gramps last name was Shaw and I was of the opinion that my folks should’ve been much more concerned about him. So, to answer your question, I have not a clue where I was when I heard the news. ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/22 "2011-03-19T07:19:58Z")
I was either in Grade 3 or 4, so eight or nine years old. I was leaving school with some friends, and I ran into a teacher who told us the news. But she told us he was shot and killed. I learned that he survived only after I got home. I also remember the day Lennon was shot. I remember the Pope _being_ shot, but I have no memory of the particular day. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/23 "2011-03-19T07:57:03Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think this was after I’d gotten home from high school. I was watching TV and having a snack. I remember being amazed at how quickly the Secret Service agents pulled big guns out from under their suitcoats and tackled John Hinckley. And there was the confusion about whether the president had been shot. I think I was home too, so it would have been 3.30ish, EST? I was probably watching MASH which I did every afternoon at that time and the news came on. I remember at one point they thought James Brady had died and reported it and I believe Peter Jennings got mad on the air about the mistake (although I might just remember that part from clips of the incident). ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/24 "2011-03-19T13:32:12Z")
Driving that crappy orange bug southbound on I-405 near Seattle going to work. ---
**Author:** ![kapri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kapri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kapri)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/25 "2011-03-19T14:11:32Z")
You guys make me feel so old. I was living in Huntington, New York, and teaching in a Christian school at the time and had just come home from work. I turned on the TV and saw the announcement and I remember I said, “Not again!” I could remember the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK, and it seemed at that moment that this kind of murder was going to be an endless cycle . . . ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/26 "2011-03-19T14:14:25Z")
I have vivid memories of where I was when Kennedy was shot, but not a single memory of Reagan. That weekend of November, 1963, was when I really bonded with my then girlfriend and we were married less than five months later. My daughter sort of repeated the experience after 9/11 when she bonded with her future husband. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/27 "2011-03-19T14:53:44Z")
I have no idea, which is weird. I remember JFK and Princess Di, but I guess others didn’t impact me much. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/28 "2011-03-19T15:17:45Z")
I was doing a rotation at Baltimore’s old US Public Health Service hospital. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/29 "2011-03-19T15:35:59Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > I just got back in the dorm after attending classes at Ga Tech. I was a sophomore. I was looking forward to the NCAA championship game that night and IIRC there was some discussion about about cancellation or postponement. > > I heard it from buddy who room was down the hall. I didn’t have a TV in the room and mostly I was ambivalent and went on to do my homework hoping to enjoy the basketball game later that evening. Me too exactly, except that I was a freshman at Kent State. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/30 "2011-03-19T16:30:12Z")
I was 5 at the time. My mom and I were visiting my uncle and his wife, who was pregnant with the first of four cousins. I remember a lot about the local environment, remember watching it and hearing the “older folks” discussing JFK and RFK, remember the panicky and confused reporting as the event happened. (I also remember that we checked out my uncle’s brand-new Renault LeCar, and I wondered if it had anything to do with then-current LeBag totes…) I don’t recall much of the aftermath, oddly. I don’t recall sitting down to watch news reports about his recovery, or of James Brady’s injuries ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/31 "2011-03-19T16:38:23Z")
I was a freshman in high school. I was sitting in class when the principal broke in over the intercom and said the President had been shot and asked the students to pray for him. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/32 "2011-03-19T16:39:20Z")
Senior year of high school, probably sitting in class. I remember thinking “good riddance”, because I hated Reagan. Sorry if that sounds mean-spirited, but I was 18 and not exactly brimming with perspective. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/33 "2011-03-19T16:53:12Z")
I was at work in Anchorage, AK. I had the radio on while I was constructing camper shells and heard the news bulletin. Went into the office for a bit to catch up on what happened, then went back into the shop and went back to work. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/34 "2011-03-19T17:03:37Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > Good thing no one said that to me. I was 13 years old, and I have no recollection whatsoever what was happening when I heard about it. Probably sitting around wishing I had a ColecoVision Probably not, since the ColecoVision was released in 1982. I was also 13 years old, and home from school on a snow day, making sledding plans with my friend Jamie, when my mom heard the news on the radio and we turned on the TV. We were fascinated and never did make it sledding. ---
**Author:** ![misterkrc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@misterkrc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misterkrc)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/35 "2011-03-19T17:11:46Z")
cheering. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/36 "2011-03-19T17:12:30Z")
Probably my crib or something, since I was two. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/37 "2011-03-19T17:12:36Z")
About a month away from being born. Needless to say, I do not remember the event. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/38 "2011-03-19T17:12:56Z")
Oh yeah. I remember that day. I had the radio on in the background while I was agonizing over a past-due research paper, pissed because I didn’t have some of the sources I needed to cite (this was before the ubiquity of the internet). Anyway, when WINS (A New York radio station at the time) broadcast the news, I dropped into a kind of despair. Funny that, since I couldn’t stand Reagan. It did buy me a few extra days on my paper, so there’s that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/39 "2011-03-19T17:17:29Z")
Freshman in college. I remember our instructor was late for class and showed up with this stunned look on his face and said “The president’s just been shot.” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223/40 "2011-03-19T17:18:45Z")
> [@misterkrc](#): > > cheering. What? And why did you write regan in your original message? Did you think Brian Regan got shot? And if so, why were you cheering. I think Regan is really funny. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-reagan-was-shot/575223.md?page=3)