I was a graduate student in 1982, and I remember a friend coming up to me in the library to tell me that Philip K. Dick had died. I was sitting at a microfiche reader in the reference room, and he showed me the brief obituary in (I think) Time magazine. This was long before Dick’s posthumous reputation as a literary giant; he was a relatively minor figure at the time and most of his works were out of print.
I remember the Columbine Massacre because my father kept trying to call his nephew, my cousin, in Littleton. My cousin’s daughter was in high school and my dad didn’t know which one it was. The phone lines were jammed. Dad ended up calling his brother, the girl’s grandfather, and found she didn’t go to Columbine, thank heavens. She went to the next closest school though, the one’s the Columbine students shared for the last few weeks of school that year.
I feel like I’ve told this story in another context somewhere on these boards, but… In June of 1994, I was working on a bad low-budget science fiction film. We were filming in Lone Pine, CA, outside of Death Valley. So, desert, middle of nowhere. And of course, this was pre-smartphones. In between shots, and one of the grips announces over the walkies: “O.J. is on the run! Pursued by the cops down the 405!”. They had a little television in the grip truck, so we were getting updates.
Didn’t the US boycott the Olympics in 1980 because of Afghanistan? Or was this the Winter Olympics? Did they boycott those too?
I was an instructor permanently stationed at Governor’s Island, NY on one week temporary duty at the LORAN station on Nantucket, MA when it was reported that Operation Eagle Claw in Iran failed. I remember thinking “Jesus Christ, Jimmy! You got us started in a shooting war and I’m not even in the right place!”
I heard the Challenger explosion from the tv news and it made me very sad. I don’t know why but other people I know felt the same way. Our father, past his dose of gin for the day, watched the crew board the Challenger and kept muttering, “The best… America’s best…”
I heard about 9-11 on the car radio and I felt very tired, like “what, not another one?” It was only in the office when I learned of the magnitude of the event and that’s when I went “Holy Sh|t!” There I knew the world had changed.
Another one is John Lennon’s murder on December 8, 1980. I was working the graveyard shift in a West Texas convenience store at that time. A guy who delivered newspapers to surrounding towns always stopped in for coffee and would give me an early copy. Then later, we got our own newspapers in the store from our regular delivery guy. The copy I’d received earlier had a small, boring piece on the front page containing stock-market data. In the ones we got a couple of hours later, that had been replaced with an initial blurb of Lennon’s death. My roommate was the world’s biggest Beatles fan, Lennon in particular, and I’m the one who broke the news to him when I arrived home. He in turn called in sick to his job and spent the day listening to Beatles tunes after dropping acid.
I was in bed about 15 miles away. Something woke me up, and then I heard the 2nd explosion. I can still see my dark bedroom and feel the concussion as it rattled the windows.
I remember the first news I read, in the *Advocate, * about what would later be identified as the HIV virus. There were 23 cases of a mysterious illness, in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I remember thinking: How could 23 people be sick and dying, without anyone finding a cure?
I remember when I heard that Wayne Gretzky had been traded to the LA Kings. My Dad and I were on vacation in Vancouver, B.C., and we were just pulling up to the 2400 Motel when the announcement came over the radio. I was 7 and was crying so hysterically that Dad was worried if I was going to need to be carried out of the truck. I had lived my entire life with Wayne Gretzky as a local demi-god, it was such an alien idea to me that he wouldn’t be wearing my hometown colours.
As serious as when the Cleveland Browns were stolen to Baltimore. Ravens, my ass.
I remember that, too. Day after Christmas, we were at my uncle’s house because everyone was sick Christmas day. The Knicks were losing to the Celtics on TV, as future presidential contender Bill Bradley fouled out.
It was not long after that LBJ died, but I didn’t learn about that for years.
I was in Gray’s Papaya at Sixth and 8th when I heard on the radio that Robert Reed was dead of AIDS. Someone commented “they say he was a sharp dresser”.
Then I was in an outdoor flea market on Sixth Avenue when a girl announced to her friends “John Candy died!”
“No way!”
“Seriously, I just saw it in the paper!”
“JFK, Junior?”
“No, John CANdy”.
“Oh, who cares?”
Another one is Saddam’s hanging at the end of 2006. We were traveling around northeastern Thailand with some friends and were in Mukdahan, on the Lao border, when it happened. We had stopped in Mukdahan to take a gander at the Second Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge. Thailand had just held a grand opening, but Laos had yet to do the same, so we could walk out only halfway across. I think it opened for real the next month or so. But I was out with my buddy having a few beers, and when I returned to the hotel, the wife told me they’d just hanged Saddam.
I remember Roger Bannister running the first 4 minute mile in 1954. I was 11 at the time. Folks were skeptical that anyone could ever break that time, and were surprised. For some reason, 3 minutes 59 seconds didn’t seem to be much of a barrier. Odd, the human mind…
I remember this as well. I was in a local TG&Y (variety, five and dime store) with my friend Billy. We were inside shopping and looking for chicks, when it came on over the radio, which was the store’s Muzak.
He had been out of the spotlight for a few years already, but, we knew that he was one of the great ones.
The game in question was part of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY USA. We boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics, held in Moscow, b/c of Afghanistan. The Soviets retaliated by boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles, better known as the Summer of Free McDonalds.
The 1980 Winter Olympics were in Lake Placid, NY.
Funny, as “Oh. Who cares?” was essentially my own reaction to hearing the news that JFK Jr. had died. The person who told me about it was quite upset at the news. I didn’t say aloud what I was thinking. But I certainly thought it.
Ah yes. Thanks. It’s all coming back now.
I remember, like it was yesterday, when John Carlos and Tommie Smith gave the gloved black power sign on the podium at the Mexico City Olympic Games in 68 and my normally quiet, mild mannered father going crazy and screaming racial slurs at the tv, the most out of control I ever saw him in my life. I was five.