You recall where you were when you heard the news

In My Humble Opinion
61

I only know where I was when JFK was assassinated because my mom told me. I was 1 year and 1 day old, and sneaking out of my crib.

Apollo landing on the moon: with my family on our tiny black-and-white TV. (Fortunately it didn’t matter that we didn’t have a color TV.)

Nixon’s resignation speech: while spending the summer at my uncle’s ranch.

Challenger: I was driving to Kmart in my Toyota Tercel.

When the news came that OJ had killed his wife, I was sitting in a bar having a beer.

9/11: I was at work. My workplace was very quiet. I went to the restroom, and when I came out, the whole place was in a hubbub. I always say I went to the restroom in one world and came out into another.

62

I saw a man walk on the Moon.

63

When Pope John Paul II was shot, I was in college, on my way to French class.

64

The Challenger is the first I remember too. I think I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade and I remember having a nightmare that night of going into our yard and there were body parts strewn all over it from the astronauts who died.
As for the WTC, I’m on the west coast so I was just getting ready for work when I saw it on the news that the first plane hit. We didn’t hear about the collapses till I was actually at work. Everyone was just in disbelief.

65

I was a tadpole in daddy’s sack at the time.

66

I remember, one of my earliest memories actually, wandering out of the living room, and into the kitchen. My mother was putting away dry dishes. I told her that the news had just interrupted cartoons to announce that Elvis died. My mom was a huge Elvis fan, and didn’t believe me. It wasn’t until my dad came home from work and asked if she’d heard that she believed it.

I was 4.

I’ve mentioned this next one before, I think. I was staying the night with my grandparents, both me and my brother (I have 2 brothers, but the youngest wasn’t conceived yet). My aunt, the “cool” aunt (she was 10 years older than my brother, 13 older than me, so she was going to clubs and stuff while I was just getting into music, so she seemed cool and exotic and hip), was living with them also. She came in, and said that she’d seen a movie that she liked, and thought that we would dig, too. So she borrowed us, and drove us to see “Star Wars.” She’d seen it once that day, and we sat through it twice consecutively with her.

I was 4.

The date was May 25, 1977. The day that “Star Wars” opened.

67

I assume this is supposed to be 1977 instead of 1997.

I don’t think that she posts here anymore, but wasn’t vix walking through the lobby of one the WTC buildings when the first one was struck? Or is my make making shit up again?

68

The Challenger Explosion: I was in kindergarten. The teacher had rolled a TV cart in the room for our daily alphabet lesson (we had gotten to “R”). When we gathered around it, she stood next to the TV with her sad face and said, “I was going to show you a rocket takeoff, but it blew up and everyone was killed.” Then she turned on the TV and we watched it. It must have just happened so what we saw must have been a replay.

9/11: I was a college student driving up to a high school with a classmate to do one of our student teacher observations. We had turned on Howard Stern because there was literally nothing else on at the time. He and his crew kept saying “I can’t believe that just happened” and other vague things so we had no idea what was going on. When we got to the school, the secretary was on the phone with someone about “When should we tell them.” We didn’t know what had happened until after the class when we got back in the car and all the radio stations were talking about the attack. By that point both towers had been hit plus the Pentagon plus the one that went down in PA.

I got back in my dorm room where my roommate and her best friend were glued to the TV. The first thing I said was “Oh my god, it is true.” The rest of the day everyone on campus was never more than five feet from a television. Then one of my classes had a test that night that the instructor wouldn’t cancel because it was a once-a-week class. Sixteen years later I think I’m safe in admitting I was the one who blew the curve on that test. I got a 98. Even national tragedy cannot stop my knowledge of literary trivia.

69

When I grew up, there was a huge divide between me and people just slightly older – I didn’t remember where I was when I heard Kennedy had died, because I was too young to care.

What I do remember:

The first moon landing, and the garbled “one small step for man, one giant step for mankind, and being a little upset about the missing ‘a’”. My mother kept us up late to watch it, and fed us coca cola and chocolate to keep us from nodding off.

I remember the weekend Nixon resigned, but that’s more because of my father’s reaction to it than because it made an impression on me directly.

The death of pope Paul VI. I was in Denmark, and heard it on TV, in Danish. I didn’t speak any Danish, but I understood it because the words are so similar. He had ALWAYS been pope in my memory, and somehow, the idea that the pope had died was surprising and disconcerting. No, I am not a Catholic, but somehow it mattered to me anyway.

Anwar Sadat’s assassination. I was walking in the “dome” at the entrance to MIT at the time, and the news was on a large, overheard TV. I was shocked and appalled.

This is true for me, too. It was a big deal to me, of course. I even traveled to Berlin and took part in deconstructing the wall. (with a rented hammer and chisel) but it wasn’t a singular moment.

I don’t really remember when I learned that the Challenger exploded, either, although I remember at first I didn’t believe it. I guess I was older and it took more to make an impression on me.

I don’t remember when I learned Reagan was shot, but I have a vivid memory of Al Haig on TV saying he was in charge, and my room-mate screaming that he wasn’t, and citing the constitution at the TV.

And I remember 9/11 vividly. I learned the news at work. I had several friends who worked in the WTC, and I spent a lot of the day trying to track them down on-line. I watched the videos of the towers collapsing a few times, but shortly after I got home, I had to pick up my kids from elementary school, and I didn’t want them to watch it over and over, so I turned off the TV. So mostly I listened to the radio, instead. That was a good decision on my part, I think. For me. And probably for my kids, too.

70

Yes exactly. I was three. I was watching television in this tiny tiny house sitting on the floor. My mom was ironing my dads shirts behind me. I wanted to watch I love Lucy, but my mom wanted to watch some soap opera. All broadcasts were interrupted to report the terrible news. My mom broke down crying. My folks were very very Republican. My mom sat down, and I went to her her and said what’s wrong mama? She said she thinks that the president was just killed. I asked her why she was upset. She said because he was my president. No matter who the president is/was my mom had always held them in the highest regard. She takes it very personally. I always thought that was pretty cool. BTW, my dad saw president Kennedy one time in Chicago. Security was nothing l like it is today. My father was about 5 feet away from him. My dad was very impressed. He said that the guy was incredibly handsome, and he had stunningly beautiful red hair.

71

Just to throw a wrench in the works - have you had anyone check your memory?

Obviously, it’s old news that memory is very, very unreliable. But I just read an article about it this morning and then when I saw this thread, I thought of it again. In the study referenced in this one, students were asked (the day after Challenger exploded) where they were when they heard the news. Two years later, they were asked again, and many had difference answers.

So, have you checked with any of the people you remember being with you for these events (and haven’t discussed it with since) and seen if they remember it the way you do? :slight_smile:

72

Challenger was the first one for me. I was in my freshman year of college.

And of course, Sept. 11.

73

Lady Di: I was browsing at Borders when her death was announced over the PA system. So that made it memorable.

74

The 1996 IRA London Docklands bombing, I was pretty much in exactly the same place as I am now (alhough it’s a different chair), i.e. sitting in my study at home.

I remember it because it’s the first major news story I initially found out about on the internet.

75

I’m more interested in the question of which events made an impression and you or i still feel emotionally connected the moment, and less interested in details about exactly what i was doing.

76

I was doing homework in my room when I heard Reagan had been shot. I was doing homework in my dorm when I heard about the space shuttle exploding. I was majoring in Elementary Education and my first thought was about all those kids who were watching on TV when it happened.

77

As one of the little kids who watched the Challenger explode, all we thought was “'Splosion!” We didn’t really comprehend what happened, at least in my class (kindergarten). Now, though, I do understand but I don’t remember it with the same sadness that someone who was older would. For me it was the first Really Big Thing that I remember.

78

I’m a few years older than you, Catamount. I was sitting in Ms. Vass’ Social Studies class, which was for 5th and 6th graders. I was in 4th grade, but in some of the advanced classes. That was the first time I ever heard a teacher swear. I sat in the 2nd row from the front, and when the shuttle exploded, I distinctly remember hearing her say, “fuck.”

This was also a transformative event for me for another reason:

This event was where I heard my first inappropriate joke. I remember within a few days (it could have been that same day, but I don’t think so), someone came up to me and asked “How did they know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her Head & Shoulders on the beach.”

By the time I got home, I’d also heard “how do you pick up women in Cape Kennedy? With a Dustbuster.”

79

Me too, it is the first major event I remember (I was 8 years old I think?), but it was more in a “huh” kind of way than realizing such a tragedy had occurred.

I remember hearing about Princess Diana’s death and the OJ verdict, but they didn’t make a huge impression on me. Heard about Diana the morning after on the news, and OJ I do remember being in the student union watching tv, I had a class coming up and was watching and hoping they would announce the verdict before I had to leave for class.

The first big event I remember well was 9/11, I was at work and a coworker came in and said a plane had hit the WTC. We didn’t have much information and assumed it was a small plane and/or an accident. Then the second one hit and we were glued to the TV and internet the rest of the day. Although we did our usual work, I remembered later seeing lab reports I had done that day and it felt weird to see 9/11/01 on the mundane papers, knowing what had happened that day.

80

The death of JFK
The big tornado of 1966(Kansas)
The Murragh Federal building bombing
The World Trade Center attack
The Challenger disaster
The moon landing