Another topic suggested by a TMP reader, that I’ve altered slightly. “Where were you when . . .”
Now fill in the blanks.
During the moon walk? In the living room of our home on Wetheredsville Road. That’s it. I recall being alone, but how can that be? I think I must actually be remembering what happened earlier in the evening, as I walked by, impatient to see the big event.
And now . . . Where were you when:
JFK died. I don’t remember.
The Persian Gulf war started: In the newsroom, but I’m just inferring. I don’t truly remember. I just remember the days that followed.
Reagan was shot: In my History of Mass Communications class. We were dismissed early.
John Lennon was shot: In my college apartment.
The Challenger Explosion: On a bike ride. Found out about it hours after the fact.
9/11: At home, working on a dial-up connection. A publicist from Morrow wrote me: Can you believe what’s happening? I turned on the television in time to see the second tower fall and my first thought was: I don’t remember anything about the World Trade Towers being slated for demolition.
The point is that it’s actually rare that we remember, truly remember, the moment of hearing certain things, much less what we were wearing or eating. We can infer, or we may have vivid memories of things that happened later: I remember that the invasion of Iraq came the weekend of a cousin’s bar mitzvah and we spent a lot of time in the hotel room watching CNN. I remember where I was when Dan Quayle was picked by George H. W. Bush as his running mate because I was at the Republican National Convention, following members of the Texas delegation, and they were all caught off-guard.
I was in the gym parking lot, leaving spinning class, when someone yelled: Michael Jackson is dead. I don’t think that will stay with me.
So what do you remember, truly remember?
Meanwhile, expect posting to be light here for a while. Busy, busy, busy.
I was teaching HUCKLEBERRY FINN to my fourth period class (my first year of teaching) when the school secretary called me to the door and whispered that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. I continued with the class and then went to the study hall where I had duty for fifth period. Someone had one of those tiny transistors and had set it in one of the windows. We all sat in silence (something that had never happened before) and listened to the reports from Dallas. I still remember the name of the student who cried when they said that the president was dead.
It was my mother’s 46th birthday.
9/11 I remember well because I was at a meeting in London. I was the first of the Americans at the meeting to hear that something was up. I remember the crazy first hour of trying to get info in a location with no tvs or internet.
Sputnik launch: I remember thinking as I watched the news at home that that was probably not a good thing. It was my 10th birthday.
Pres. Kennedy: I was in Mr. Weller’s history class and a senior had been sent to each classroom to give the teachers the news. Mr. Weller said, “that’s not something to joke about, Hoppy.” He said, “I’m not joking, sir.” We all sat in class hoping the president was going to be okay. A bit later church bells started to peel and we realized then that he had died.
Martin Luther King: I was at a student conference in Akron, OH.
Challenger: I was at work and someone’s spouse called and told him what had happened. I went home for lunch and made a video of the news and took it back to work and many people watched that in the conference room that afternoon as we didn’t have TV reception. (I only lived 2 miles from work.)
9/11: One of my office mates had her PC on and got the news of the first hit and we commented that a small plane must have had a problem. She was watching the reports and when we heard a second plane had hit, we knew it wasn’t an accident. I saw the IT guy and suggested he put the news on the internal TVs we had in the break rooms. By noon he had been asked by our president to do that and he had also put large screens in the major conference room. That room was filled all afternoon until quitting time.
Skip ahead to events I would or should remember:
Challenger: I was seven.
Persian Gulf War: memories are fuzzy, but I remember being at recess at my Hebrew Day school and hearing something about it, then when I got home I was glued to CNN Headline News, as I often was as a 12-year-old (Terry Anderson’s release after seven-plus years as a hostage I remember very well because I was home sick and watched CNN all day, morning till my parents got home.)
9/11: I had to be at graduate school early because I was working part-time as a lab technician for the first-year biology class, so I got to school at 8:30, started work, and had no idea what was going on until someone came into the class where I was setting up the day’s experiment and said “the Pentagon has been hit”. I didn’t comprehend and kept on setting up until finally, I went back to the tech room and the supervisor said everyone should go home, the Twin Towers had come down. I walked all the way home from John Jay in a state of surreality; the streets were very quiet except for sounds of the radio, people on their cell phones crying or yelling, lots of dazed looks. I spent the rest of the day on the internet because the phone lines were down and it was just very odd, very numb, to be a new New Yorker when things appeared to change irrevocably.
sort of chronological. i can remember most of these clear as a bell.
JFK- sitting on the floor in the living room, “reading” a jolly jump ups book, with ‘hi-fi’ on in background. i am not listening to it-i am engaged with the book. Mother doing something in the kitchen, starts crying, rather violently, & does the unimaginable: turns on tv in daytime. appt w/photographer for my birthday snaps cancelled. this is one of my only memories of that house, which i would likely not remember at all otherwise. i can picture the carpet, the tv and hi fi and almost nothing else. we have only ever talked about this once since the event; my mother was stunned that i remembered it at all. if she had not been hysterical i might not have.
MLK/RFK: we lived in orange county but my father’s business was in LA. heard it on news w/family [perhaps walter cronkite? possibly huntley-brinkley]. general feeling of horror and sadness. much discussion of whether it is safe for my father to go to work or not.
watergate & nixon resignation: watched hearings exhaustively w/grandparents while visiting our family summer home in lake geneva. not allowed to play kick the can w/friends but made to watch television so i could be a part of history. much reading of chicago trib. my mother dated bobby woodward so natch this came up. his little sister had a yellow wagon.
challenger: break room at work. we got to have an extended break to see it. i worked at a research lab; much discussion of how the hell that happened.
reagan shooting: my apt. w/roomie, heard on news.
elvis: cutting the grandfather’s grass w/little transistor radio in pocket and an earphone.
lennon: my mother called me at work to tell me. i thought something happened to my family. she wasn’t good with the names of either lennon or the beatles [she called them something else that was an insect--the crickets].
princess di: didn’t know for days. was at the beach w/no paper, no tv. don’t remember who mentioned it–likely a stranger–but i was in my bathing suit and i know what book i was reading. eating canteloupe pieces.
iraq: drinking beer in our local hang w/some buddies for our regular get together. many pitchers that night. hot peppers and garlic bread. there was an enormous cardboard cutout, life-sized, of john madden that i kept knocking into on the way to the loo. the gentleman newscaster, peter iforgethislastname, because we argued about canadians.
9/11: i was at walter reed on active duty. we were focused on local events [let's not forget the pentagon, people] and in a Mass Casualty and high alert posture. not going to discuss what i had to do that day/week. it’s taken me until this year to write about it. in aftermath i spent a lot of off-time on the potomac river, with no planes above [out of towners: potomac is part of the approach/departure for reagan airport] and the city eerily quiet, shiny new american flags springing up everywhere.
MJ: alone on sofa cushion number two. found out on twitter, which is also how i found out abt cronkite, farrah fawcett, and a host of other things within minutes of their happening [although NYT alert within 35 minutes of cronkite's time of death is quite scooptastic].
if i had ever been a journal person i would probably remember more.
//karen
Challenger: I was in the pediatrician’s office finding out that my son had suffered a mild hearing loss, but it could be fixed.
JFK: I was in 7th period Home Economics where we were learning how to make an apron and we were released to our last period class, which for me was band. I remember a student running through campus saying he was glad Kennedy was dead and I couldn’t figure out why he said that. To this day I believe he said it as a way of coping with something he didn’t fully understand.
9/11: At work. We thought it was an accident at first, but the second plane confirmed it was more serious. I worked at a government agency and all government offices were immediately closed.
Michael Jackson’s death? I am drawing a blank.
Reagan shot: At work
Moon walk? Another blank, except my aunt said she didn’t believe it happened, that it was all staged, that the pictures of the moon looked like the lava rock she had just seen on vacation in Hawaii.
JFK: First grade class. I remember watching the funeral with my mother.
RFK: I might have been watching that on tv in real time since I was a political junkie even back then and RFK was my hero. I thought the world was ending when MLK was shot. I took to my bed the day Nixon beat McGovern and felt vindicated each day of the Watergate hearings. Watching Nixon resign in August (9?) felt almost like Christmas. I hated that man with a passion.
Was on the road to Florida all by myself listening to tapes, so didn’t know about John Lennon until well after the fact.
I turned on CNN just after the second plane hit and watched it pretty continously for three days. My husband was in Baltimore for a conference and I was worried about him. He got one of the last rental cars at the airport and drove home to Michigan, driving right by the field in PA. I don’t think I will ever forget those days. I had received an IM from a friend, telling me we were under attack…I normally never turn the tv on during the day.
I know I watched the moonwalk, so I must have been at home, but it’s fuzzy. Reagan being shot, like Ford’s, didn’t stick with me at all. Have no idea what I was doing when Challenger blew up.
Princess Di was a shock. Picked up that morning’s paper and it was a big black headline. Yes, I admit it, I watched and cried through her funeral.
Ah, Elvis: I think we had just arrived in Bowling Green, Ohio, our usual stop on the long drive home from my summer camp.
And MLK’s death is a memory I cannibalized for Life Sentences: Turned on the television to watch Bewitched.
Let’s see:
JFK – Wasn’t born yet.
Moon landing: Plunked down in front of my parents old black and white Crosley. My earliest clear memory.
Nixon resigning: In front of my parents big RCA color console. Yeah. Watched a lot of TV as a kid.
Reagan shooting: On a school bus. The DJ on rock station WGCL was freaking out, and Kid Leo on the other Cleveland rock station, WMMS, wasn’t doing so hot either.
Challenger: I was lying on the couch watching some forgettable daytime show when ABC cut in.
Berlin Wall: I was working night shift in a cold, damp food plant. I came home from work, and my first words were, “Holy shit!”
Persian Gulf War: Once again, at work when the shooting began. I do remember dating my first wife when Iraq invaded Kuwait and watching the prices rise with each exit on I-71. I miss $1.20 gas.
9/11: When the first plane hit, I was at a garage getting a tire patched. We thought some idiot had buzzed the Trade Center and did Darwin proud. The rest of the day I spent staring slack jawed at the destruction. I ended up at a bar down the street knocking back bourbon.
Invasion of Iraq: Returning home from getting a gallon of milk. Heard it on the radio in the car.
Columbia disaster: Watching the Weather Channel before going out to hit the Little Miami Trail. Flipped the channel to CNN and didn’t leave the house that day.
Barack Obama’s election: Stayed up late to watch it. I never thought I’d be telling a 15-year-old boy we had a black president unless the boy was my grandson. It was my stepson.
Elvis: On my way to baseball practice. My uncle’s best friend was upset.
John Lennon: On the school bus the next morning. Just like with Reagan, the ‘GCL DJ wasn’t doing so hot.
MJ: In my office, where I am now. My wife was upset.
JFK: A co-worker, returning from lunch, had heard it on his car radio.
RFK: I had falled asleep with TV on (pre-timer days) and awoke in the wee hours having an allergy fit. It had happened minutes before.
Moon walk: In the living room with my parents watching TV and swiveling neck to look out window at the moon, as if I would have been able to have seen anything.
MLK: On a ladder in the bedroom hanging curtains.
LBJ resignation: Ironing in front of the TV.
Princess Di. Syd had retrieved the paper and walked in saying, “you’re not going to believe what happened”
9/11: At work. Someone’s relative had called. My first thought was that something had flown into the World Trade Center in Baltimore’s Harbor Place.
The MJ and Walter Cronkite deaths came in as NY Times
News Alerts, which I saw when checking for new email.
JFK: fifth grade, sitting across from a kid named Gary Ott
moon landing: the family room with my whole family
Gulf War: in my car, driving home from work, listening to NPR. The reporter in Baghdad, the one hanging out the window talking about how the bombing looked like fireworks, was an acquaintance from dog showing
9/11: I was running late for a meeting in Newark NJ, driving on the PA Turnpike. I turned on the all-news radio station out of Philly after the first plane hit, and before the second, when it was still “what in the world is going on?” Heard, rather than saw, the media coverage for the first 6 hours or so. And was completely astonished that when I got back to my office they’d closed the building. (That part still doesn’t make sense.)
Three Mile Island: at work in Lancaster PA. Our local stations hadn’t started to carry the news yet, but one of the guys’ in-laws called from the DC area
Princess Di: I was up late, reading (of course) with the tv on for background noise when the first reports started coming in. It was surreal for a very long time.
9/11: In my office in the Adams building of the Library of Congress. My friend Glenn walked in and said someone crashed a plane into the Pentagon. I heard from my friends working in the Madison building that they could see smoke coming from the Pentagon. Meanwhile, people were popping up from their cubicles right and left to report the planes at the World Trade Center. Right about then, my supervisor came in and said she couldn’t tell us to go home officially but she wanted us to do whatever we thought was best. Everyone just sat there in total silence for about a minute. Then we all started packing up and leaving, still not speaking.
When I went out the front of the building, there were people streaming out of all the Library buildings and walking/running down 2nd St SE toward Union Station. There were tons of cars trying to get down the street and I saw one actually drive up on the sidewalk to get around another car. It was surreal. I felt like I was in one of those Sunday night disaster movies they used to show on the networks. I started trying to call my then husband on my cell but it wasn’t working. It never worked as long as I was in the District.
I eventually got down to Union Station only to hear that the Metro was closed. I saw groups of friends and colleagues, most of them walking to friends’ apartments on the Hill or in the Shaw neighborhood. I ended up catching a bus heading toward a friend’s place in Adams Morgan. I figured if I couldn’t get home, I’d just stay with her. About halfway there, the bus driver announced that the Metro had reopened so I took the subway home. Then I sat on my couch for eight hours, watching CNN, and calling my out-of-town relatives and friends to let them know I was okay.
I’ll never forget that day. Many of us were scared to return to work on the Hill. We were right across the street from the Capitol and back then, everyone was afraid of a second attack. I guess we still are. The remnants of that fear are there in the car barriers at the entrances of all the Library garages, the daily police presence at 2nd St SE and Independence Ave, the random truck searches. I work at home three days a week now due to an illness but I have to say, I’m happy not to be on the Hill so much.
JFK shot: my childhood friend Stacy and I were lying on her rug in front of the TV. It was one of those oval braided rugs in brown. I was 10.
Reagan shot: I had called in sick to work and was anticipating a relaxing day, hanging out at home and watching soaps. It was so annoying that the news coverage cut into Days of Our Lives. Years later, I ended up living about a block away from the Washington Hilton and I recognized the stacked stone wall where Reagan was shot after passing it on my walk to the Safeway a few times.
Elvis died: working in a record store.
Lennon died: working in a different record store.
Jackson died: not working in a record store. Saw it online.
JFK shot: 6th grade, had gone to the restroom and someone was in there crying and I asked why. Her class had been watching some educational TV and the news cut in. Took about an hour for them to tell the rest of the school. So hard to believe because the day before my mother and infant brother had been among the crowd waving his motorcade in San Antonio.
MLK: on a chartered bus from San Antonio to Dallas for a youth group event. They told us when we got there.
Moon walk: at a coed slumber party to watch and remember the event.
John Lennon: was asleep. The next morning when the clock radio went off (WMMS, Jim) all they were playing was Beatles and it was nobody’s birthday so I knew something must be wrong. Took 3 songs before they told us. I was in library school and wanted to stay home but had a test that day. My teacher was bemused that some of us were hit so hard, and others had no reaction.
Challenger explosion: on maternity leave, in the shower. TV was always on for background noise, but I hadn’t focused on it yet when I came out. The mailman rang the doorbell for something and he told me, then I focused on the TV.
9/11: watching the Today show when the first plane hit as I was getting ready for work. Second plane hit before I left, didn’t know what else to do but head for work. Put on a news station for the commute. By the time I got to work, they knew it was terrorists. I walked in an someone took one look at my face and asked what was wrong (I worked part-time, so everyone else had been there for awhile) We huddled around the news all morning, then they closed and sent us home.
Princess Di: Don’t remember how I heard, but there was a soccer tournament that day. The moms seemed more affected than the dads. Also at a soccer tournament the day of the Columbia disaster – I mostly sat in the car and listened to the news – didn’t want to stay inside as they had some TVs on and I wanted to hear more knows, but not see the explosion over and over. At soccer practice the day Jerry Garcia died. My son was young enough that I usually would watch, but that day I sat in the car and listened to the radio. Wasn’t a huge fan, but had hoped for the opportunity to experience a Grateful Dead concert, so mourned that loss.
Elvis: Don’t know how I heard, but it was when my brother-in-law was driving to Texas to start law school so he was very sick of hearing Elvis music when he got to our house.
Don’t remember the Gulf War.
Reagan I was in library school, but can’t be more specific.
Interesting topic.
thinking abt this while running tonight, and realised that i remembered all of these things so very clearly–yet if you asked about family crises of the same import, i’d be really hard pressed to come up with much. not sure if that is because the news is repeated and collectively imprinted and my family doesn’t discuss things much once they’ve happened, unless they want to rub your nose in something, or some other reason. will have to think about that.
//karen
Moon Landing: the living room of the house where I grew up.
JFK died: I was less than a year old, so I don’t remember.
Persian Gulf War started: Don’t really remember, but I was living in Wilmington NC at the time. What I mostly remember are the convoys rolling through at all hours of the day and night, headed for the port or for the ammunition terminal at Sunny Point. I also remember all the speculation about how much damage would be done to the city if Sunny Point blew up. The consensus was that it would probably level a good portion of it.
Reagan was shot: Don’t remember exactly where. I do remember that I was in college at the University of North Carolina and it was the same day UNC played Indiana in the NCAA Championship. I was going to be REALLY PISSED if they canceled the game. They didn’t. UNC lost.
Lennon was shot: at my parent’s house watching Monday Night Football. I immediately called my friend Gray (We were and are both huge Beatles fans) to give him the news.
Challenger: I was working in a Darryl’s restaurant in Durham. We were setting up for lunch. I walked by the bar and saw Dan Rather’s face on the TV. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Then I walked by again a few minutes later and Rather was still talking. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “Dan Rather talking this long in the morning can’t mean anything good.” I stuck my head in, and that’s when I saw the explosion being re-run for what turned out to be only one of about a million times. “What’s that?” I asked the bartender. He just shrugged, said “Space Shuttle blew up,” and went back to stocking the bar.
9/11: I was in my office when one of the paralegals buzzed me from downstairs. “A plane just hit the World Trade Center.” The first thing that went through my mind was that the Empire State Building had once been hit by a B-25 lost in the fog. I figured it had to be an accident. Then a few minutes later, she buzzed me again. “Another plane just it the other tower.” That’s when I knew we were under attack. That was scary.
Michael Jackson: I found out while checking Twitter. First thought: “I bet Mark Sandford’s pretty happy he’ll be off the front pages tomorrow. “
JFK: Leaving the student union at Washington State University and hearing Cronkite on the radio broadcast from the speakers in the lobby of the union. Went to class and it was cancelled.
Reagan: I stopped by to have a glass of wine with a friend at her Dupont Circle apartment. We heard helicopters overhead. The phone rang, she answered, shrieked and said “Reagan’s been shot”. Turning on the TV, I realized I had been walking by the Hilton Hotel when it happened. I hadn’t noticed the crowds, since the Secret Service was on the south entrance.
Later on we heard Bush’s helicopter returning to town, not by the usual route.
Marilyn Monroe: car radio driving to the beach.
Jackson: TMZ (I know, that’s bad.)
Kennedy: Catholic school – they sent us home early.
9/11: walked in from a beach walk and saw it on TV. I thought it was a movie, but not for long.
Challenger: on a portable TV riding across DC to a Capitol luncheon.
On JULY 20, 1969, I arrived in Baltimore with two buddies, having driven from Madison WI. We had a little less than a week to scour Baltimore and find the right place for our commune to live when we arrived in September. We had a note introducing us to Viva House and asking for lodging, which was graciously supplied. We had dinner there and then drove to Sparrows Point (after all we were a commune preparing to “build a base in the working class.”) We drove back into town and stopped at a corner bar in Highlandtown and waited and watched the moon landing. It felt historic on many levels. When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon one of our barmates shouted, “that’ll show them da**ed Russkies” and we knew we had our work cut out for us. Before the week was over, we had bought a house in Pigtown–maybe not everybody’s idea of the place to build the revolution–but at $5000 for a three-storey furnished rowhouse, we were ready to compromise. The rest is history.
JFK ASSASINATION: in a barbershop in Erie, PA. They interrupted the music on the radio.
CHALLENGER DISASTER: a kid stuck his head in my classroom and said the Challenger had blown uo, and I said “that’s not funny.” “No I mean really,” he stuttered.
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ASSAULT: the headmaster had us all assemble in the gym and told us a plane had hit the WTC. I pictured a piper cub. It was only minutes later, seeing the TV that I got it.
ELVIS’ DEATH: On Calvert Street at North Avenue, driving.
They announced the start of the Gulf War–it had been imminent for weeks–as I drove to the annual Catholic Charities banquet downtown. I parked in Federal Hill and walked through the harbor, stopping at the Harborplace florist’s shop. He sold me his whole spool of black ribbon for five bucks. At the banquet, Sr. Cathy and I gave snippets of black ribbon to anyone who would wear one. Nearly everyone accepted. We ran out.
I remember the summer of 1969 very well. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I was 17, spent the summer at our family home on a farm in southside Virginia. So I watched everything on TV–three events that made lasting impressions: the space walk, Woodstock, and the Manson Murders, one right after the other it seemed to me at the time. I was a naive country girl, could such strange (and horrible in the Manson case) things be happening?
9/11: We watched it during my first few high school classes of the day (I was a senior). There were a lot of rumors flying around that other sites had been attacked, that we were at war. As we were in rural South Dakota, most of the students dealt with the fear and uncertainty by making lots of jokes about how WE certainly had nothing to worry about, nobody was going to bother coming after US. The teachers, apparently feeling we were not grasping the severity of the events, kept arguing about how really we could be attacked at any time! In retrospect, this was about the least comforting thing they could have done.
Start of the current Iraq war: I was a security guard at a packing plant, working overnight shifts in a tiny guardhouse. I remember watching the “Shock and Awe” coverage on the microscopic TV in between walking up the hill to the breakroom for food out of the vending machines.
Oddly, I have no memory of most of the major events that happened in my lifetime — I was only two when the Challenger tragedy happened, so that’s understandable, but the Persian Gulf War? The Berlin Wall coming down? Princess Di? I got nothin’.
Moon walk- in our house in Philly- we were all gathered around the TV.
JFK in 5th grade at Henry H. Houston elementary school. We were outside in the yard and someone came out and said something. I suppose it was too shocking to wait for an announcement over the speaker in school. I started to cry.
Reagan shot- I already worked in DC so I was here and did not live far from the hotel.
John Lennon- I was traveling in the desert in Rajasthan didn’t find out until we reached Bombay and I saw a magazine with his picture on the cover.
Challenger- I was at my former job- US Dept of ED in DC- telling them I wasn’t coming back.
9/11- at work in Arlington for the Fed. govt. The person who first told us the WTC was hit by a plane is kind of a flake so I thought she had heard a story on the radio about the bombing that had happened there years before. We all went into our conference room and watched the horror on TV. Then we were evacuated- I was confused about why traffic was turned around but it was because leaving Ballston- I was going in the general direction of the Pentagon.
Nixon resigning- in my apt at Dupont Circle- my roommate and 2 friends went outside to bang pots and pans.
Michael Jackson- I was going to pick up my new glasses so I had the car radio on.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, we still like to discuss “Where I was during the Earthquake.” The Earthquake occurred almost 20 years ago on October 17, 1989. I happened to stay home from work that day, to study for my CPA exam prep class. I’d experienced many jolts and rattles over the years, but this was different. It was a long long 15 second roll, that rippled under my house like a wave. I was at the back of my house, crouching on my closet floor amongst my shoes, holding my breath and wondering if this could be “the big one.” At the end it was as if I was at the top of the wave, suspended for just a second. But the wave rolled along without knocking the house from its foundation. I got up, checked for damage and found only that the electricity was off and the neighborhood was full of escaping natural gas. I shut off my house’s gas supply and blithely jumped into my car to go to the CPA study class.
I never made it to class. Along the way some hysterical radio newscaster announced that the Bay Bridge had just collapsed, and he ordered us “idiots” to get off the road. So I went back home. There’s a certain dreamlike quality to this memory, perhaps because of all that gas.
JFK: I was six months old.
Moon landing: I was six. My father made me watch it.
Challenger: Working in Accounting Office, a guy named Sid came in and said “The Shuttle just exploded.” Sid had a penchant for off color jokes, we didn’t believe him. Then Dolores turned up her radio, and we fell silent.
John Lennon: This one hit me the hardest. I was watching Monday Night Football. Stayed up all night listening to radio, every station, even the elevator music stations were playing Beatles and Lennon songs.
’89 Quake: Leaving work in San Mateo. Coudn’t feel it because I was in a car, but the driver thought he had a flat. So did everyone behind us.
Princess Di: Heard about the crash before we met friends for dinner. Didn’t hear that she had died until we got home. Our friends hadn’t even heard about the crash.
9/11: Heard a news report that a plane ~might~ have hit Trade Center. Got on the train. When I got to SF, there were forty people glued to TV screens watching. They sent us home. I called my wife who had just woekn up and said, just turn on the TV, it doesn’t matter what channel.
Michael: I was still getting used to Farrah having died.
While playing this memory game, one of the odder things that came up in our household was the Mona Lisa’s visit to D.C. in 1963. The SO, who’s younger than me by 20 months, had no memory of this, but I had a very clear one. We lived in the DC suburbs then and it was a big deal.
But the memory was probably entrenched because it also became a plot line on My Favorite Martian.
Moon walk: don’t remember
JFK died: Don’t remember, but do remember watching the funeral on TV with my mom. I was 3.
The Persian Gulf War: I was definitely in the newsroom. The TV was in the editorial editor’s office and we crowded in there to watch the sparks of light from the bombs.
Reagan was shot: In my college dorm with friends.
John Lennon was shot: Studying for my college journalism final exam.
The Challenger Explosion: I was in an elementary school interviewing the principal about her recent trip to China. Kids were watching the liftoff on TV in the cafeteria. I suddenly had a totally different story for the paper that day.
9/11: The only person in the newsroom except for the receptionist. A guy from advertising ran in and turned on our TV, before I could tell him he couldn’t do that, I saw what had happened. Because I was the only daytime copy editor, I got the job of putting together the extra edition that day.
Michael Jackson: Got an email from Lori Armstrong and thought it was a joke.
Limiting this to what I truly remember, as opposed to family legends and sayings; JFK falls off this list because I was two. The beginning of the American phase of the Persian Gulf war – which I interpret as the first one, in 1991, my soon-to-be-wife and I learned about on the radio when we were on the way to the movies in Kokomo; can’t recall what movie we were headed for, though!
The day President Reagan was shot, I was playing Scrabble against a genuinely beautiful woman – who would become my first mother-in-law (another story!) – and who was nearly impossible to beat at that game. I clearly recall that I was slightly ahead of her, and I was playing defensively, to keep her from big scoring squares, and I had placed the world “swirl” on the board – pluralizing another word with the ‘s’, and double-word scoring (extra nice with the ‘w’ in there) …and then her younger daughter emerged from the basement complaining that her soap operas were interrupted by unending news bulletins…and when we asked her what was going on and she said something about the president being shot – we bolted from the table and popped on the big tv in the den, and it wasn’t long before we saw shifty-eyed Al Haig declare that ‘constitutionally’ he was ‘in charge’ – which made me come out of my chair!! That was a strange day all around, and we never did get back to that game of Scrabble.
When Challeneger disintegrated, I was driving home from class; when I had driven in, the news was about the upcoming launch, and at 11:30 in the morning(?) when I was driving home, it was sketchy, broken reports on the car radio about the trail of smoke ending in a burst, and falling debris – with some reports of parachutes (maybe Navy guys were reposnding? don’t know, but I recall talk of chutes). I raced through town to get home to a TV set, to see what the blazes was going on…
9/11, I was at work. I had no sooner arrived, then people had a TV on, and were looking at pictures of the burning first tower (it was just past 8 here in Indiana). As that morning continued, the news quite literally exceeded my capactity to believe it. My wife would call with the latest twists – the second tower being hit, rumors of planes headed for the White House, and for Congress…I clearly remember saying to her that some of this sounded like speculation-fed rumors. When she called to say one of the towers had just collapsed, I recall saying something like “you mean, the top broke off?” – and she was saying “no – it’s entirely gone” – which I didn’t believe. When she called back to say that the news was that the Pentagon had been hit, I remember saying flatly “I don’t believe that” – it had to be a rumor. By the time of the second collapse, and the sories of a plane crash in Pennsylvania – all else at work had ground to a halt. The internet was gone, and all there was, was unfathomable pictures from the TV.
That terrible cascading of events, outpacing my ability to accept them, is what I will always remember about 9/11
The moon landing is probably my own earliest clear memory, too. I was three; my mother woke my twin sister and me up and brought us into her bedroom, where we watched it on her black-and-white television. She said, “You have to remember this,” and I always have.
What I remember more clearly, though, is the recovery of the space capsule four days later — because it involved Navy ships, and my Dad was then at sea (on a ship, the Austin, that was part of the second Apollo capsule recovery, in November ’69). My sister and I loved the idea that men just like our Daddy were part of the space program, in any capacity.
I was a high school student at a choral festival in Lynchburg, VA when President Reagan was shot. We were getting onto a bus when the news came over the radio. For some reason I have a vivid memory of the flowered skirt I was wearing.
During the moon walk? My Great Aunt Vida’s house. I remember it very well. That night I went out and looked up at the moon for evidence.
JFK died. I hear I was in my playpen. Don’t recall.
The Persian Gulf war started: That’s the first one, right? I was in my rented house on Van Heuval St. in Mobile, Alabama, watching a VHS tape of JOHNNY GUITAR. My Mom called. I have no idea why I remember that, except at the time I thought I should make myself remember.
Reagan was shot: Don’t recall.
John Lennon was shot: Don’t recall.
The Challenger Explosion: I was driving. I wondered why everyone had their headlights on.
9/11: In bed in Atlanta. The phone kept ringing. Took me forever to get up and answer it. It was my wife, calling from work.
I see that someone else added Princess Di to the mix. We had stopped in a bar in Atlanta on our way to a midnight showing of BLAZING SADDLES. We had a few and continued with our plan of going to see BLAZING SADDLES.
In the “truly remember” category:
Moonwalk: (I should say that I am 51. I think that our ages have a bearing on all of this.) I was on a bed alone in a room in my parent’s house with a black and white tv on showing it. I don’t know where my parents or sister were.
JFK died: I was five and in first grade (a few weeks short of my 6th birthday). I was in class (Devon Grammar School) and the teacher left us alone in the room. That was extremely odd. Something was seriously wrong, but I can’t recall if she told us what had happened or if she waited until we got home for our parents to tell us. She and another of the teachers might even have been crying. That part is too vague for me to be sure about.
John Lennon was shot: I was in Boston working at a theatre. One of the actors on hearing he news was grief stricken that his idol was gunned down and had to leave the rehearsal for some alone time. Another one of the actors saw that the first actor got out of having to rehearse and pretended (he wasn’t a very good actor!) to be as upset so he could leave rehearsal as well. The director and I knew he was lying, but we couldn’t very well tell him he couldn’t leave after the first actor had left.
9/11: I had on CBS Newsradio on low volume at my desk at work. Heard news bulletin about a plane hitting the tower. I thought at first it was a small privately owned plane like one that hit the Empire State Building many years ago. After that, all hell broke loose.
Well, here is a new concept (to me). I emailed the director I mentioned in the John Lennon section of my post above. I wanted to check if we had a similar memory of that day so long ago. His response:
“No, I remember it very well.
[Actor 1] said John Lennon was his only hero.
Rehearsal stopped dead.”
I think that is definitely on the right path of our memory of the day. Neato!
–Marjorie
I tend to be in touch with mass media only intermittently, so usually don’t hear about events until much later.
JFK, though, I remember. I was in school & had snuck out of study hall (as I often did) through the door to the fire escape (I knew how to hide from the proctor). So I didn’t hear the announcement; just the silence that was so different from the usual silence. And then the shuffle of feet without any voices, as we were dismissed early for the day.
RFK I remember too because it was the night of my senior prom (thus dating myself . . .). I was at an after-party at a classmate’s house and someone came in and said, “Kennedy’s been shot.” We all thought he was drunk & made fun of him, saying that it had happened years ago. But he was right.
Woodstock–oh I so recall being at work that Friday afternoon and the friends who’d planned to drive up with me calling to tell me about the traffic jams and us trying to decide whether to make the attempt or not. We had already been to so many fabulous music festivals that summer.
And I remember when Gregory Hines died. I happened to be online and the news flashed across the website I was passing through. I was devastated. I so much admired him.
I heard about Princess Diana’s death when I turned on the Wimbledon coverage that Sunday morning. A few years ago, I took my niece to tour Diana’s childhood home. It was fun. Unlike a lot of stately homes, the rooms actually looked lived-in: untidy piles of board games on the side table, a tv remote on the sofa. We were shocked, though, by the busloads of sick and handicapped people leaving offerings at the shrine, er, memorial by the lake (she’s buried on an island in the lake). Apparently, there are people who believe she was a saint who can heal the sick. The path around the lake was lined with lime trees which happened to be flowering and smelled divine. But that’s as far as I’m prepared to go.
“i would love one day to just say that i don’t remember and either not have to talk about something i didn’t want to or make other people remember their own stuff for a change. but that is a fantasy.”
Well, just as Dorothy learned, after she reached the end of the Yellow Brick Road – it’s not a fantasy at all, Karen! You’ve had ‘the power’ all along!
i was thinking about this on my run tonight, and i remembered that my family used to have a game that we played over the holidays, generally on NYE or thereabouts after the dessert course. we could go around the table and everyone had to come up with an event, something landmark,that had happened that particular calendar year. we weren;t required to say what we were doing when we found out about it, but my mother and i always did, because we could [as could my grandmother up until her early 90s]. and because we were fashionistas, we could tell you what we had on [my mother is still very good with that part: "oh, i was wearing my black st. john from the mabie wedding" or whatever, always accurate, and she'll know what you had on, too. ]. we expected less from the men and they rarely disappointed us.
but what i was thinking about particularly on my run was how much of a burden it can be to always be the designated recaller. it’s as if others are excused from having to remember things if i was there, becausee they know that, whether or not i want to, i’ll remember whatever it was. and that’s kind of annoying. i get the weirdest calls to ask me to verify information. and it is very convenient for people when you are talking about something uncomfortable for htem to just say, ‘i don’t remember.’ what are you going to say?’yes you do?’ i would love one day to just say that i don’t remember and either not have to talk about something i didn;t want to or make other people remember their own stuff for a change. but that is a fantasy.