I don’t like to do every “meme” that comes along, but this one is kind of interesting.
Where were you when…
1. John F. Kennedy was shot (11/22/1963)
Not yet born.
2. Mt. St. Helens blew (5/18/1980)
Celebrating my 9th birthday.
3. The space shuttle Challenger exploded (1/28/1986)
In 8th grade, 1st period science class. We were watching a video of some kind while our teacher, Mr. Johnson, was in the storage room watching the shuttle launch. He had been one of many teachers to apply to go on that flight. He came in and told us what had happened, the bell rang and we went to our 2nd period class, where it was broadcast to the entire school during morning announcements.
4. The 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco (10/7/1989)
Just sitting down to watch game 5 of the world series on TV, at home in Santa Clara, which is about half way between Loma Prieta (the epicenter) and San Francisco. I was in marching band that year and the band from another school in our district was performing in the pre-game show. I thought it was just another one of the minor quakes we had from time to time so I thought nothing of it at first. Then I decided maybe I better get into a doorway. Then I heard things crashing all around me (so I thought). I was 2 feet from the front door and decided being OUTSIDE was a better idea. I fumbled with the lock trying desperately to open it as the house collapsed at my heels (again, so it sounded at the time.)
I got outside and saw all my neighbors doing the same. As it turned out our house had only minor damage. I just heard a couple of dishes falling in the kitchen, and the magazines on the rack by the front door had fallen to the floor next to me. A filing cabinet in one of the bedrooms fell over and slammed into the door, but that was about it for our house. After the main shaking was over, I saw lots and lots of water going down the gutter. One of the swimming pools down the street lost about half it’s water. The person living there said they just saw “a wall of water” in their back yard.
I was lucky. One of my friends was 20 feet up a ladder in the school auditorium, hanging theater lighting. He just grabbed onto that light bar and hung on.
5. The Berlin Wall fell (11/7/1989)
I don’ t have any memory of a specific moment when ‘the wall fell”. More of a memory of seeing on the news for several days that the people of Berlin, east and west, had been attacking the wall and the guards on the east were just standing by. It was a very exciting time. I was a senior in high school, in middle college at De Anza, so we talked about it a lot in social studies class.
6. The Gulf War began (1/16/1991)
In Intermediate Algebra at De Anza. Someone came into the room and announced that the bombing had started and the instructor dismissed the class early. I joined everyone else on campus in the dinning hall and watched the CNN coverage on the big projection screen.
7. OJ Simpson was chased in his White Bronco (6/17/1994)
I remember hearing about it on the news. I was working at Contour Software at the time, and we didn’t have a real-time Internet link. We got email through a compuserve X.25 dialup. That was our only link to the outside world during the day.
8. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed (4/19/1995)
I was no longer working on the tech support floor at Contour, so I happened to be in the office of one of our programmers and he had a radio on.
9. Princess Di was killed (8/31/1997)
Densaer and I had been out to dinner or a movie or something and he was dropping me off at home. We had the car radio on and it came on the news.
10. Bush was first announced President (11/7/2000)
No particular memory of the moment, other than “Damn. The jerk won.” Of course all the shouting hadn’t started yet.
11. the 6.8 earthquake hit Nisqually, WA (2/28/2001)
I have no memory of this.
12. The World Trade Center (9/11/2001)
Asleep. Godmoma knocked on my door and came in and told me what had happened. Her mom had called her from Sweden to tell her (we had no TV and it was pretty early in the morning on the west coast when it happened.) That was the same day I was renting a van to move my things from San Jose to Santa Cruz, so I spent most of the day packing things in boxes, loading them on the truck and so on. I took Ben, who had been helping me out, to lunch to thank him. We ate at Rock Bottom Brewery in Campbell. It’s a brew-pub, so there are TVs all over the place. That’s when we first saw the footage of the planes colliding with the buildings, then the buildings collapsing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…
13. Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas. (2/1/2003)
I don’t know where I was when it happened, but I first heard about it while surfing the ‘Net (again, no TV). I remember wondering if my parents saw or heard any of it, since they were right under it. I wouldn’t move to Dallas for another 6 months.
And adding a few I didn’t see in trigeekgirl’s journal:
14. The Soviets shot down KAL flight 007 (9/1/1983)
We had been living in Santa Clara for exactly 8 months. I was just about to start 6th grade. The only memory I have of the day it happened was of walking up my neighbors driveway, I don’t remember why. Probably to see if Dave wanted to hang out. I remember thinking of the irony of the Soviets shooting down flight “double-oh seven”.
15. Pan Am flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland (12/21/1988)
I was a junior in high school. I remember thinking what a terrible Christmas this was going to be for the family’s of the victims.
16. TWA flight 800 mysteriously explodes off Long Island (7/17/1996)
I just remember I was living in my tiny apartment on Stokes St., apartment number 9. Don’t remember much other than that, other than the huge investigation and accusations that a “missile”, possibly fired by the US Navy, had been seen striking it moments before it exploded.
17. John Lennon shot (12/8/1980)
I was 9 years old. We saw a special report on the news. I remember Mom was shocked and my reaction was “Who’s John Lennon? Who are ‘The Beatles’? What’s the big deal?” Mom was even more shocked by this.
18. Iranian students storm US embassy (11/4/1979)
I wasn’t’ t really old enough to be aware of it at the time. I just remember the 444 days the hostages were held. It was a very tense time.
19. Attempted rescue of hostages in Iran (04/1980)
I have a memory of being in a motel room watching the news and seeing the report about the helicopters crashing in the desert. I have no idea why I was in a motel room.
20. John Hinkly attempts to kill President Reagan (03/31/1981)
I was in 3rd grade. We got taken out of our classroom and went into another 3rd/4th grade class to watch the news about it.
21. Tiananmen Square (June, 1989)
1989, my senior year in high school, was a busy year for “where were you then” moments.
I remember watching the guy facing down a tank on TV and thinking “even if the tank doesn’t run you over, that’s suicide. The government will never let you get away with embarrassing them that way.”
22. The US invades Panama
Black arm bands were starting to appear on my campus, with so many military operations. It wouldn’t be long until…
23. Irag invades Kuwait
…and months of endless debate about what we should do about it. I remember all the peace protesters going on about how the US Gov only cares because of oil, and the government is just out to protect US oil interests. I was thinking “Yeah, it’s the government’s job to be out to protect US interests. That’s the very definition of government.”
24. Terrorists bomb the World Trade Center (02/26/1993)
I was hanging out with some RPGing friends when we found out about it. I’ll never forget what Cynthia said: “I’m glad. The US has been screwing the rest of the world for years. I’m glad someone finally did something about it.” I angrily pointed out that it was the WORLD trade center, not the “US trade center” and that people had DIED, not all of them Americans. She later proved her understanding of anything beyond how much it torqued her parents to tell them she was bisexual and Wiccan was minimal at best. I won’t even get into what happened during a subsequent conversation with her about constantly slamming Christians…
25. The Rodney King riots in Los Angeles (04/29/1992)
I was working in the Auto Center at Sears in Vallco Fashion Park in Cupertino. We were hearing about the riots going on in L.A., 500 miles to the south, and there was talk about whether or not the mall would be shut down early that day, as there was fear riots might start in San Jose as well, and malls were a bad place to be when riots started. It turned out to be a non issue. There were some protests down town, but no riots developed.
I remember watching footage on the news that night of Reginald Denny being dragged out of the cab of his truck and being hit in the head with his own fire extinguisher and a brick and thinking how inhuman people can be. Denny had done nothing other than be white in the wrong part of town on the wrong day.
strongbow1800
