The year was 1981. I was busy with wedding plans that day so I remember the year very well; my mom and I were at the florist when we heard the news.Originally Posted by julitta
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I vaguely remember my parents being very upset over JFK's assasination; I was 3 years old.
I very clearly remember Bobby Kennedy's death, and seeing news coverage of it in the waiting room of the hospital where I was about to get my tonsils removed.
I remember my mom waking me up and making me come out to the living room to see Man on the moon. I was 7 years old and I remember her telling me: "you will remember this the rest of your life"
I also remember the Democratic National Convention riots in 68. I think it was 68? Remember the fighting on tv and my parents glued to the set.
I also have memories of news coverage of Viet Nam from about the same time. My parents were News Junkies. When CNN first became available many years later, I thought they would die from lack of sleep as they watched it 24/7 it seemed. LOL
First real memory of something just absolutely blowing me away: Hearing on the radio that John Lennon was shot and killed. I was a freshman in college and was getting ready for bed and heard that. I ran to the apt. next door where a lot of my friends were watching Mon. Night Football and going in and everyone was just sitting there in shock. We just couldn't believe it.
This reminds me of a Jeff Foxworthy bit about when we were kids and only had 3 tv channels and the president would come on to give a speech:
"The presidents on tv!!!! He's on EVERY CHANNEL!!!! We're going to MISS FLIPPER!!!!!!"
I grew up in Florida about 200 miles sw of Cape Kennedy. We would watch the countdown on tv and the liftoff and then everyone would jump up and run madly out of the house into the street where ALL the neighbors were doing the EXACT same thing and we'd all be watching NE with our hands shading our eyes and then we'd see it come over the tops of the trees: the white contrail with a tiny speck of flame at the tip, going up, up, up and everyone shouting: "there it is! there it is!As a side note, although I didn't see it, I do remember my mom always talking about the space program and the first landing on the moon...she was convinced it was all staged in a Hollywood studio for us to believe.
Now 35 years later, I still do the same thing. Happened to be on the interstate last week when the Pluto probe was launched and was able to see the vapor trail.
Still get excited about it too like I did back then. Have missed seeing shuttle launches these last couple years.
And yes, I remember 20 years ago today seeing the 2 separate smoke trails when Challenger blew up. You could stand outside and just see it and everyone was just standing there not saying a word, all sad and upset.
The time zips right by. It seems like so many of these events were just yesterday, but still oh so long ago. Just like Christmas day 2005, I was reminded that Dean Martin passed away 10 years earlier, and I remember my ass**** EX woke me up Christmas morning 1995 -- wake up Paul wake up! *he's shaking me* and he's three sheets to the wind already at 6:00am, I'm barely awake he says "Dean Martins dead - Merry Christmas.My husband called me today and said "please tell me that the Challenger explosion was NOT 20 years ago." I told him to remember that our 20 year old son was 1 month old when it happened. Where does the time go?
The Challenger explosion. I was in kindergarten and the school did something so that the students could watch the lift-off live on tv. I remember it going up and then I saw smoke. I didn't know what happened, but I remember out teachers turing it off and going into the hallway with other teachers. We were then instructed to go play with some toys. To this day, I can't watch a shuttle lift-off for fear it would explode.
Traumatic events on tv really affect kids. We live in Florida (obviously from above posts) and we live in Sarasota County. On Sept. 11, 2001, Pres. Bush was in the county at an elementary school reading to kids. They had it broadcast all throughout the county school system so all the kids could see it, they then kept the tvs on and showed them footage of the twin towers. Since we do live in Florida, there are MANY transplants here from other states. My daughter's best friend at the time was from NY. She still talks about how upset her friend was watching this on tv in the school that morning and how her crying got the rest of the class upset.
I hustled my butt to the school pronto and got my kid out of there as soon as it was clear it was terrorist oriented. All I could think was the Pres was in town, although at another school and who knew what those loonies would do next. At the time it wasn't clear who or where all the targets were. And the creepiest thing of all? Those pilots trained at an airport near us and used to hang out in a restaurant we frequented. EWWWW.
But still, its traumatic for kids to see that stuff, so I wish the schools would do a delay broadcast or something.
One thing I did do (thanks to my mom saying about the moon landing: "you'll remember this all your life")
I took a photo of my daughter holding the newspaper from Sept. 12, 2001 that says: ACT OF WAR!!!! so that she can look back one day and go: wow, I was that little when that happened? Well, that little, she was in 4th grade.
When Jimmy Carter was elected. We were living in NJ but my mother is from Georgia and during the election some kids would tease me and speak in a southern accent and ask if we were voting for Carter (I guess their families were Ford supporters). That was my first exposure to politicsI was happy when he won because the kids teased me and it was sort of like revenge for me!
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