Bookmarks in my Memory

Where do you remember being when "moments in history" took place?  I've blogged before about how a song or a smell will "take you back" to when a significant event occurred.  Sometimes it's the opposite--You think of an event and you can remember where you were or what you were doing.

It's funny how things will stick in your memory about the day and time.  Here are a few that I recall that way:

The assassination of President Kennedy was my first recollection of a historical event.  I don't remember the exact event though--probably because I had no idea of what it really meant.  Because I was young I had a different view of it.  The Saturday following his death I sat down on the floor to watch cartoons and guess what?  My cartoon channel didn't have any cartoons on it.  It had some sort of a parade going on, and everybody was watching something going by with a flag-draped over it.  I switched the channel Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! (For you youngsters, that's what TV channel selectors sounded like in 1963.) Every single one of the three networks had the exact same thing on.  As I recall, all of the channels even had the same perspective... like they were all using the same camera.  I remember being real upset that I couldn't watch cartoons on Saturday morning.  As as you probably all know, back then cartoons were GREAT!

When man landed on the moon I was a paperboy.  On that particular day I had a customer that had called me, explaining (or should I say complaining) that they didn't receive their paper that day.  My mom drove me to a store so I could buy a paper and deliver it to them.  We ended up in the store in Auburn that is now what I call the Mexican store, but I believe it was a Thriftway back then.  I think it was somewhere around lunchtime, but I just remember the gal at the checkout counter.  She was listening to the radio, and when the big news came she hollered (literally), "They landed on the moon!  They landed on the moon!"  How could you not remember something as exciting as that?  I'm not sure which was more exciting though... I'm pretty sure without the lady's response it would have been just another average landing on the moon.

When Mt. St. Helens erupted I was still in the Air Force, stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  I really didn't have a lot of information before the actual eruption.  Sure, there was news here and there about it, but you really didn't hear much on the other side of the US.  Remember, this was way pre-internet, so all there was to go on was TV, radio, and newspapers.  Like I said though--Information was spotty.  That is until the eruption.  Then all of a sudden it was HUGE news.  It was everywhere.  The media propped it up so much that it was almost as if half of the state of Washington had been blasted from the earth.  I really mean that's almost what it sounded like over there.  I called my parents and basically got something like, "Huh? Oh yeah--that.  No, it hasn't affected us any here."  What?!  Okay, good.  I could relax.  I must say though--That eruption was noticeable way over there in North Carolina.  I don't remember how many days later (it wasn't many) that the sun was almost a blood red when it came up every morning until it was pretty high in the sky.  I'd say at least until 11am every morning for a week or so.  Pretty impressive.

When the space shuttle Challenger blew itself out of the sky I was driving in my pickup truck and pulled over.  I was working as an outside salesman for Enumclaw Computer Center and I was somewhere out around Buckley when the news came over the radio.  I don't remember how long I sat listening to the news bits on the radio, but I must've been somewhat spellbound.  It was something that's not supposed to happen.  By the time I was able to see it on my TV at home later it still hadn't lessened any in my mind.  I sat and watched the footage and listened to everyone give their stories.  It was a blow to us as a country it seemed to me.  We were supposed to not have failures like that.  We're the USA dammit!  Maybe it hit home a little bit more because my mom went to school with Dick Scobee who was the commander on that flight.  I don't remember if I knew that beforehand or not.  It was pretty devastating.  I remember feeling so sorry for all the students from Christa McAuliffe's classroom.  They were there that day to watch their teacher be the first one to blast into space, but instead saw her evaporate before their eyes.

When the World Trade Center fell I was sitting in my chair in the 17-45 building of Boeing in south Auburn.  I was a planner then and sat in a cubicle with two computers.  The biggest one of the two was a special unit that ran a dedicated software application that we used.  This was a time before Boeing clamped down and restricted any software from being loaded onto any of their machines by one of their employees.  Well, I was one of those guys that had the knowledge and ability to do such a thing, and because of that I was able to dredge up full screen video on my 20" monitor, piped in live from the BBC.  The best anyone else could get was on their little 17-inch screens.  Because of that I had people from all around my cubicle standing there watching as the drama unfolded.  I had the video up when word had just come in that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  We were watching it all, transfixed, shocked, amazed--you name it.  Then we watched in horror as a second plane hit.  Nobody could stop watching.  We all were in total disbelief when they fell.  These were the biggest and best buildings our country had to offer and we sat there and watched as the impossible unfolded before our eyes.  In retrospect, I would have saved myself literally thousands of dollars had I calmly reached over to my browser and told Schwab to sell everything I had.  Nobody was thinking for the moment that day.

I'm sure I could come up with others if I sat here long enough.  Anyone else have something to share?