Where were you when?

Someone commented at work today that it was the 23rd anniversary of the explosion of space shuttle Challenger. On that sad day I was a mere four years old. I remember eating a ham and cheese sandwich at the kitchen table while snowdrifts blew around our family home in Lexington, KY. I didn't comprehend the event for what it was, what I remember was the spaceship blew up. They had the explosion sequence on loop and and all of the networks broke into daytime television. Here are some others that I found trolling the internet. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you this post previously appeared on my other blog.

1) John F. Kennedy was shot? (11/22/1963)

I don't know. Ask my parents. They were 13 and 11 at the time.

2) Mt. St. Helens exploded? (5/18/1980)

I don't know either. That was 18 months before I was born.

3) The Challenger exploded? (1/28/1986)

I was 4 years old and in preschool. The day ended early. I ate a ham sandwich and watched the rocketship. I asked my mom what happened.

4) The 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco? (10/07/1989)

I was in second grade. It was PTA Open House night at the elementary school. I was next door at the home of family friends, who were babysitting that night.

5) The Berlin Wall Fell? (11/07/1989)

I was still in second grade. The classroom had a false ceiling made of that particle board stuff. Above it ran all the pipes and electric wiring for the building. The particle board had small holes in it. My teacher always said we had to cover our test papers because the Russians had spies that wanted to steal the test answers of smart American schoolchildren. I wondered if we would have to cover our test papers anymore.

6) The Gulf War began? (01/16/1991)

I was in third grade. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning listening to news radio on AM 640 WGST. I was fascinated by all the ships in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Mediterranean Sea. Throughout the campaign I followed the newspaper accounts of where all the carrier divisions were going and what they were doing.

7) OJ Simpson was chased in his White Bronco? (06/17/1994)

It was the summer between 6th and 7th grade. We listened to it on the radio driving back from the Grand Opening sale at the new North Point Mall in suburban Atlanta.

8) The Afred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed? (04/19/1995)

I was in 8th grade. I had a dentist appointment that day. We listened to it on the radio. When I came back and told everyone at school what had happened, no one believed me.

9) Princess Di was killed? (08/31/1997)

I was out searching for the family dog, who ran away the week before. We had seen a "found dog" sign that matched the description of our dog. 2 months before I got my drivers' license, my brother and I were riding our bicycles. We rushed home and called the number listed on the poster. The person wasn't home. We went back to the neighborhood where we saw the sign and looked for our dog. We came home around 11 PM (mom and dad had gone to a wedding) and I collapsed from frustration. I saw it on TV the next morning. Finally the sign poster called us back and the dog was too young to be ours. We never found him.

10) Bush was first announced president? (11/07/2000)

We had a party to watch election returns come in in Leavey Student Center on the Georgetown campus. College Democrats bought the pizza and College Republicans bought the beer. As election results came in the party became less and less cordial. Finally they announced the winner and we packed up to go home. The next morning my alarm went off at 4:45 because I had to go to ROTC. On WAMU 88.5 FM it was too early even for NPR's Morning Edition, so they had the BBC World Service on. The commentators were discussing the implications in Europe that America did not have a president. I jumped out of bed and looked at cnn.com. Then I learned the election was deadlocked.

11) Terrorists destroyed the WTC? (09/11/2001)

I was leaving Leadership and Management, taught by Commander Robert Anderson USN. My friend Ted Lord ran back up the stairs and said "Hey sir, some idiot just crashed a plane into the World Trade Center!". I imagined it was a single-prop plane, not a jetliner. While I was on the bus back to Georgetown, the Pentagon was hit.

I later ended up at the headquarters of the State Department wielding a 9 mm Beretta as part of a makeshift security force.

12) Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas? (02/01/2003)

It was my junior year of college. I just woke up and was surfing the web early on a Saturday morning when it showed up on the web. Then I turned on the TV. Georgetown had al-Jazeera in the on-campus cable lineup. I watched Ayatollah Khameni declare on al-Jazeera that Allah caused the shuttle disaster to show his disapproval of the imminent invasion of Iraq.

13) The Madrid trains were attacked? (03/11/2004)

It was spring of my senior year of college. We were on a spring break roadtrip to Savannah. My brother, some friends, and I were the only patrons in a beachside cabana on a Thursday in March. We discussed world politics while we watched CNN with the bartender. When it was time to leave we went to pay but he gave us our drinks free.

Where were you? Make your own post to tell where you were.