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I remember where I was when.....

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  • I remember where I was when.....

    A comment on a thread made me think about where I was when I heard about the Twin Towers and then made me think about other big events that I can clearly remember what I was doing when I heard. So I thought it would be interesting to see what other big events people can remember clearly.

    I'll go first:

    September 11, 2001.
    My sister woke up to the news, thought it was a movie and turned off her TV. Dad woke up an hour or so later and heard it on the radio. He woke mum, who turned on the TV, then woke us all up. I remember standing in front of the TV watching the footage and next thing I was sitting down on the floor. We were all late to work and school. School had a few TV's with the news on, but no one was allowed to be those classrooms on their own.
    My uncle was supposed to be in New York during that week. We didn't know where he was for 3 days. He was safe in Texas, just didn't have anyone's numbers to call. He boss finally tracked down my aunty that lived in the same town.
    My birthday is September 12, the date is was in Australia when the towers collapsed.

    Black Saturday, 7th February 2009.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires
    I had gone to our caravan in Torquay after work the night before. I knew it was going to be hot, but no-one expected it to be that hot. My car wouldn't start, so I couldn't get back to Melbourne or get to anywhere that had air con. I was stuck in a caravan that showed 54 celsius (129.2F) inside and 48C (118.4F) outside. The UV was listed as Extreme, but is was far beyond normal 'extreme' levels. I got sunburnt walking the 30m to the toilet block and back.
    I was listening to broadcast after broadcast telling people it was too late to leave. Spot fires were starting up to 5kms ahead of the fire front. Fires were traveling over big areas in minutes. I have never been so scared.
    When Torquay started to get smoke from the Weerite fire, I had everything ready to go in sealed plastic bags because I seriously thought I would need to run to the beach.

    Port Arthur Massacre 28-29 April 1996. (I was 11.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_A...cre_(Australia)
    We were all at my Gran's house for some reason when dad yelled for everyone to shut up. The radio station was reporting a shooting in near Port Arthur in Tasmania. They didn't have much information, but at each hourly news break more and more deaths were reported.
    We had never had anything like this happen in Oz and it pre-dates easy mobile phone access. Information was patchy. It was 2 or 3 days before even the media understood the scale of what had happened.

    I just realised that my biggest 3 are all disasters. Does anyone have any good/happy ones in their top major events?
    A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

  • #2
    January 28, 1986.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_...enger_disaster

    I was in high school, in class. Social Studies to be exact. The teacher had brought in a television so we could watch the Shuttle launch. It... did not go exactly as planned. The entire class was stunned into silence and I remember we all just sat there staring at the teacher, who stared back at us.

    September 11, 2001.
    I was in Dallas, TX. I'd gotten a hotel room because my truck was in the shop for repairs. I got up that morning and turned on the television just in time to see the second plane crash into one of the towers, live. I remember just sitting and staring at the television, dumbfounded, when I figured out what the hell was going on.
    You're only delaying the inevitable, you run at your own expense. The repo man gets paid to chase you. ~Argabarga

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    • #3
      January 28, 1986.
      I also remember the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Except I was in Elementary school (I was 9 years old at the time). They rolled a TV into the Cafeteria/Assembly room and we watched live. It took a few minutes for the teachers to realize exactly what happened.

      September 11, 2001.
      I remember where I was on September 11, 2001, also. I was at work, and I passed by a room and saw some co-workers standing around like they were watching a TV. I went in the room, and saw smoke billowing from one of the towers. I was watching on TV, also, when the second plane hit, and when the towers came down.

      February 1, 2003.
      Space Shuttle Columbia. I was at my then-girlfriend's (now wife's) apartment that morning. I believe we heard about it online first, and then turned on the news to get the details.
      Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

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      • #4
        January 28, 1986
        I played sick so I could stay home from school and watch the launch live.

        September 11, 2001
        I was dealing with jetlag while trying to get ready for work. My boss and I had gotten home at 10pm the night before from a 3 week work trip to Sydney. I turned on the TV for background noise while getting dressed and turned to look at it just as they broke in to announce the first plane. I watch live as the second hit.

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        • #5
          I only vaguely remember the Challenger disaster. I was in 4th grade, and they rolled a tv on a cart into the classroom so we could watch the launch live. I don't really remember anybody's reactions, and I didn't fully understand what was happening.

          On 9/11, I had only been working at the bank for a short time (a few months, I think). Everybody took turns running down to the basement to watch the news. I don't think I saw any part of it live. My coworker's son lived a few blocks from the towers, so she was frantically trying to get hold of him to make sure he was ok. She finally got hold of him hours later, and he was fine. My then-husband was stuck in Pennsylvania on a work trip with all the planes grounded. He and a coworker rented a car and drove back cross-country.

          I want to add something happy. The best I can think of right now is the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. Unfortunately, it was overcast here, and even if it hadn't been, I would have only seen a partial eclipse. But I followed a LOT of the media about it online. I watched NASA's livestream of the eclipse. Several vloggers I follow released videos about their experience, so I experienced it vicariously through them. There were lots of great tweets about it.
          "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
          -Mira Furlan

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          • #6
            Sixth grade: JFK assassination. I punched another kid when he laughed about it. The nuns just told him HE was going to hell, not me.

            Post Office: Challenger explosion. Got in the car, turned it on, heard the news, shut it off, sat and shook for five minutes.

            Driving to work: I heard about the first plane into the Twin Towers. The whole office was watching on TV when the second went in.

            Dropping off a friend after an SCA event. Her husband came out in his bare feet to tell us about Princess Di's death.

            Some memories don't go away.

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            • #7
              JFK Assassination: I was in high school. Classes had let out early for homecoming. I decided to walk hame instead of waiting for the school bus. Along the way some classmates pulled up beside me in a red convertible and told he Kennedy had been shot.

              Challenger explosion: I was at the eye doctors getting contact lens in the waiting area. The launch was on the TV, but I had looked away at the moment of the explosion and only saw the aftermath.

              9-11 attacks: I was at work a mile south of the Pentagon. A Coworker had the news on a small TV in his office. I called a friend about a meeting I was supposed to go that evening. She told me she heard the Pentagon had been hit. The meeting was cancelled.
              "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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              • #8
                Quoth Kittish View Post
                January 28, 1986.
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_...enger_disaster

                I was in high school, in class. Social Studies to be exact. The teacher had brought in a television so we could watch the Shuttle launch. It... did not go exactly as planned. The entire class was stunned into silence and I remember we all just sat there staring at the teacher, who stared back at us.
                I was also in high school. I was helping the teacher set up the projector for a film when another teacher came running in to tell us about what had happened.

                9/11/01: I lived in Lompoc, CA, at the time, rather near Vandenberg AFB. I was a full-time homemaker then, so didn't really have a set circadian. I got up about 10am local time, and found that my mailing lists and newsgroups were going crazy. Turned on the TV, spent most of the rest of the day surfing news channels and online sources, while questioning the wisdom of living so close to Vandenberg.

                John Lennon's murder: watching TV at home when a newscast broke in. I went running to my mother's bedroom to tell her (she was born at the end of 1951, so had late-60s taste in music, which is what I heard a lot as a kid in the 70s and 80s).
                Last edited by Seanette; 02-07-2019, 02:22 AM.
                "Crazy may always be open for business, but on the full moon, it has buy one get one free specials." - WishfulSpirit

                "Sometimes customers remind me of zombies, but I'm pretty sure that zombies are smarter." - MelindaJoy77

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                • #9
                  Columbia accident:
                  I had just gotten to work, and turned on my radio while opening up the store, and heard about it on the radio.

                  9-11
                  I had just gotten home from trying to vote that morning, to find out that the city I lived in didn't hold primary elections for city offices. I turned on the TV (local CBS 4), and saw the towers on fire. I thought it was a scene from a new movie, till I turned to the next channel (local ABC 5), and said "OH SHIT!).

                  Challenger accident.
                  7th grade, and another teacher came into the classroom to tell us.
                  "Life is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid" Redd Foxx as Al Royal - The Royal Family - Pilot Episode - 1991.

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                  • #10
                    9/11/01 = I was actually on my way to work (I worked about 90 minutes away via surface streets) I had NPR on and they broke in and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center towers. I kinda snorted and thought about the bomber that hit the Empire State Building in 1945. I got to work and we got a TV going and about 5 minutes later we watched the second plane hit. that was when we knew shit was real.

                    as an aside There had been plans for my boss and I to go to NYC and in the WTC to bid on a project but it fell through before 9/11
                    I'm lost without a paddle and headed up SH*T creek.
                    -- Life Sucks Then You Die.


                    "I'll believe corp. are people when Texas executes one."

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                    • #11
                      JFK:
                      I am told... That was the day we moved into the house I grew up in. I was 11 months old and in a playpen in the living room.

                      Challenger:
                      This one is interesting. I have a vivid memory of standing in the doorway to the dorm floor lounge. I was watch the blastoff on the TV, keeping an eye on my watch. I was going to have to make a run for my Business Law class as is. After seeing the contrails split, I knew there was something wrong. The announcers did not know what to do. They were stumbling for word. You knew that they knew something bad, VERY bad, has just happened, but they couldn't say anything. I ran off to class wondering what I should do. Should I let the Prof know so that he can make an announcement? I opted not to.

                      Now for the interesting part. I graduated college in August of '85.

                      Columbia:
                      My FIL & I were replacing the siding on the house that day. I had stepped inside for something and grabbed a quick look at the TV. It had happened about a half hour earlier.

                      9/11
                      I was attending a training class. Sitting in a conference room waiting for the class to start. We heard this loud "boom". We all looked at each other and asked "What was that?" A few second later, we saw burning debris falling past the window.
                      25th floor
                      South Tower.
                      Last edited by csquared; 02-08-2019, 12:15 AM.
                      Life is too short to not eat popcorn.
                      Save the Ales!
                      Toys for Tots at Rooster's Cafe

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                      • #12
                        All the way across the country, 9/11 had impact, though it didn't hit home the same as if it were in our city or state. I know I've probably posted it before, and it's not super exciting, but here.

                        I was a freshman in high school, still taking the bus, so I had to be up at about 6 AM. We're three hours behind NYC time. I turned the radio on as usual, while getting ready in the bathroom. It was set as normal to an AM station that had news at the top of the hour, and a light talk show after that. I knew something was up because instead of either of those, it was a very shaken woman's voice talking about an accident, a plane hitting a skyscraper in NYC. I was unfamiliar with the Twin Towers at that time. The second plane hit at some point, but it was confused and I don't remember. I walked out into the living room and my mom had come down stairs and turned on the tv. I know it doesn't sound like much, but we never ever turned the tv on in the morning. We were always in a hurry, we didn't even turn on all the lights in the house, much less watch tv. Anyway, at that moment I remember knowing whatever was happening was really bad. Mom and I didn't say anything to each other, that I remember, we just watched and then I had to go.

                        I walk to the bus, and on the bus, instead of smooth jazz on the radio, again it's the news. At school we listened to the radio during first period, then watched tv news for the rest of the classes. After a few hours of watching the endless replays, I pretty much tuned it out. When I got home from school I realized it was so very quiet because all planes in the US had been grounded. We lived in the flight path of a small airport and constantly had planes and helicopters, so the silence was extremely eerie. Then the next day a classmate came in very shaken saying his dad, a commercial pilot, had been in the air during the attacks and afterward was escorted by fighter jets. He'd been told if he deviated from the course in any way, they'd shoot the plane down. In the weeks and months afterward, there were flags everywhere and a lot of patriotism, and some very unfortunate hate crimes.

                        My mom remembers JFK's assassination, she said a teacher came in to the classroom crying to tell her teacher the news. She remembers MLK's assassination, though mostly because they got sent home early from school out of fear of riots.

                        I hope I don't have any other memories like 9/11. I was old enough to be impacted, but still young enough that I didn't completely feel it. Now I'd feel it worse I think.
                        Last edited by notalwaysright; 02-08-2019, 02:10 AM.
                        Replace anger management with stupidity management.

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                        • #13
                          I remember John Lennon's killing. Then the attempted assassination of Reagan. There was a joke that went around my HS that the latter was Chapman trying to say he was sorry...

                          I watched the Miracle on Ice on live TV as it happened, at home in the living room.

                          For the Challenger disaster I was walking to lunch in the college cafeteria. When I walked past the TV room, a ton of people were gathered there, watching replays of the incident.

                          I woke up on 9/11 to my clock-radio, as usual, and the DJs were talking about some accident in NY. I know that there had been a B25 that hit the Empire State back in the 40s, so I figured it was another accident like that. I went out to the living room and turned on the TV morning news as usual, and watched the second plane hit. I knew I wouldn't be going to work that day. Sure enough, I got a call from my grand-boss telling me to stay home; nobody was going to be allowed onto Moffett Field (where NASA-Ames was located). Some early-arriving coworkers had been kicked out, in fact.

                          For the Columbia wreck, I was down at my uncle's house in LA. I watched the replays on the news, and pretty much knew what had happened the moment I saw it.
                          “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
                          One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
                          The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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                          • #14
                            Happy thought. I remember my dad waking me up one summer night when I was five. He wanted me to see something special on the TV. The ghostly, surreal image of a man descending a ladder to set his foot ON THE FRICKIN MOON. I only vaguely understood what that meant then. I am awestruck by that memory today, and the achievement it represents.

                            Not so happy thought. I'm continually infuriated by the fact that there are people who insist that it was a hoax. Even more infuriated by the current crop of politicians who think mysticism trumps science.
                            Last edited by CyberLurch; 02-09-2019, 12:02 AM. Reason: added a couple of thoughts.

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                            • #15
                              Quoth CyberLurch View Post
                              Not so happy thought. I'm continually infuriated by the fact that there are people who insist that it was a hoax. Even more infuriated by the current crop of politicians who think mysticism trumps science.
                              Me too. I worked at Cape Kennedy during the first moon landing.

                              We have a friend who told my wife she though the moon landing was fake. Mrs. IA told her to never mention that to me since I was part of the moon landing program. The friend has never mentioned it to me.

                              This friend is also a spiritualist minister.
                              "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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