Rodney

I'll tell you where I was when I _heard_ these things, not necessarily where I was when they happened:

a) JFK was shot

It was my birthday. I was eight years old. I was in school, playing on the playground at recess when our teacher came out to tell us that the president had been shot. She looked upset, so we acted grave. When she went back inside, we started playing again. After recess, she made us put our heads down on our desks for a while, but I think it was for her, not us.

Later, I was peeved that I couldn't see my favorite TV shows on my birthday because of all the special programming. But I did get a phonograph as a present. Kids. What ya gonna say?

b) Apollo 11. In the TV/stereo section of a department store with my parents; I was 12, I think. A big, silent crowd formed around the television and watched patiently. There was tension during the LEM descent. I don't remember any kind of big cheer when the lander touched down; but I do remember, when the "Eagle has landed" message came through, seeing Walter Cronkite lose it on camera. All he could say was "Golly."

c) John Lennon was shot

In a Tower Records in Concord, California. I have a horrible confession to make; I always though that John Lennon was George Harrison, and that George Harrison was John Lennon. I had them completely mixed up. It took his death to straighten me out.

d) the Berlin Wall fell

Don't remember; didn't make any impression. The conclusion was forgone; the falling wall was just the exclamation point on the sentence.

e) the 9/11 attacks occurred

I was out bicycling for exercise before work. When I came home my wife had the TV on -- unusual for her in the morning, but she'd picked up the news off the Internet. And I watched that plane slam into that tower again and again.

f) the first attack on the World Trade Center occured?

No idea. It was just some bomb plot in New York. I'm on the West Coast. It was too small and too far away.

g) the Gulf War started?

No idea. The buildup to war took months; it was obvious that war was coming, so the actual commencement of hostilities doesn't stand out.

h) the US Space Shuttle Challenger accident occured?

The shuttle program was still relatively new, and Americans had a lot of emotion invested in it. I was at work, on the second floor of a two story office. The president of our company ran upstairs and shouted "The Challenger has exploded!" Everybody ran downstairs to see the footage on his TV. I stayed upstairs, alone. I wanted to process the tragedy in my mind before I let TV hit me in the face with it. I avoided seeing the explosion footage for two days, until I was finally ready.

i) the US Space Shuttle Columbia accident occured?

Saw it at home on TV. Didn't affect me nearly as much. I, like many Americans, have distanced myself from the shuttle program. It's no longer America's future; it's just another government program that's not going to accomplish very much. I got a lot more out of the X-Prize-winning flight of Burt Rutan's SpaceShip One.


One other thing I remember well, as an old-time resident of the Bay Area: where I was when Mayor George Moscone of San Francisco was shot. This was in '78 or '79. I was in a print shop in Dixon, 90 miles away from SF, picking up a job. And even the folks in Dixon were shocked. The SF Bay Area has no leader, but in those days the Mayor of San Francisco was the most well-known politician in the region, the symbolic head of the region and its ambassador to the world. That's no longer true, but it was then, and we were all affected. I can't tell you when I heard about Jonestown, but I do remember Moscone's death, so that tells you something.