Nostalgia Meme

Was going to hold off reposting any more of these tonight, then thought, what the hell. So, here's another.

I created this and posted the questions here, but I don't think I originally posted the answers here, so here they are. And new readers can answer, too. And I did what I was too lazy to do before, put them in chronological order.

It's said that some events get burned into our memories and we forever recall where we were when we heard the news about them. So, where were you when...

1. Alan Shepard became the first American in space?

Apparently, 5/5/61 was a Friday. I don't recall what time of day, but I seem to recall watching this on TV with my parents. I was a few weeks shy of 8. If it was during the day, I should've been in school and my father working, in which case we watched it later on the news. Or I'm mixing it up with the first chimp in space launch. I remember watching that with my parents.

2. John Kennedy was killed?

11/22/63. I was 10, in school, 5th grade. It was open school week and we had mothers sitting in the back of the classroom. The TV was on, tuned to the education channel's current events for students show (or maybe it was the French instruction show; I don't recall for sure). A newscaster broke in during after a break and broke the news to us. I didn't know how to react, but a bunch of girls went to the bathroom to cry, so I went with them. In a time of shelter drills, it was a rather surreal day.

3. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed?

4/4/68. I was still 14 (my birthday is in late May). This is the uh, somewhat embarrassing one. My parents and sister had gone out shopping, running errands, whatever. I stayed home. I went to the bathroom and brought my transistor radio with me so I wouldn't miss a moment of WABC's rock 'n' roll music. A news bulletin came on while I was, uh, doing my business. As soon as I was finished, I rushed out to turn on the TV. When my parents and sister got home, I told them the horrible news. I felt oddly pleased that I had a scoop. Odd that I never seriously considered a career in journalism, given how much I enjoyed knowing something first.

4. Robert Kennedy was killed?

6/6/68. I was 15. I was watching the news coverage of his campaign appearance with my parents and we saw it happen. Chilling.

5. Neil Armstrong took that first step on the moon?

7/20/69. I was 16. What an exciting week. My father's a space buff and I caught the bug early. I guess my sister was in her room, but I spent most of the night sitting on the floor at the foot of my parents bed, while they sat in bed and the three of us watched on their small B&W TV. In my bedroom, I had the microphone of my tape recorder poised next to the speaker of my radio, recording the historic moment. Like an idiot, I kept running into my bedroom to provide my own commentary on the tape. My only excuse is that I was a bit revved up.

6. John Lennon was killed?

12/8/80. I was 27. This is the odd one. I was home, probably reading, watching TV, relaxing before bed. A friend whose hubby was a deputy DA called me to tell me her hubby had been told to go over to the Dakota because John Lennon had been killed. So I heard the news from her about 10 minutes before it was on the TV news.

7. Ronald Reagan was shot?

3/30/81. I was 27 and working in the Bronx as an indexer. We had no real contact with the outside world. The father of one of my supervisors called to tell her the news and we went a bit nuts looking for a radio. Her father called back with updates a few times before we had to leave for the day.

8. The Berlin Wall came down?

11/9/89. I was 36. Married now. The events leading up to the wall coming down had me and others full of anticipation. I saw it on the news that night and could feel the jubilation of the people there.

9. The US invaded Iraq the first time?

1/17/91. I was 37. That's the date I found, but I thought it was the day before. At any rate, I was at a community board meeting to talk about the benefits of libraries during the public session (anyone can have 2 minutes to talk). I knew the attack was coming, but someone announced it just before the public session started and they voted to end the meeting after the public session.

10. The US was attacked on 9/11/01?

I was 48. I was already at work and one of my staff came in and said she just saw a plane hit the World Trade Center. Our library is about 35-40 blocks north of where the WTC was located and we had a clear view down 6th Avenue of the towers. There was never any doubt in my mind that it was a terrorist attack. The only thing that surprised me was that it was jets, not a small plane, and that there had been two of them. When we heard about the Pentagon and the missing plane, which later crashed, I felt a terror that dissipated, but didn't leave for nearly 2 years.

We were a polling place for the NY primary, and I was grateful for the police officer on duty. The primary was called off and he left soon after. We were able to get a newscast on the TV and all gathered around the set on the first floor to watch the events unfold. We never opened for service that day, and as soon as there were reports of trains running, we started to leave. It took me three hours to get home instead of my usual hour and I had to take a different series of trains. One is elevated and I could see the smoke from the towers from the window. I could also see it from my bedroom window which overlooks Manhattan to the west.


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