Taking the Scenic Route

From Midnightowl’s blog (who got it from Abigail’s blog): 

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN…..??

1. When John F. Kennedy was shot (11/22/1963)
Not even a ‘twinkle in my mother’s eye” yet, but I think my mom was a sophomore in high school

2. Where were you when man first walked on the moon: Apollo 11 (7/20/69)
In my mother’s womb

3. When Mt. St. Helen’s blew (5/18/1980)
I was 10, and remember seeing it on TV.  My uncle, who lived in Montana, sent us a jar of ashes and I thought that was the coolest thing.

4. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded (1/28/1986)
I was a sophomore in high school.  A bunch of us went to our Political Science class early (right after lunch) where there was a tv so we could watch the launch.  I saw it happen live and I remember the silence in the room as we all tried to figure out what was going on.  As the word trickled around the rest of the school, people kept filtering in to our classroom to see what was going on.

5. When the 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco (10/7/1989)
Don’t remember this one.  I was probably holed up in the theatre at college.  It was a few weeks before I met my dh though, so I suspect I was in rehearsals for “Little Mary Sunshine”.

6. When the Berlin Wall fell (11/7/1989)
In college.  I remember seeing it on TV.

7. When the Gulf War began (1/16/1991)
I remember reporting it on the radio station pre-war.  It was a traditionally pacifist college, so the war news was very interesting.  I think that I was in Springfield, IL visiting Zach, my fiancee at that exact time.  Our “original” wedding date was 10 days before that, but we had long since put it off ‘indefinitely’, waiting for our parents to all support us. 

8. When the first World Trade Center bombing happened (2/26/1993)
I actually don’t remember this very well. 

9. When OJ sped off in the White Bronco.(6/17/1994)
Working at a hotel that only showed CNN, so I saw the whole thing.

10. When the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed (4/19/1995)
I actually didn’t hear about this for a few days, despite the fact I actually knew a few people who had family in there and somebody who worked there.  It was during the week after our wedding.  Since we couldn’t afford an actual honeymoon, we just went to our apartment, didn’t answer the phone, and only watched videos (no tv or news), and didn’t read the paper.  It wasn’t until a few days after the event, when we went to the store for groceries and saw it on a paper.  When I returned to work, I found out that one of our regulars, who I knew pretty well, would have been there except his car broke down and he spent that night at our hotel instead.  He worked there.

11. When Princess Di was killed (8/31/1997)
At work, as a night auditor.  The TV is always on news channels in the lobby, so I saw the whole thing from beginning to end.  I also watched the entire funeral a few nights later.

12. When Bush was first announced President (11/7/2000)
I actually don’t remember this at all.  I can’t remember the exact dates of the gas explosions in Hutchinson, but if it was around that time, I was dealing with that.  If not, I was buried by work anyway.  I was the Reservations & Revenue manager of a convention hotel. 

13. When terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center (9/11/2001)
I was 5 months pregnant.  We had just moved to Lenexa, KS within the week and it was my dh’s second day at Sprint NOC.  (not on the main campus, but a couple of buildings referred to as the ‘twin towers’…tallish mirrored buildings)   I was resting from unpacking, and flipped through the channels, and a few channels after a picture of the first tower, I realized that it didn’t look quite right.  (first impression was that it was a movie) and went back to it.  I watched for a bit and was really confused at first, but then actually saw the second plane crash.  I have never felt as alone and vulnerable in my entire life. 

Then the rush to the gas pumps started.  I knew we didn’t have enough gas in the car for Zach to get back to work tomorrow and what little money we had was with Zach (and he was stuck at work).  My best friend who lived pretty close to me called and offered to pay for a tank for us if I wanted to wait in line with her, to make sure we didn’t get left high and dry when he was such a new employee.  So, I waited in a gas line for hours.  I remember seeing those kinds of gas lines on tv in the 70s, but it never happened in the small town I came from that I can remember, so it was a really eerie experience for me.  For a few hours, I was also so scared that I felt an inkling of the bloodlust that initially touched the nation, but it was quickly replaced by sadness.

In the days that followed, what made me the most scared was not the threat of terrorism, but my neighbors.  There were people that stood outside with candles and “proud to be an American” blaring out of truck speakers.  There was a flag printed in the KC Star paper that EVERYBODY hung in their windows.  We didn’t (because I found a paper flag to be a bit repulsive and the growing bloodlust rather frightening) and were angrily approached by neighbors asking where our flag was and had several people give them to me with a rather poorly veiled threat that we better hang them in the window immediately.  We did end up doing so out of fear since I was pregnant and alone for 11-12 hours every day.  I took it down as soon as the colors started fading because I had proper flag etiquette drilled into me when I was in school and it seemed disrespectful to display a non-perfect flag, regardless of the intent behind it.  (unless it is a protest thing, but I don’t think the shredded flags on big ’ole pick-up trucks were meant to be in protest…just somebody uneducated in how to properly display flags)