Do you remember where you were when you heard...

[Norm dePlume]

I just realized something odd. All of these events that I first heard about on the news, I don't remember. I mean, I remember what happened, but I can't remember the moment of absorbing the information. The ones where I missed the news and heard about it from an acquaintance, I remember the moment. I remember the look on their face and the tone of their voice.

When Elvis died, I was delivering papers and a kid on my route a couple years older than me came out his front door to ask if I'd heard the news. It was strange to me because the guy was always such a jerk. That was the only time he spoke to me without giving me shit about my bike or something.

When Cobain died (which was more shocking and more important to me personally), I'm pretty sure I heard it on the news, but I have no recollection of the moment of hearing it.

[Michele]

JFK assassination, we were sent home from school.

Alaska earthquake, we were in the gym playing before school and the bleachers started swaying back and forth.

MLK and Bobby Kennedy assassinations because they were the same year. Can't remember where I was with MLK but I was at a slumber party after grade school graduation when BK was killed.

Moon landing was on my sister's birthday so I always remember it.

I just remember that Star Wars and Elvis dying was the year my son was born.

Mt St Helens, May 18, 1980 - we lived in Portland and had the worst summer ever with ash all over the place.

The summer of '81 I met the I-5 Killer and was questioned by the Portland PD.

Saw Pope JPII in San Antonio parade, got great photos.

Challenger disaster, I was at my job and they brought in a tv from the board room. One of the loan officers had a brother who worked at NASA and she couldn't stop crying. Columbia disaster, we were up in WA thinking that this would be the end of the space shuttle program.

Oklahoma bombing we were in Hawaii.

OJ went on his ride in his white Bronco a day or two before our daughter graduated. We were in Yellowstone Park when the verdict came down.

9/11 we were in WA, woke up and the first plane had already hit.

[Djharkavy]

I have so resisted this in my own life. I'm constantly told how "selfish" I am for not doing Facebook or having a smartphone. Not joining someone on a Netflix binge. Whatever.

Why would someone call you selfish? Out-of-touch, perhaps, but not selfish.

You are (and should be) able to make choices that you wish in terms of how connected you are.
I find that Facebook is great for informing a large group of family and friends about something happening quickly. When my father died, Facebook was one way that we informed my father's friends.

Sent from my phone, using Tapatalk.
All mistakes are caused by the phone.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it...

[scott]

A few stand out for me: the Beirut bombing in 1983 (I was at Mass), Space Shuttle disasters (Challenger in 1986 I watched it outside in the field by the school parking lot, 2003 I was driving to get some packing supplies because we were moving), Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 (I was in Dallas visiting a friend, worried about getting reactivated when my cell phone rang and back then my cell phone never rang if I wasn't home), and 9/11 (kids were eating breakfast watching PBSKids when I called a friend to ask about a consulting job, he told me to turn on the TV to "any other channel").

[Celeste Chalfonte]

SF quake of '89: I was on the 13th floor of an office building in the Financial District (for those who don't know, it's built on landfill - really old landfill, but...) and my best friend was in the upper section at Candlestick Park, watching game 3 of the Bay Bridge World Series. Where I was scheduled to be: just about the middle of the Bay Bridge, returning from a deposition that (fortuitously) got canceled at the last minute.

[Billy Jingo]

SF quake of '89: I was on the 13th floor of an office building in the Financial District (for those who don't know, it's built on landfill - really old landfill, but...) and my best friend was in the upper section at Candlestick Park, watching game 3 of the Bay Bridge World Series. Where I was scheduled to be: just about the middle of the Bay Bridge, returning from a deposition that (fortuitously) got canceled at the last minute.

I had a similar near experience. I was supposed to be traveling on 9/11 (DFW to Charlotte) but it was pushed back a few days prior to us leaving.

When I did finally go after they opened up air traffic again, there were about 20 people on the plane and a news team interviewing the few people exiting the airport when we arrived.

[Billy Jingo]

Reagan getting shot - Down by the gym at school. A friend told us.

Challenger - In the day room at my barracks on Ft Campbell watching the launch.

9/11 - Driving down 635 listening to NPR. Pretty much the same thing I have been doing for the last 20 years at that time.

Learning what the Electoral College was - 1976 in the kitchen talking to my step dad. It was the stupidest thing I had ever heard of and I lived in Oklahoma at the time so that's saying something.

[Adam]

Nixon dying. It was a big deal to my parents because both of them had worked on the 1960 campaign.

Jackie Onasis dying. It is with some degree of irony that I remember this largely because I was in Dallas for my brother's graduation from SMU. It was only about a month after Nixon died.

[Billy Jingo]

Moon Landing - My brother took me outside, a farm house in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma, and pointed to the Moon and told me a man was walking on it. Probably my earliest memory.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Nixon dying. It was a big deal to my parents because both of them had worked on the 1960 campaign.

Jackie Onasis dying. It is with some degree of irony that I remember this largely because I was in Dallas for my brother's graduation from SMU. It was only about a month after Nixon died.

I was blissed out on pregnancy hormones at that time. I have a vague recollection of hearing that Nixon had died because the news made much of his "statesmanship." I did not actually know until I read your post that Jackie Onassis was dead; I guess I thought she had just faded from public view in her old age. She was someone special in our house, not just because she was Guinevere to JFK's Arthur, but because she was only 2 weeks older than my mom (and also a Leo), and they resembled each other somewhat. And I identified with her because she was a French major (as was I) who went into publishing, something I aspired to do at one time.

Well, now you know where I was when I found out Jackie Onassis had died. Right here.

[Gingersnap]

Hah! Nixon!

For some odd reason I was fascinated with Nixon's trip to China. I was way too young to realize the ramifications of that trip but......CHINA!

I was a precocious reader and had just finished Anthony Grey's Hostage in Peking. Also - I had just completed a super giant, extremely well executed art poster of a Chinese dragon for a school project with a very trenchant quote about 'sleeping giants' which escapes me at the moment.

Anyway, I made my folks wake me up at like 3:30 a.m. so I could see the televised 'cultural' parts of his trip. Acupuncture, Chinese plays, architecture, farms, etc. I think they thought I was doing something for school or 4-H.

To this day, there are some things so ludicrous that I characterize them as "bad Red Chinese ballet".

[phillygirl]

I was blissed out on pregnancy hormones at that time. I have a vague recollection of hearing that Nixon had died because the news made much of his "statesmanship." I did not actually know until I read your post that Jackie Onassis was dead; I guess I thought she had just faded from public view in her old age. She was someone special in our house, not just because she was Guinevere to JFK's Arthur, but because she was only 2 weeks older than my mom (and also a Leo), and they resembled each other somewhat. And I identified with her because she was a French major (as was I) who went into publishing, something I aspired to do at one time.

Well, now you know where I was when I found out Jackie Onassis had died. Right here.

We were talking about this at lunch the other day and I had to look up to see if she died before or after JFK, Jr., as none of us could remember.

A teacher told me about the Pope being shot. I thought it was a joke and asked him the punchline. I felt terrible when he told me it was true. I also still find it odd that he singled me out in the hallway to ask if I had heard.

[phillygirl]

JFK assassination, we were sent home from school.

Alaska earthquake, we were in the gym playing before school and the bleachers started swaying back and forth.

MLK and Bobby Kennedy assassinations because they were the same year. Can't remember where I was with MLK but I was at a slumber party after grade school graduation when BK was killed.

Moon landing was on my sister's birthday so I always remember it.

I just remember that Star Wars and Elvis dying was the year my son was born.

Mt St Helens, May 18, 1980 - we lived in Portland and had the worst summer ever with ash all over the place.

The summer of '81 I met the I-5 Killer and was questioned by the Portland PD.

Saw Pope JPII in San Antonio parade, got great photos.

Challenger disaster, I was at my job and they brought in a tv from the board room. One of the loan officers had a brother who worked at NASA and she couldn't stop crying. Columbia disaster, we were up in WA thinking that this would be the end of the space shuttle program.

Oklahoma bombing we were in Hawaii.

OJ went on his ride in his white Bronco a day or two before our daughter graduated. We were in Yellowstone Park when the verdict came down.

9/11 we were in WA, woke up and the first plane had already hit.

Ummm...what??

[Michele]

Ummm...what??

It's an interesting story and I'll tell you about it when I get some free time because it's long.

[Tom Servo]

I don't really remember much of anything, to be honest. I must have a faulty brain-circuit.

I have vague memories of the elementary school announcing the Challenger explosion, and then going home and sitting right in front of the TV ("you'll go blind!" — I was sitting six inches from the TV because I was ALREADY blind, guys) and watching it on one of the 12 cable channels we had. Don't remember which one. CNN maybe? Or one of the Big Three. We may not have had CNN at that point.

Even more vague is the death of Princess Di, but I do remember the breathless coverage on the Cable News channels afterwards, for some reason.

I worked nights when 9/11 happened, so it was well into the third or fourth hour of repeated discussion on the teeveenewz by the time I woke up and turned on the TV. I think my father may have left a voicemail telling me some shit went down and to check it out. Moreso than watching the coverage was the drive in to work when none of the regular music radio stations were doing their thing, they ALL were carrying news or talking about the attacks. Some simulcast local talkers, some carried MSNBC or CNN audio, but none were playing music that I can recall.

More vivid than anything was arriving to work to utter silence except for the machinery. Normally the workplace allowed everyone to have their own radio and it was a bit of a cacophony from a distance. But all the radios were on just one station and turned down low. It was downright creepy and everyone was out of sorts. Some were morose, some were weepy and some were already angry.

About the only other "where were you" I really remember was when Hurricane Katrina first made landfall. Again it was at work, at night and my boss was freaking out because he was a New Orleans native and all his family lived there. Some worked for Entergy and they could not leave so they were put up in one of the hotels in the CBD and had to ride out the storm and flooding there. This being before smartphones and fast cellular internet, we wound up listening to 870 WWL since it is a clear channel station. Their reporting was phenomenal.