Past tragedies meme
Mar. 30th, 2004 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetThat "where were you" thing I've seen several places. I won't bother to say exactly whose version I cut-and-pasted for the questions because then I might be tempted to use an imaginary and tedious expression like "ganked from" ironically and you might all think I meant it.
1. When John F. Kennedy was shot (November 22, 1963)
I'll have to do a past-life regression thingy on this one and get back to you. But it was my dad's birthday (his seventeenth, I think).
2. When Mt. St. Helens blew (May 18, 1980)
I don't remember any details, but I'm likely to have been in my hometown in Ohio.
3. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded (January 28, 1986)
At school. I didn't know anything about it until I observed my then-girlfriend Melissa opening her locker between classes. "Watch out!" I said; "it's going to explode!" I meant her locker, unseriously. She then explained to me why my remark had been in poor taste.
4. When the 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco (October 17, 1989)
Probably in Wooster, Ohio, at college. I don't remember the day.
5. When the Berlin Wall fell (November 7, 1989)
Likewise. I have no specific memories associated with the event.
6. When the Gulf War began (January 16, 1991)
Athens, Greece, spending my junior year of college abroad. As there was only all of Turkey (and some water, depending on how you travelled) between us and Iraq, some of us expected anti-American terrorists to come out of the woodwork and shoot us if we spoke English in the streets. A week before, a group had come over from A Certain College in Schenectady A Couple of You Know Well for a 9-week program based at our school; one of the students was my roommate for a while. Their chaperone/adviser/instructor freaked out and demanded, among other things, that we Hellenize the names on our apartment door buzzers.
In fact a little while later some car bombs went off a block from my apartment, and I scarcely noticed it.
The previous weeks had seen some domestic rioting related to educational reforms in which some people had died. That all evaporated as soon as the war began; I guess people decided they wouldn't make the headlines anymore. Our families at home were worried about Iraq; it didn't seem profitable to tell them that Athens had been, conceivably, a much more dangerous place before the war began.
7. When the first World Trade Center bombing happened (February 26, 1993)
Here in Boston in my first year of graduate school. But I don't remember the day.
8. When OJ Simpson was chased in his White Bronco (June 17, 1994)
In my apartment in Cambridge, MA. My roommates and I watched the spectacle for a little while, finding it unbelievable that anyone cared enough to watch it. And yet.
9. When the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed (April 19, 1995)
I would have been here in Boston, still living in that apartment in Cambridge, but where I was exactly I could not say.
10. When Princess Di was killed (August 31, 1997)
Packing to move from a different Cambridge apartment to Brighton the next day. We were all saddened more than was perhaps explicable.
11. When Bush was first announced President (November 7, 2000)
Possibly here at work. The sadness was more explicable.
12. When the 6.8 earthquake hit Nisqually, WA (February 28, 2001)
In Boston or Salem. I don't remember the day.
13. When terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center (September 11, 2001)
At home in Salem, upstairs on my computer. Someone posted to a goth list I'm on that a plane had hit the building. And so on. Like many other people who felt the need to do *something*, J. and I tried to give blood at the nearby hospital.
I've written more about that day -- the entry for Sept. 11, 2002, I think -- if you care.
14. When Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas. (February 1, 2003)
Likewise, at home in Salem, upstairs. J., who was listening to the news downstairs while doing something in the kitchen, came up and told me, quite upset. In her youth she was an aspiring astronaut herself (I believe she went to Space Camp the year the Challenger exploded -- and the year the movie Space Camp came out, incidentally).
1. When John F. Kennedy was shot (November 22, 1963)
I'll have to do a past-life regression thingy on this one and get back to you. But it was my dad's birthday (his seventeenth, I think).
2. When Mt. St. Helens blew (May 18, 1980)
I don't remember any details, but I'm likely to have been in my hometown in Ohio.
3. When the space shuttle Challenger exploded (January 28, 1986)
At school. I didn't know anything about it until I observed my then-girlfriend Melissa opening her locker between classes. "Watch out!" I said; "it's going to explode!" I meant her locker, unseriously. She then explained to me why my remark had been in poor taste.
4. When the 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco (October 17, 1989)
Probably in Wooster, Ohio, at college. I don't remember the day.
5. When the Berlin Wall fell (November 7, 1989)
Likewise. I have no specific memories associated with the event.
6. When the Gulf War began (January 16, 1991)
Athens, Greece, spending my junior year of college abroad. As there was only all of Turkey (and some water, depending on how you travelled) between us and Iraq, some of us expected anti-American terrorists to come out of the woodwork and shoot us if we spoke English in the streets. A week before, a group had come over from A Certain College in Schenectady A Couple of You Know Well for a 9-week program based at our school; one of the students was my roommate for a while. Their chaperone/adviser/instructor freaked out and demanded, among other things, that we Hellenize the names on our apartment door buzzers.
In fact a little while later some car bombs went off a block from my apartment, and I scarcely noticed it.
The previous weeks had seen some domestic rioting related to educational reforms in which some people had died. That all evaporated as soon as the war began; I guess people decided they wouldn't make the headlines anymore. Our families at home were worried about Iraq; it didn't seem profitable to tell them that Athens had been, conceivably, a much more dangerous place before the war began.
7. When the first World Trade Center bombing happened (February 26, 1993)
Here in Boston in my first year of graduate school. But I don't remember the day.
8. When OJ Simpson was chased in his White Bronco (June 17, 1994)
In my apartment in Cambridge, MA. My roommates and I watched the spectacle for a little while, finding it unbelievable that anyone cared enough to watch it. And yet.
9. When the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed (April 19, 1995)
I would have been here in Boston, still living in that apartment in Cambridge, but where I was exactly I could not say.
10. When Princess Di was killed (August 31, 1997)
Packing to move from a different Cambridge apartment to Brighton the next day. We were all saddened more than was perhaps explicable.
11. When Bush was first announced President (November 7, 2000)
Possibly here at work. The sadness was more explicable.
12. When the 6.8 earthquake hit Nisqually, WA (February 28, 2001)
In Boston or Salem. I don't remember the day.
13. When terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center (September 11, 2001)
At home in Salem, upstairs on my computer. Someone posted to a goth list I'm on that a plane had hit the building. And so on. Like many other people who felt the need to do *something*, J. and I tried to give blood at the nearby hospital.
I've written more about that day -- the entry for Sept. 11, 2002, I think -- if you care.
14. When Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas. (February 1, 2003)
Likewise, at home in Salem, upstairs. J., who was listening to the news downstairs while doing something in the kitchen, came up and told me, quite upset. In her youth she was an aspiring astronaut herself (I believe she went to Space Camp the year the Challenger exploded -- and the year the movie Space Camp came out, incidentally).
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-30 08:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-30 08:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-30 08:53 am (UTC)That list alone tells you a lot about where my priorities are, I guess. :-)
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Date: 2004-03-30 09:44 am (UTC)Love you. Please keep writing, you are a bright spot in my otherwise droll life.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-30 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-30 12:49 pm (UTC)Actually, given that "droll" means "amusingly odd or whimsically comical" (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=droll), odds are pretty good that you meant to say that she is a droll spot in your otherwise un-droll life.
Of course, if your life is already droll, then