01/28/1986

Those born Sept. 11, 2001 will turn 6 this year. They'll be just old enough to start to comprehend things if they happen to watch the evening news. What will that feel like?

 

I was in fourth grade whent he Challenger exploded. My teacher sent me to the office to pick up a memo or something for her, and they had it on a TV there. Guess it was an hour or so after it happened, in early afternoon. I just glanced at it and saw the rockets going, and thought it was a picture of Halley's Comet. Didn't find out about the shuttle until I got home a couple hours later and my sister told me.

 

I was out of school that day. Snow day in the Deep South.

We were outside playing in this foreign substance when one of the older kids in the neighborhood came outside and told us. We shrugged our shoulders and went back to making snowballs.

7-year olds. Yeesh.

 

I was desk supervisor (pulling an odd day shift for a change) at my bureau, watching the space shuttle coverage on TV while I was taking a call. I just stopped talking to the guy on the phone and hung up without explanation.

 

It was intersession and I was a junior in college. Normally, I slept until 9:30-10, but because I had a day shift at the paper I was working PT at, I was up. My roomie was getting ready for work and called me out to the TV.

Like on Sept. 11, 2001, my brain was having a hard time processing the images in front of me. I couldn't make it fit in my mental Samsonite. But I remember Tom Brokaw in that sonorous voice of his pointing out various elements of the tragedy.

Where I live, there are plenty of reminders about the Challenger, since it was built up here in the AV. There's an elementary school (Challenger) and a community center named after it.

When Columbia exploded in 2003, they were in the middle of building a new high school that was going to be named after Pete Knight, a test pilot, Air Force officer and longtime assemblyman/state senator from our area. There was a movement to re-name it Columbia High.

Unfortunately, it was rejected. Instead, they re-named one of the streets here Columbia Way.

Cranberry, normally, I would say "nice thread." But this isn't a nice topic.

Instead, I'll say it was a well-deserved thread. :'(

 

Damn smart people at NASA.

Edit: I hate myself for having spellers block.

 

Freshman year, PE class, first hour, sitting on the curb, waiting for the teacher to come out and the day's basketball games to start.

Nobody picked up a ball that day.

 

I was in sixth grade. I think we came in early to watch it and after it happened, the teachers huddled with a principal and they canceled school. I think we missed the next day as well. Our first day back, as a class project, we wrote letters to the families of the seven who died.

It's one of a handful of dates during my lifetime where I think everybody my age (33) remembers where they were when it happened.

 

Freshman at my local Juco, my HS pals and I are sitting in the cafeteria, and one of my other friends walks in, the joker of the group.
He says he was watching CNN before coming in and that the shuttle blew up.
We all thought he was joking, then a minute later, another guy said the same thing.
Then we knew it was true.
We walked up to the TV in the student lounge and it was on CBS, and once you saw the tape, you knew there was no hope.

 

We’re the same age Mizzou and I remember several things vividly:

-We lived in the Tampa, FL area, and if you looked out to the East you could see a trail of white smoke going from the horizon to the sky -- it was the trail of the shuttle. I’m serious. Maybe some other Floridians could verify. It was spooky and weird.

-There were a lot of people walking around at school saying it was the Russians that shot it down. I believe that same year, the Russians had shot down a Korean airliner.

 

Fourth grade, and our science class was all excited about watching TV instead of sitting in class. We were in the library watching the liftoff and ascent and then everything suddenly exploded on television. I think it took about a 10 seconds for everything to register with anyone, because we all just sat with blank expressions on our faces, looking at each other as if to ask, "What happened?" before the teacher came over and immediately turned off the television.

 

I was three; I have no recollection, obviously.

I watched the entire NASA video with audio last night. Christ.