Where Was I When

So last Friday was the 17th anniversary of the O.J. Simpson car chase. Some guys on this podcast I was listening to earlier this week were doing the whole "where were you?" thing regarding that evening.

I do remember that night - my story is kind of boring, though. I was at home, a high school graduate of about three weeks, watching the whole thing unfold on television on a split-screen with the NBA Finals.

That's not the main point of this post, though. I started wondering after thinking about the O.J. thing - what are the other significant news events where I can remember exactly where I was when I heard about it?

Challenger space shuttle explosion. This is probably the first significant one I remember. I was in the fourth grade and we had just settled into our chairs in Mr. Towers' room after lunch when he told us the bad news. It was significant to me because astronomy was one of my big interests at the time, and Mr. Towers was an astronomy buff - I attended many a "star party" thrown by that man. We had been talking a lot about the Challenger thing and Christa McAuliffe, the teacher in space, leading up to the launch. I think there were probably some exciting Challenger-related classroom activities planned for the afternoon of January 28, 1986. So it was pretty shocking for a 10-year-old kid to find out - uh, that thing we were so excited about happening - well, it just had the worst possible ending. Interesting detail of this story is that Mr. Towers found out the news from my dad, who I guess had seen it on TV and gone down to the school to deliver the bad news. How times have changed. . .

Magic Johnson HIV positive. This one is kind of random, but I do remember pulling up to the house after returning from yet another trip to Alamosa, when the DJ mentioned between songs on KOB-FM out of Albuquerque that Magic had the AIDS virus and was retiring from the NBA. Happy, smiling, Magic Johnson? AIDS? What? But he's still around so I guess that worked out okay in the end.

Death of Ezra Taft Benson. I was delivering newspapers early morning at the time. I put the bundled stack in the car, picked the first one up, and there it was, below the fold on the front page of the Pueblo Chieftain.

Death of Howard W. Hunter. I was in the laundromat of the MTC in Provo when a member of the MTC Presidency got on the intercom and announced that President Hunter had passed away. We got on a plane a few days later for Seattle, and on my second day in the mission, I watched the funeral at the Silverdale Washington stake center.

Death of Gordon B. Hinckley. I might as well throw this in as long as we're doing the prophets, although it's kind of a lame story. I actually didn't hear that President Hinckley had passed away until two days later, and I believe I got the news from an LDS Living e-mail. I had to look up to see what I was doing at the time that woud have left me in the dark for 48 hours. I was working at a client, without internet access, and I believe I was fighting a cold. So that makes sense, I guess.

World Trade Center Attack. I was in my last semester at BYU. Elizabeth had a temporary job at the BYU employment office, so she had already left. I was at home in our Wymount apartment, getting ready for class and probably thinking about our third anniversary date for that evening - we had a sitter lined up. Elizabeth calls and tells me to turn on the television because we were under attack. And I was all "what?" and so I turned it on, I think just before one of the towers collapsed.

Assassination of JFK. Well, let's see, I was a premortal spirit and I was attending a farewell service for this guy Richard, who was going down to be born that afternoon, when this girl runs in and tells us that the president was shot. . . seriously, what were we doing?

Well, this post didn't turn out to be as interesting as I thought it might. So, sorry about that. On a positive note, I just ate a delicious orange.