Where Were You When...

[RCMerchant]

Where were you on some important day in history?

On August 16th, 1969 was the second day of Woodstock. My Ma went. I was at home in Marlboro NY, being babysitted with my brothers by an old black woman and we watched TWO ON A GUILLOTINE (1965) on CHILLER theater. I was 7.

On April 4th, 1968, I was in a station wagon with my Ma in Wappinger Falls, NY and we heard on the radio that Martin Luther King had been shot. I was 6.

On March 30, 1981, I was watching TV in my Uncle Ron's basement when a news break came on annoucing Pres. Ronald Reagan had been shot. I was in Lawton, MI.I was 19.

On March 29, 1973, I was watching Scooby Doo and a news break came on with troops choppers pulling out of Vietnam. I was in In Paw Paw, MI. The war was over. I was 11.

On July 24, 1970, the Manson Trial was discussed on Channel 3 News with Walter Cronkite. It showde Charlie mugging for the cameras. It spooked the s**t out of me. I was 8.

Hows about you guys?  

Woodstock

[Trevor]

9/11: I was heading home after being given the afternoon off by my mentor and was ready to go out for the evening until I got home and saw what had just happened in New York, around 3 pm our time 😔

31 August 1997 when Princess Diana died: I used to live in a very noisy apartment block and when I woke up, the building was scary silent, even at 8 am on a Sunday morning. Once I turned on the TV, I found out why 😔

[lester1/2jr]

I used to deliver these cookie bouquet things. It was a job I had right after college. I did a delivery to the Airport Hilton in Boston the day after 9/11. I had no idea what was happening or what was coming next. Very spooky, particularly as one of planes had taken off from there. It was closed that day 9/12

[RCMerchant]

On the night of Aug.8,1974 me and my Dad were fixing to watch Jack Palance as DRACULA (1973) on TV when it was interrupted by Nixon resigning. I was 12.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was on my 10:00 break at Honee Bear Canning, and while walking through the office they had a small TV on in the office playing the news about the Towers. I left work and went home to call my Ma, who lived on Long Island to make sure she wasn't in the city that day. I was 39.

On July 16, 1969, I was in a Catholic orphanage when the nun rolled in a TV and we watched the 1st man walk on the moon. I was 6.

[Alex]

21st Dec 1988.

I was on a week's hillwalking with school on the isle of Arran. One of our teachers (Mr McNure, my art teacher) came in and told us that it had just came over the news that an airliner had crashed into the town of Locharbie. My mum's current neighbour was one of the first people on the scene and has alcohol problems to thIs day due to what he was that night.

24th Nov 1991.

I was working about 5am, driving past Ardrossan cemetery when it came over the radio the Freddy Mercury had died. The rest of the day nothing but Queen songs were played on the radio, something that wouldn't be repeated when other artists of a similar stature passed.

13th Mar 1996.

I was attending a Btech course and electronic and electrical repair that would end up some years later with me joining the RAF. I was fixing a tv when the news came on about a school shooting at Dunblane. The entire country recoiled in total disgust at such a thing and almost overnight fun ownership was subject to huge restrictions (not totally banned as many uneducated people think). There hasn't been another such event since.

11th Sep 2001.

Having completed my phase one training I had a couple of weeks off then reported for my phase two training. We assembled for our morning parade then marched into our crewroom where on a projection screen we saw the second plane hit. Immediately the base went up to the second d highest state of alert and stayed there for three months in case this was the start of a terrorist campaign striking across the world. Having been used to IRA bombings, our response was a well oiled machine. Although such bombings were on their way out by this point, the US finally stopping allowing fundraising for Irish terrorists within its borders was the final nail in the coffin.

8th Sep 2022.

Heading home after a visit to my mums. Trains were delayed and cancelled due to bad weather and we'd to get a minibus as far as Dundee. On the train we started hearing that the royals were all suddenly heading for Balmoral. We figured from this, that the queen had either died of was on the way out. Her death was confirmed an hour or two later. We had a rather nice pizza in Dundee between trains.

[ER]

I was in first grade and we were watching a video about Father Damien and the colony for the sick he ran in Hawaii---guilt tripping us over how we'd never be half so worthy---when this male teacher ran in screaming, "It blew up! The space shuttle blew up!" So our teacher turned off the video and turned on the news, which was on every channel, telling about the Challenger disaster.

I was off school for Thanksgiving in seventh grade when Freddie Mercury announced he had AIDS, which I thought was extremely sad; the next day he was dead, and I hadn't even got done processing that we were going to lose him. Ironically it had only been that summer, 1991, that I got into Queen to the extent I did. I hadn't even known he was sick.

I was in school in spring '95 when I heard about the Oklahoma City bombing, and it shook me up even more so because rumors were going around that federal buildings were being targeted, and at the time my dad worked in one.

I was coming out of the Hundred-Mile Wilderness in Maine when I heard Princess Diana and three others in the car with her were killed. I was shocked but I also felt it was wrong of her to assume the privilege to be driven at an excessive rate of speed on a public roadway, putting other lives in danger, whether she was being followed or not. Had laws that should apply equally to everyone been obeyed, she would probably still be alive. It was a heavy price for her and her motherless children to pay for disobedience and a lack of wisdom.

I remember a huge, huge deal was made among people I knew in New England when JFL Jr. and his wife and sister in law went missing in a plane crash, so I remember the exact moment I heard, because one of the girls I was with burst out crying. To me it was more news, to them it was like losing a family member, I guess, so from their reactions this event sticks out more in my mind than it would have back home.

I was home and glad to be there when the year 2000 dawned, and when the exact second of midnight hit, I think everyone paused to look and see if the lights were going to go out because of Y2K. People 1, computers 0.

My mother called and woke me up to tell me about the WTC in 2001. No other news story comes close, it was a life-dividing event, before and after from then on. It was as shocking as it was horrifying, and I hope those members of the FBI who played games by sitting on intelligence federal law mandated they share feel deserved guilt for the rest of their lives. There are good reasons the FBI is disliked by so many other federal agencies. Ever dealt with those a***oles, you'd know.

I was driving home from the store when I heard Benazir Bhutto had been murdered, which upset me. Some people I worked with had previously had assignments in Pakistan and had met with her and spoke highly of her, and I always wished her success. She was much too overconfident. She was a female leader, like Margaret Thatcher, I particularly admired.

Cold winter morning in early 2016 I was downstairs beginning the day when I looked at my phone and saw DAVID BOWIE DEAD. I felt total disbelief. It was an event I had never paused to think would one day come to pass. It seemed impossible. I was in shock. The deaths of some people I knew personally didn't rattle me as much in some cases as losing Bowie, because from Labyrinth in my childhood, through a score of great songs, he'd been there all my life.

I was sitting on a sofa following the grim tidings out of Scotland concerning the queen's health, and had to leave and do some things, came back maybe half an hour later and saw across the bottom of the screen on the BBC (which I got off YouTube) THE QUEEN HAS DIED. It felt like a massive moment in modern history, and no cliché to say it was the end of an era. I was far sadder over her passing than that of her ex-daughter in law, for all that Diana's end has been so untimely and tragic.

[RCMerchant]

When my late brother Richie was born, I was with my Aunt Carol and brother Mike watching the PLANET OF THE APES at the theater.. It was Oct 15, 1968.

On the Bicentinel of July 4, 1976, Me, my sister Brenda, and our neighbor Ann Rock and her Mom went on the Freedom Train in Kalamazoo, MI.
Does anyone remember the Freedom Train?

On Sept. 8, 1986, I was eating sphagetti in my apartment in Lawton, MI. when I heard on the TV Jeffery Dahmer was arressted. Yikes!

[retrorussell]

Challenger explosion of 1/28/86: I was in Oceanography class in Junior High (senior year).  We watched it live on TV.  My teacher, Mr. Hadder, cried.  I was shocked, but recall it looking like rabbit ears the way the parts flew in different directions.

9/11: I didn't hear about it until I got back home from work at 9am or so.  My friend left a message on my phone: "Turn on the news.  It's bad."

Elvis' death, 8/16/77: I was too young to really grasp its importance, but I remember a news alert interrupting my game shows (summer break).  It was one of those bumpers that lead into the news story that simply had something like NEWS ALERT or BREAKING NEWS or something on the screen, with frantic typing sound effects or something similar in the background.  I was probably at my grandma's.  She was delighted to have us kids over whenever possible and she was one hell of a cook.

[claws]

2000 - The world welcomes the Millennium, and I was sleeping in my bed.

[ER]

Death, death, death. Can't any of we ghouls  remember positive events, like bin Laden and his kids getting whacked?