Where Were You When...

...Kennedy was assassinated? I was in a history class at SMHS with Mr. Mitchell. Someone came to the portable classroom we were meeting in to tell Mr. Mitchell to turn on the TV. Needless to say, all class was suspended as we sat wanted to hear news that it was not true. How could this happen in America? Surely, he wasn't dead; maybe he was just wounded. No, it was true and JFK was dead and Jackie was riding in the car in a pink suit and hat with red blood all over her and a look of horror on her face.

...July 20, 1969; the day of the first lunar landing? We were living in Lake City SC but had been to Travelers Rest for the weekend. As we traveled by the Air Force base in Sumter, we were passed by a tractor trailer truck. I was riding with Diana in my lap (I know...no lectures about how unsafe that was) and we were playing a pacifier game. As the truck passed, I grabbed her pacifier out of her mouth and pretended to throw it out the car window to the "BIG TRUCK." Of course, I still held it in my hand just in case of one of the temper tantrums she was prone to at two years old. She thought I'd thrown it to the truck though and she never took a pacifier again. By the time we arrived home in Lake City, Diana was asleep but I woke her so she could watch the moon walk. She was just slightly over two so she doesn't remember but I wanted her to be able to tell her grandchildren that she "saw" it on TV.

...Nixon resigned? We were living in Statesville NC and I was a stay-at-home mom. I spent my morning glued to the television. It was a sorrowful time for the Nixon family and also a sad time for our nation.

...911? I was working at Furman University when my mother called me to say a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. We were talking about it, not knowing or even suspecting that terrorists had commandeered the plane. As we talked, the second plane hit and we then knew that these were not accidentals strikes. Lonita and I walked back to the Military Sciences offices so that we could watch on tv. We were there when the Pentagon was struck. It was good to watch with the military men that were later deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. They sat with tears in their eyes, as did I. At that time, we were all Americans first and foremost and we couldn't believe that someone/some people were able to do this in America.

Where were you when...?