RE: Fwd: Today in History

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> I personally had a interesting reliving of this
> experience when one of the younger trumpets in the
> Baltimore Ravens Marching Band was having trouble
> believing that yes I am 23 years old and a college
> graduate. So I said, "Here, I'll prove it to you -
> what were you doing when you heard that the Challenger
> Space Shuttle had exploded?" - thinking that he would
> say that he was too young to remember, and he replied
> "Dude, I wasn't *born* yet!"
>
> Yikes!

My truly awful age bummer was being down at some blacktop basketball courts near Trenton, shooting around, when a ball rolled into my court. A boy of about ten or so held out his hand in the international blacktop hoops symbol of "pass me the rock" while saying, "Yo pops, over here." Pops. Yep. Pops. That one hurt.

>
> As for myself, I was in Third Grade at the time, and
> my class was one of the only ones that would not be
> watching it live, as we had "Gym class" during that
> time slot at the end of the day.

We had a snow day that day. I was a senior in high school, and was on the phone with my girlfriend at the time. As we're talking, discussing whether or not I was going to stop by and see her since we were off, she says "My God, the space shuttle just blew up." Knowing that she was something of a wiseass, my immediate response was "Riiiiiiight, the space shuttle just exploded. Suuuuuuuuurrrre." She said to turn on the TV. I was stunned, but there it was, a cloud of smoke where the shuttle was. It was so surreal at the time, just unthinkable, given the usual caution that seemed to accompany every launch. Still, there it was.

Jim Sharkey

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