Where were you in '63?

Tom Dunlap

Tom Dunlap

Here from the beginning
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Retired in Minneapolis
Everyone has historical moments that they remember like they are happening right now.

For us Baby Boomers today is one of those days.

I was in 4th grade at St. Timothy's Catholic School when we got word that JFK was shot. Classes went right into a Mass.

What is your marker day?
 
Tom is waxing nostalgic on us. First the Edmund Fitz and now this. I was in 5th grade. The district decided not to tell the elementary students about it. When I got off the bus, a nosy neighbor was blabbing to everyone. Never had a grief counselor though.
 
I was home sick in front of the tv. My mother was in the kitchen on the phone I went in to tell her and the bawling starting. It was a life changer for me. I couldn't understand what kind of world we live where someone would kill a president. The question remains unanswered.
 
Tom, the Challenger explosion is permanently etched in my brain. I was a Virginia Tech aerospace engineering student at the time and the mood was somber throughout the department.

9/11 and the shootings at Virginia Tech were also one of those never-forget moments. When the second plane hit—my news from a radio broadcast—I was initially alarmed the Russians were attacking. That thought must have emerged more from cold-war rhetoric than the actual circumstances at the time. I was in the flight path for landing at runway 23 in Norfolk, Virginia and I'll never forget the queue of airliners.

I would add Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. about WMD in Iraq to that list, because I had tremendous respect for the man at the time. Obviously my trust in the clandestine workings of the U.S. government took at hit as a result of that speech.

I was in a Sears by the TV sets when the Virginia Tech shootings occurred and it was being broadcast on twenty screens at once. I had taken many engineering classes in Norris Hall and one of my former summer employees was a student there at the time. I still shudder at the thought of a grisly scene of mass murder in an institution that I consider a summit in humanity's quest for knowledge, compassion, and an improved understanding of our place in the universe.
 
Playing Monopoly when the news came. The whole house got still and quiet, and nothing was the same after that; the day the music died?
Other markers, sheesh, the protests before and at the '68 convention, Woodstock in '69...then life got pretty boring after turning 20.
 
I wasn't born yet, but other markers I remember. Nothing more imprinted in my brain like 911. What a nightmare so sad. Still hate looking at the skyline from my home area and not seeing the towers. So many great people died that day.
 
I was 3 and my memory of the day is not clear. Was it then or some year later in the retelling? I do remember his son's salute and how tragic and yet in a way illustrative of the naivety of youth.

John Lennon's murder stands out. It left me jaded as to what people would do out of some misguided logic. This really set the tone for all future events, like the Challenger, 911, and all the school massacres.

The real marker though, my first wife's passing. It was a great loss for my children but freeing for me. I know that sounds harsh but it's the reality of having to stand by someone you don't wish to be with yet feel morally compelled to.
 
Challenger Explosion - 10th grade @ military academy boarding school

9/11 - working as software tech support/data conversions analyst @ fund raising software co

Hurricane Katrina - at home stunned...wondering if it would be worth it to take the saws and skidsteer to Louisiana
 
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JFK: I was walking in the north hallway, across from the library in elementary school, headed to the principal's office. The mean old lunch lady, probably 30 years old, threatened to send me to the principal's office if I did not eat my orange, so I threw it in the trash can.
911: 30 minutes into my 45 minute treadmill workout at the gym, I remember watching both CNN and Fox News at the same time, CNN cut out for commercial just before the second building went down. Bad timing to keep the sponsors happy.
OJ Simpson verdict: 38,000 feet over Nova Scotia returning from Europe. listening to an HF radio because we were expecting the ruling. I had been a cop at LAPD and this really hit me in the gut.
My mother's is passing: Just exiting the employee parking lot headed home.
My father's passing, I don't remember exactly where I was, it was rather expected.
It is interesting how that shock factor works.
 
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