Dillards 27 - Allergies, Fever, and the Dangers of Being a White Baby

[VineHeart137]

I want to say the first big event I remember is Princess Di's death, mainly because it happened on my birthday.

Funny thing is, I thought I "remembered" the baby Jessica thing, but looking up the story I realize it happened before I was born! I think what I'm remembering is the movie. I want to say my grandma was watching it and while I wasn't really watching with her, I was in the room.

[send*the*ferrets]

I remember my mom crying about baby Jessica and I still won't walk on drain covers and don't like my kids to do it either. It makes absolutely no sense that she fell down that hole- I can't even work it out in my head. I remember her singing on the news (baby jessica, not my mom).

I remember my teacher putting on the radio and telling us we would always remember where we were when we heard the OJ verdict. I had no idea the ramifications at that time. I do remember the Rodney King riots the year or so before the OJ trial as well. 

[ViolaSebastian]

29 minutes ago, season of life said:

Anyone remember Steven Slater causing that JetBlue incident in 2010? I mentioned it in my old diary, but I wrote the wrong name. I thought it was crazy and funny.

Oh man, I had to look this up but I instantly remembered the incident as soon as I saw his photo. You have to admit, sliding down the evacuation slide with a beer in each hand was a hell of a peace out. 

[GoddessOfVictory]

My first major news event that I vaguely remember was the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was too young to understand why people were celebrating.

Anyone remember the deaths of the Heaven's Gate cult members? For the longest time I confused that one with Jonestown.

[ViolaSebastian]

2 minutes ago, GoddessOfVictory said:

Anyone remember the deaths of the Heaven's Gate cult members? For the longest time I confused that one with Jonestown.

I remember them, especially the footage of the bodies covered by the purple shroud. They also all wore Nikes, if I remember correctly. Odd that a cult like that had members wearing such expensive shoes. 

[send*the*ferrets]

6 minutes ago, GoddessOfVictory said:

My first major news event that I vaguely remember was the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was too young to understand why people were celebrating.

Anyone remember the deaths of the Heaven's Gate cult members? For the longest time I confused that one with Jonestown.

I remember heaven'd gate- it was so bizarre- they thought they were going home in a spaceship behind a comet, right? 

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

 My parents watched the 6 o clock news every night for years, but like many kids, I was pretty oblivious to it.  At best I thought it was boring.  The earliest things I can remember actually being aware of were the Patty Hearst trial, the US bicentennial celebrations, and the Carter/Ford campaign all from the same year (1976, when I was 9.)   Which is interesting because those are all US events and I'm Canadian.   Oh, hold on, I do remember  Nadia Comenici (sp?) and  competing in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. And Princess Anne competing in the same Olympics, so that will have to suffice for Canadian news as noticed by 9 year old me.  

There are certain events that almost everyone who was around at the time remembers.  They remember the event and they remember where they were when they heard the news.  I wasn't alive when JFK, RFK, or MLK were killed, but I do remember when Reagan was shot and when John Lennon And Princess Diana were killed.

9/11 was the most vivid one for me.  I was teaching at an elementary school that day. It had big windows that looked out in the direction of the airport.  We could see planes landing and not a single one taking off. I was worried all day because my Dad was in flight on his way home from Ottawa when the attacks happened.  He was fine (his plane had been diverted to Winnepeg, where he was stuck for days until they let flights take off again) but we didn't hear that until later that day.

 I remember all the staff trying to be reassuring with the kids, but it was all very surreal and nobody really knew if there might be more attacks.  Most of us had seen the horrible footage on the news before work and somebody hooked up a  tv in the staff room, but it was impossible to process what was had happened.  A scary day.  Glad I was at work though.  Much better to be busy keeping other people calm than to have been home glued to the tv and waiting for my Dad to call. 

 

[GoddessOfVictory]

2 minutes ago, ViolaSebastian said:

I remember them, especially the footage of the bodies covered by the purple shroud. They also all wore Nikes, if I remember correctly. Odd that a cult like that had members wearing such expensive shoes. 

I remember the purple shrouds vividly.

1 minute ago, send*the*ferrets said:

I remember heaven'd gate- it was so bizarre- they thought they were going home in a spaceship behind a comet, right? 

Yes, the Hale-Bopp comet, which I remember seeing in the sky around that time.

[Exposed Collarbone]

3 hours ago, Incognito22 said:

I'm on the 13th of June but had a late party that year and got home to the bronco chase as a teenager.  For years that's how everyone remembered my birthday as the night we watched OJ.  

Fast forward last year I was at a wedding in Jamaica when Pulse happened.  I'm from Orlando and some of the medical staff including a trauma surgeon was there.  Our phones all began ringing at the same time we knew something was up.

My earliest memory I think was the challenger explosion. Possibly when Regan was shot but ik not sure if ok remembering the real thing or later news footage. 

I'm also a June 13th baby. I remember watching the news when I was in kindergarten and they showed footage of Reagan being shot. I was at school in the library when they showed the footage of Challenger.

One thing I remember from high school was the Anita Hill case when she testified during Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing. My friends and I spent a lot of time discussing the correct pronunciation of harassment. 

Oh, and for my freshman year of college I went to Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. Coincidentally the same college as Monica Lewinsky. 

[ViolaSebastian]

11 minutes ago, Exposed Collarbone said:

One thing I remember from high school was the Anita Hill case when she testified during Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing. My friends and I spent a lot of time discussing the correct pronunciation of harassment. 

Oh geez. Long Dong Silver and pubic hair on Coke cans when I was way, way to young to be hearing about either thing. I guess it got me prepared for Bill and Monica, though. 

ETA: I'm starting to realize the effect of having the television on CNN 24-hours a day during my childhood had on me. If a really big story broke in the middle of the night, my father would wake me up for it. To this day I love breaking news. Old habits die hard, I guess. 

[Audrey2]

My earliest national news memories (events that didn't directly happen to me, like my memories of watching the Bicentennial parade in my hometown or the Blizzard of 78) include the Iran Hostage situation and the failed rescue attempt (I remember eating breakfast listening to the news and hearing that the plan failed and servicemen were killed) and  the 1980 Presidential election, John Lennon getting shot (I was playing on the living room floor while my parents watched the news.) I was in third grade when Reagan was inaugurated. The students ate lunch in the hallway and a television on a cart was pushed into the hallway so we could see the inauguration. I then remember Reagan getting shot, and then the Pope a couple of months later. The Pope was shot while classes were going on, and I remember the other third grade teacher, who was Catholic, coming into my third grade class and telling us. She was crying. 

[season of life]

I'm a 1997 baby and I cannot remember 9/11. I've seen the footage and recorded reactions, but it feels so alien to watch and hear about people who witnessed it happening in real time. My political science professor lived near the area of the towers and at first he thought it was some joke/miscommunication. 

My mom had been alerted to pick up me and my sister from preschool. My father worked for the MTA and couldn't come home immediately because of the commotion. They were just incredibly confused by the whole event as it occurred.

[Bad Wolf]

I win the old fogey prize for my 1953 memory of the Queen's coronation. What do I get other than everyone's amazement?

 

[Shadoewolf]

Other big memory I have, now that I had time to think about it was living in the suburbs of Detroit and hearing about the crash of Flight 255, that killed all but one little girl. 

Shannen Miller the gymnast was my hero as a kid. Everyone said I looked just like Amanda Borden. I was really into the whole Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal.

I think most people like 10 and over remember where they were on 9/11. My mom called me in hysterics after the first plane hit and I remember seeing the second one coming in. What I remember most then though was the UNITY we all had as a country. We'd been attacked and every damn American was pissed. Race, economic status, etc just didn't matter. There was an American flag on every house or every yard for months afterwards.

[ViolaSebastian]

26 minutes ago, Shadoewolf said:

I jthink most people like 10 and over remember where they were on 9/11. My mom called me in hysterics after the first plane hit and I remember seeing the second one coming in. What I remember most then though was the UNITY we all had as a country. We'd been attacked and every damn American was pissed. Race, economic status, etc just didn't matter. There was an American flag on every house or every yard for months afterwards.

It really was a miracle that we didn't have large-scale attacks on minorities, riots, or large-scale looting immediately after 9/11. I know there were incidents, but it seems as though the U.S. mostly kept it together. 

[shiverful]

I'm Norwegian and remember being at my grandma's after school at 9/11 (Norway is six hours ahead of NY). We were turning on the TV and the biggest Norwegian broadcaster were sending the CNN cast of live footage. My grandma got really scared and did not understand what was happening.

She didn't understand any English and there was no translation at all, something that probably never had happened in an Norwegian channel before. In the end i had to try to translate some of the information about what had happened with my sixth grade English, which made us both really confused. Some things don't need to be translated though. When the towers fell we were both crying. 

Now I am a high school teacher and my pupils are born in 2001, which to me is weird to think about. They are the generation that never have experienced life before 9/11. 

[bal maiden]

Heaven's Gate happened one street over from where my in laws live. They had so many people driving by to gawp at the house that all the neighbors clubbed together to buy the house and knock it down. Still gives me the heebie jeebies driving round there though.

[Imagine20]

I vaguely remember the Challenger explosion. I remember the well thing because my uncle passed during it. I think the first "you'll remember where and when you were" was the OKC bombing. We knew it was a big deal when the teacher wheeled in the tv. Columbine happened my senior year of high school, and classmates and I thought that could totally happen at my school what with them holding a gun show in the arena every year.

9/11 was just something else, though. It was so odd not seeing planes flying overhead, and I remember watching tv that evening with kids holding signs and pleading for information about missing parents. I even remember one man's name, and I looked him up a few years ago and found out he was one of the victims. It's our generation's Pearl Harbor. The world as we knew it completely changed that day. 

[Fundie Bunny]

9 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

I remember being in the lunch queue and being told by a classmate that we (well, London) had won the Olympics, and then the next day 7/7 happened.

I remember very vividly how a member of the olympic comitee stated that he felt like after the 2004 bombings Madrid was an unsafe city. And then that happened. That should have been the moment we should have realizaded that what only matters to the olympic comitee is how much you are paying them

4 hours ago, season of life said:

I'm a 1997 baby and I cannot remember 9/11. I've seen the footage and recorded reactions, but it feels so alien to watch and hear about people who witnessed it happening in real time. My political science professor lived near the area of the towers and at first he thought it was some joke/miscommunication. 

My mom had been alerted to pick up me and my sister from preschool. My father worked for the MTA and couldn't come home immediately because of the commotion. They were just incredibly confused by the whole event as it occurred.

96 baby here, and i can't remember the actual event either. Which is weird, because I remember events that happened only a few days later.

[Kangaroo]

I don't really remember Princess Diana's death, but I remember around the same time the new motorway in our area had just opened and my mum took me on a bus to the city. You pass through this big tunnel, and I remember asking if that's where the Princess died and it was very sad. I would have just turned 4 around then, so I didn't really understand the concept of countries, or there being more than one tunnel!

September 11th was hard here too. My dad was flying back from the UK and I remember mum had woken up and it was breaking news on the morning television and radio. (The attacks would have been at about 1am here, so by the time people were waking up there was some understanding of what was happening).

I remember mum saying dad had called to say his flight was being rerouted because they couldn't fly over the middle East so he would be home late. At school (I was in year 2 at this point), it's all anyone could talk about. I don't think anyone really understood, but we knew it was sad and lots of people had died.

I'd say other big early events for me were the 2000 Olympics. Obviously massive here in Sydney and that's all anyone talked about or watched for a month. A happier and not so breaking news memory, but none the less, very important and very big event in the early years of my childhood.

 

[BlessaYourHeart]

I was 5 when 9/11 happened and I remember it so well. I was home from school (UK so ahead) and I was getting new wardrobes built into my room and we had a small TV in my room with BBC turned on when the news broke. I just remember the room going silent and everyone moving towards the TV and 7 people being crowded around this small TV. 

I remember watching it and being terrified. I was supposed to go to a birthday party but didn't because I wanted to stay home and watch the news and try to understand what was going on. 

Think it's where my fear of flying comes from 

[SweetLaurel]

2 hours ago, Imagine20 said:

I vaguely remember the Challenger explosion. I remember the well thing because my uncle passed during it. I think the first "you'll remember where and when you were" was the OKC bombing. We knew it was a big deal when the teacher wheeled in the tv. Columbine happened my senior year of high school, and classmates and I thought that could totally happen at my school what with them holding a gun show in the arena every year.

 

My son was in first grade during the Challenger explosion.  They had all the kids in the cafeteria/gym to watch it on tv.   I asked him about it after school, and he said, "We saw it, and a teacher blew up.  Our teacher was gone today and we talked about it at recess, and we are all pretty sure it was her."    I went into the school the next morning, to make sure she was there, otherwise I was going to have the principal go reassure the kids.   Ran into her in the hall, and told her and she started bawling, tears and everything,  "Oh, my poor kids, they must be so scared!" and literally Ran down the hall to her room.    I felt so bad I upset her so much.    Never hear about it but what I don't think of her.

[Skellington]

I'm a '96 baby here as well, but I remember 9/11 very well.
I was at Disney World for the first time about to go in the Haunted Mansion. I'm pretty sure they had the entire park evacuated in an hour or two.
Honestly, it's been nearly sixteen years, two more trips to Disney, and I'm still bitter, okay.

[nst]

6 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

I win the old fogey prize for my 1953 memory of the Queen's coronation. What do I get other than everyone's amazement?

 

re runs of Leave it to Beaver and Little house on the Prairie 

[Elvis Presby]

The first big news event I remember is Elvis dying.  4 months before that a commercial flight crashed in our small community and one of my classmates was killed, but I'm not sure if that was a national news story.