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

[Iamtheway]

The first news I remember is when our prime minister Olof Palme was murdered in 1986. I remember it very vaugely though. I was 5 at the time. Then I have very clear memories of a murder that happened in 1989. It was a girl my age and I can still see her face clearly. It was the first time I realised that things like that could happen to children. 

9/11 was when I was at uni and I remeber spending all day in my room in front of the tv. 

When the tsunami happened I had been in Thailand only a few months earlier and I read everything I could get over.

In 2004 there was a murder in Sweden that was very well covered where a pastor in a small comunity convinced his nanny to kill his wife by making her believe it was Gods will. The case was crazier then anything you'd see on tv and I remember we spent every morning at work reading up on the latest news about it. 

[LurkerOverThePond]

26 minutes ago, Iamtheway said:

9/11 was when I was at uni and I remeber spending all day in my room in front of the tv.

Me too. I came back home from classes and my roommate asked me to come to her room to see what was going on. She told me there had been a huge accident in NYC and I remember us both watching in disbelief as the second plane hit the tower (we are 7 hours ahead of east coast USA), thinking how can two such accidents happen almost simultaneously, and then realizing it was no accident. We sat on her bed (me still in my coat and sneakers) for the rest of the day watching tv coverage and barely believing our eyes.

One of the first international news that I can clearly remember was the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. My parents were really worried since my sister was just an infant and the nuclear clouds were headed all over Europe. I wasn't worried, I was just a carefree 7 year old about to have my first ever summer holiday from school.

[HarleyQuinn]

9/11 for me didn't seem real at first. I was in high school, my teacher in the my first hour turned on the TV after the 1st plane hit and I didn't think of it other than an accident. Then I went to my 2nd hour class and saw the 2nd plane hit and completely went numb. I have family who worked at the Pentagon and I panicked all day until I heard from them.

[ScorpiousMalfoy]

I guess 9/11 was also the first big thing I remember. I was 5. We were all very worried, because my cousin had just emigrated to NY. Very scary.

[Carm_88]

As I said Lucien Bouchard was my first real national news memory, I vaguely remember OJ ad I do remember the OKC bombings. Jonbenet, I more so remember because my parents kept a closer eye on me. I remember Columbine because for some reason our teachers made us do, safety drills. Where we had to hide behind out desks. 

9/11, I was 12. I was supposed to be in school but there was a busing dispute and the parents were keeping the kids out of the school for safety reasons. We spent an hour on the bus before being sent home. That would make it around 9 NST. I remember, I was ust leaving the house as my Mom called out to me and showed me that all the channels were playing the same thing. Being 12, I didn't think it would change life as I knew it. I can remember watching all the coverage and then getting local news that there were 6000 people stranded in Gander. It was surreal. 

(Oh by the way, I asked my dad why Lucien Bouchard was such a memory and he said it was because, it was around the time we had Blackout 94. So I would have been listening to the radio, therefore, I probably heard about it a lot of times in the run of a day.)

[Casserole]

7 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

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. 

Imagine if it happened now instead... terrifying. Well it was terrifying then, too, but I mean from a government and not at all unified country standpoint. Ugh gives me goosebumps. 

My family still blames me for Princess Di's death. My sister had a school project where she had chosen Princess Diana and made this cardboard cutout doll with a pink suit and a pearl necklace. She spent forever on its little clothes. Obviously it was now summer and school was out, but she kept the stupid thing in our room. She and I got in a fight right before bed and I ripped the doll's head off. The next morning mom woke us up and told us she had died and I shouted "WAS SHE DECAPITATED?! I KILLED THE PRINCESS" But then really we should blame my sister for basically making a voodoo doll. 

[KelseyAnn]

My first real memory of something big is 9/11. I was in the second grade and we all watched it on tv but the teacher never told us what was going on so we all thought it was some sort of movie. Then we got sent home early. 

[VelociRapture]

I was 13 when the 9/11 attacks happened. We lived about an hour outside the city and a lot of kids had parents that worked in Manhattan. The District decided that staff weren't allowed to mention anything to us - but we all knew something was really wrong. My Language Arts teacher had clearly been crying before class. She explained the next day that her boyfriend worked a few blocks from the towers and she couldn't reach him all day (he was fine.)

Pretty much every parent able to was there after school got out to pick us up. My mom grabbed me real quick and started to explain things in the car. She left work early because my brother (who was 11) had been home sick and called her because he was scared and confused at the reports on the news.

My husband was a year ahead of me in the same school District. His history teacher (who I had the next year and who I adored) disregarded the District decision and let them watch the news the entire class. He said it was a major historical moment, they were old enough to handle it, and he'd be a piss poor history teacher if he kept them from seeing it in real time.

----------

Other than that, I don't remember specifics of anything earlier. I remember being sad when Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died. And I remember telling my mom and another adult that President Clinton was a bad man. No clue why I said that or whether news of the affairs had broken at that point. I was probably around seven or eight (so around 1995 or 1996.)

ETA: I remember the coverage about Elizabeth Smart as well. She's a few months older than me - I remember that a lot of us kids at the time didn't understand what Stockholm Syndrome was or why she didn't try to escape. 

[nastyhobbitses]

My school didn't tell us what was going on, since more than a few kids had parents who worked in downtown Manhattan (I think there were three kids in my graduating high school class who lost a parent, and one whose dad was permanently disabled from injuries he sustained while escaping). So I was a snitty little shit and was all pissed off that they canceled some after school activity I wanted to do. When I got off the bus, my mom told me what happened. I didn't believe her, because the only time I'd ever heard about terrorism was in action movies or when we talked about Israel in Hebrew School. Terrorism didn't happen in America. But then I went into the living room and there it all was on CNN. My parents didn't turn off CNN for two days.

That night was also the first time I realized that adults I loved could be wrong and do wrong things. My mom got rip roaring drunk (hell, I would have too were I an adult then), and I will always remember her slurring "AND IF SOME RAGHEAD TRIES THIS SHIT..." at the dinner table that night. I'd never heard the word "raghead" before, but I knew it was wrong and hurtful. I'd met Muslim people before and they weren't bad people. I couldn't understand why my mom would say a thing like that. She always taught me not to say things like that. I know now that she was just angry and confused that night, and I know for a fact that she now has no ill will towards Muslims (in fact, she's active in protests against the Muslim bans these days), but that was the first time I realized I couldn't have blind faith in adults anymore.

[Jilli]

I had just turned 14 when 9/11 happened. I was in Math class and the teacher got a phone call from her husband. So she took the tv from the back of her room and placed it in the front and hooked it up. I had an Ortho appointment that day, and they had the radio on. My mom picked me up for a Drs. Appointment and asked me if I had known anything. So I told her, and she told me a little bit more. And the turned on a radio station that usually had 90s music, and we heard Peter Jennings. It shifted so much of my world view.

 

It was the first time I had watched news non-stop. My parents couldn't really answer my questions and that's the first time that happened. 

[WhoompThereItIs]

9/11 wasn't the first news story I remember, but definitely the most vivid. I was in high school, and didn't hear about the attacks until my 2nd period class (Economics) because my first period class didn't have a tv. I was shocked when my friends told me a plane flew into one of the towers (thought it was an unfortunate accident), and then frightened when we watched the plane fly  into the 2nd tower. We ended up watching the news for the rest of the day. I was very scared for my brother at the time, because he was in college in NYC and lived near the towers. I remember calling him frantically on a payphone from school to make sure he was ok. He later told me he saw the towers go down from his dorm room.

[FundieCentral]

I vividly remember 9/11 as well. 

I was at my dad's house, and it was early in the afternoon (Europe) and We just stared at the TV in silence for 4 hours or so. When the 2nd/3rd/4th plane hit I remember my dad screaming and saying "oh my god, no!" and crying. I remember asking why the planes were flying into the buildings, and my dad to protect my 4-year-old heart (bless him) said it was because the buildings were so tall. 

For the next 2 years I refused to stand next to tall buildings because I thought a plane would fly into them. Still scared of skyscrapers. 

I also remember the Columbia explosion quite vividly, and the death of Pope John Paul II (I am catholic). 

[Chickenbutt]

I saw the first report on 9/11 as I was ending my shift in the ER. I was walking thru an empty exam room and another nurse has the news on. I stopped to watch for a minute and that's when the first plane hit.

My oldest son was in Basic Training at that time, and the only thing I could think of is that he would be deployed to the Middle East as soon as his training was over. I called Mr. Butt and told him to turn on the TV. I stood there watching the news for the next hour or so, then drove home, crying all the way. I was horrified by what had happened and worried about what it meant for my son.

Conclusion: My son finished his training, got sent to Korea for a year, then was assigned in California. He never had to go to the Middle East.

[nausicaa]

My parents didn't watch the news a lot but still got the newspaper delivered, which lends these anecdotes an old timeyness not due to them, but will definitely add some panache when I tell them to youngins as an old lady. 

I remember my mom getting the paper and saying, "Oh no, Jackie O died!" and then explaining who she was to me. I would have been ten. 

And I remember my dad getting the paper and announcing "Whelp, looks like Nixon died" and later watching the televised funeral. My parents expressed an odd mixture of "poor guy" and "he really messed up though" that I think a lot of their generation felt. 

I remember hearing about the first Gulf War, and they sold tee shirts at school as fundraisers for the troops, but I had no idea what was really going on and just knew "Saddam Hussein" was the villain. 

[JordynDarby5]

I was asleep the morning of 9/11 and woke up to the phone ringing and it wouldn't stop. So I answered it and it was my mom telling me  planes hit the World Trade Center. I was still half asleep and very confused planes hit a building? That sound like an accident but my mom wasn't sounding like it was an accident.  So I turned on the TV and saw the news. It was so unreal and so scary.  My dad was watching TV before leaving for work. The local news was on then suddenly switched over to New York.

I remember Columbine. I was a senior high school an hour away and it was just horrible and so scary. Watching students running from the school. Seeing the cops all over the school. The teen hanging out the window. Bomb squad sweeping the building. The 911 calls. The teachers let us watch the news for days afterwards. Then tried to convince us not to be scared but it didn't work. We were all terrified.  One of my friends knew one of the victims. I still remember her sobbing and a mess over her friend's death.

 

[Suz8710]

My first big news event I can recall was the OJ Simpson murder/car chase.

[TuringMachine]

The first big news for me was 9/11. I was in 5th grade, and my mom told me when we were walking home from school since they didn't say anything to us in school. Like @VelociRapture we were about an hour out of the city, and most parents worked there. I also remember that I didn't quite get what happened when she told me. Like, "oh someone flew a plane into a building? Weird." It started to sink in when we watched the news footage.  Then the next day at school the sat us down to talk to us about it, and I remember you could see the smoke from our classroom window. What I remember most vividly was watching news footage of them search for missing people. 

[singsingsing]

I was 13 on 9/11, in grade 8 math class. The principal came over the intercom and said, "There has been a very bad terrorist attack in the United States this morning." I thought she was talking about a school shooting and couldn't understand why she was coming over the PA to tell us. Then she said, "The World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington have been hit by planes." I actually didn't know what the WTC was (I was shocked when I got home and saw it on TV, how huge it was), but I knew what the Pentagon was so I knew it was serious.

The principal asked the teachers to talk to their classes about it. I've always thought that was weird because it seemed like the teachers had just learned about it from the announcement as well, but now I think they must have had some staff meeting that morning that I just didn't notice.

Went home at lunch with my younger sister, who told me the second tower had collapsed. Her class had been listening to it live on the radio. Watched the news all through lunch. I went on cnn.com and they had cut the website down to the bare essentials with a huge headline that said 'AMERICA UNDER ATTACK'. Called my mum who was working as a 911 dispatcher at the time, and she told me they were closing the border. That's when I got overwhelmed and started to cry. When we went back to school after lunch we all knew that one plane was still missing, and we were all on edge because we had no idea how many more attacks were coming and we thought the border might be hit. Many of my classmates had parents who worked in the States and were stranded there for a couple days.

I remember how weird it was not hearing planes for about a week after the fact. My mum heard military planes flying overhead that night, though, and it freaked her out.

[VineHeart137]

I was in middle school when 9/11 happened and I remember the initial terror because my father had left for a trip to New York that morning on an American Airlines flight. Then my teacher told me the planes that were involved were supposed to be heading to the West Coast. I still called my mom who had been able to get in touch with my dad. His plane had been diverted to South Carolina. But of course it was still really scary. Parents were picking up their kids left and right, I guess out of panic.

[zenbaby]

These are my earliest memories of national/international events:

• Centennial and Expo '67 in Montreal.  I went with my parents and it was a great occasion - I was dressed in a pink velour dress with black patent leather shoes.
• The election of Nixon in '68 (no idea why).
• Apollo 11 and the first lunar landing in 1969.
• The October Crisis in 1970.  I first became aware of terrorism.
• And when Pierre Trudeau married Margaret in '71.  It was splashed all over the front page of the paper.

[rexasaurus_nirb]

9/11 isn't my 1st memory but definitely my first "I'll always remember where I was" memory. I was in 7th grade right outside of the city and in fact, from parts of our town, the skyline was very clear in view. I was in English class and our principal came in and whispered something to the teacher and she looked panicked and tried to go on. The principal then came back and whispered something else to her and she ran out and he stayed and told us what happened (turns out her husband worked either in one of the buildings or right there). In our next period class, we all just kind of sat around being scared/in disbelief and one by one, our parents came and took us home. CNN was perpetually on after that and each day in school we listened to patriotic music. More than one classmate lost a relative on 9/11. 

 

[Jiraffe]

I definitely remember OJ, I think my mom and I might have watched the Bronco chase on TV as it happened actually. I remember Princess Diana's death vividly, I was about 15 and was watching something that night with my parents that got interrupted for the breaking news story. My mom always really liked her and we both cried, but I went to bed before finding out if she was okay or not because I was going out with friends the next day. My mom stayed up to watch, and woke me up in the morning by saying "time to get up...she did die." 

I lived in the states during the 2000 election, in a very red area of a mostly red state with my friend's very blue family. We had to hide our feelings about it in public through the whole long thing, and I remember hearing on the radio as we were driving home one day that Bush was declared the winner. My friend's mom was very sensitive and she had to pull over because she was crying.

All the 9/11 stories are so vivid. I think that has to be the biggest "I remember where I was when I found out" news story I've been alive for. I was a few days from turning 19 and had just started a new job, and was supposed to have a training session that night. It was an American company that was newly expanding into Canada. For some reason I slept on the couch the night before and I woke up to the phone ringing. It was my boss telling me not to come in that night, because "due to the events in the US head office is shutting down and closing all stores." I was half asleep and didn't get it and said "but I need the money", lol. She told me that wasn't really a concern right now and that I would be paid anyway, and told me to "stay safe." That woke me up. I asked what was going on and all she could say was "Turn on the TV." We hung up and I did, just in time to see footage of the second plane hitting the towers. I thought it was a movie and changed the channel a few times because I couldn't believe it. I was glued to the TV all day.

Even though I lived in Toronto, people were still scared. Nobody had any idea what was going on or what was next, and our flights were grounded too. Which like someone else said was really eerie, I lived on a flight path and was so used to the plane sounds. I took my dog outside to pee in the afternoon, and as he was pacing around looking for the perfect tree a fighter jet flew overhead. I have no idea why, I guess patrolling? It scared the shit out of me! I screamed at him to JUST PEE ALREADY, he did, and we ran as fast as we could back to the house. Never will forget that day.

[VelociRapture]

40 minutes ago, rexasaurus_nirb said:

9/11 isn't my 1st memory but definitely my first "I'll always remember where I was" memory. I was in 7th grade right outside of the city and in fact, from parts of our town, the skyline was very clear in view. I was in English class and our principal came in and whispered something to the teacher and she looked panicked and tried to go on. The principal then came back and whispered something else to her and she ran out and he stayed and told us what happened (turns out her husband worked either in one of the buildings or right there). In our next period class, we all just kind of sat around being scared/in disbelief and one by one, our parents came and took us home. CNN was perpetually on after that and each day in school we listened to patriotic music. More than one classmate lost a relative on 9/11. 

 

Yeah. It was definitely my first "Always remember where you were" event too.  

The second was probably Sandy Hook. I grew up one town away from Newtown and was still living there with my parents at the time. I was at work when I saw there was a school shooting in Connecticut. It was before news about fatalities came out and I remember how relieved I was that it wasn't the school my sister taught at (understandable, but I feel badly about that to this day.) We held a moment of silence a week later and I silently cried through it - it was the same day as our holiday party, which wasn't really fun because everyone was so shocked and horrified.

The aftermath was terrible. I know families who had children as students there and I know a few people who lost loved ones. I actually share cousins with Vicki Soto's mom. Her mom had just attended the wake for one of my elderly relatives a few months prior. And a former coworker from college lost his cousin - a reporter posing as one of her old friends called their Grandma and tricked her into giving a few personal details about his cousin to her. Nothing embarrassing or anything, but that really pissed me off.  

What that taught me more than anything though, was you can't trust national news that much. The local media outlets were far more respectful and decent to the families and those affected by the shooting - probably because they work and live in Connecticut too. We're such a small state that something big like that has a massive impact on all of us.

[melon]

The first big event,that I can remember,is JFK's assassination.I was 3,I have a good memory, my mother was ironing.

 

[Mela99]

9/11 stands out a lot, too. The plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was only about an hour from us. I was at home that day, and I got up early. My brother's best friend called really early -- I answered the phone and he told me to go turn the TV on. I was watching when the second plane hit the towers. My mother called from work -- she worked at an elementary school -- and was flipping out and told me to go to the basement or the bathroom.  All the schools went on lockdown because of the plane that hit the ground. I don't remember much else of the day. Just watching . 

I was awake when they caught Saddam - I was an early riser for some unknown reason at that time - and I remember the news conference coming on and the "we got him" statement.