Witness to History

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 4 (Jan 22-28)
Prompt: Witness to History
#52ancestors

I have asked relatives at different times, “What is the news event that you will never forget?”  

 My parent’s generation remembered Pearl Harbor. Each one that I talked to remembered exactly where they were and how they felt. My Mother was 11 years old. She was listening to the radio with her family when the news announcer broke in to announce the attack on Pearl Harbor. She didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was located, but she remembered how upset her parents were when they heard the announcement. 

Most of my generation talked about the event that I will always remember.  I was in the 2^nd grade when the principal came to our room and had our teacher step into the hallway. When she came back into the classroom, she was crying. The fact that the President had been shot didn’t shock me as much as my teacher crying. They let us out of school early that day, so I walked home with my brother and sister. When we got home, my mother was watching TV. She quickly turned the TV off, but I still didn’t understand the impact of John F. Kennedy being killed.

 For my children’s generation there have been several events that impacted them the same way. My daughter was 8 when the Challenger exploded. She was at school and her teacher had brought a TV into the classroom so they could see the Challenger launch with teacher, Christa McAuliffe.  They quickly shut off the TV once it was clear what had happened, but she will always remember the shock of seeing it explode. 

 My son was 4 years younger and doesn’t remember the Challenger.  9/11 is the event he will always remember.  He was a freshman in college and on his way to work at the Museum of Natural History when he heard the news on the radio.   “It was hours after the fact, and people still had no idea what really happened other than the planes had hit the World Trade center.  Driving to work was almost surreal because instead of the normal drive it was like everyone was driving in formation on the highway, no speeding or cars jockeying for position like normal.  Then all day at work sneakily switching one of the TVs used for the exhibit we had going on (I can't even remember which one it was) flipping from the looped tape it had playing over to the local news channels to see what was being said.  Next to no one came into the Museum that day.”

 I wonder what some of my ancestors might have remembered.  The flu outbreak in the 1920s, the Spanish American War, one of the battles in the Civil War, Lincoln being shot, or hearing about the American Revolution battles or the Declaration of Independence.

What news event will you always remember, where you were, and what you were doing when it happened?