Where Was I When?

The 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon and the death of Walter Cronkite got me thinking about where I was for some of the happenings over the years.

November 23, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. I was a freshman at the University of Washington in Seattle. I had stopped at a small grocery store in the U District while walking back to my dorm from class. All of a sudden a young hysterical girl came into the store screaming that Kennedy was dead. None of us believed her until we got to a TV and saw the news coverage. That was a pretty sobering event; and I would guess that anyone who was alive and more than just a toddler can tell you exactly where they were when they first heard the news.

July 20, 1969, As Neil Armstrong from Apollo 11 took the first steps on the moon by man; I was sitting in my apartment at Knickerbocker Circle in Hampton, Virginia. I was down to my last 60 days in the Army and stayed up most of the night to watch the coverage. I was watching on a small Black & White TV I had bought at a Sears store. I bought it with my first, ever credit card. Thank you for that Sears.

May 18, 1980, Mount St Helens in the Southern Cascades in Washington blew up. I was still the Army Reserves and it was our drill weekend. We didn’t even know the mountain had erupted until one of our soldiers came back from church and told us. Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent in front of the TVs in the cafeteria. Living in the Puget Sound area we only got dusted with ash a couple of times, I sure would not have wanted to live in the main patch over near Yakima. We had some friends who lived there then and they say it was like nighttime at noon.

Any other significant events I’ve forgotten? Where were you for these?