I wrestled yesterday with the idea of posting about the 20th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. I ultimately decided against it because I figured that no one really shares stories about Challenger anymore. Challenger was the Flashbulb Moment for folks of our age group, but has since been overshadowed by another moment. But I read a fairly moving retrospective online today that led me to change my mind. Not about telling the Flashbulb story... most of us have the similar stories: I was at home, it was a snow day, I was watching The Price is Right, CBS broke in, and that was that.
I was just moved by this story at MSNBC, one of the reporters who was on the scene and covered the story extensively back in the day. It dispels a few myths that we'd (or at least I had) come to believe over the past two decades. But more than that, it's just an effective remembrance.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Surly Bonds, 20 years on
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
I'm glad you posted this -- I think people of our certain generation do not share stories of this moment in time because they are mostly mundane stories (Mine is like yours... I was in the stairwell at the jr high school coming up from our Library time and heard in the hallway -- the 8th grade science class had been watching it live). But I think the poignancy of that moment (for our generation anyway) is that it DID catch us all in various mundane moments of our own little lives. Probably the same way the Kennedy assassination did in our parents generation. I just remember it being the first really bad thing to happen in the world that I felt any connection to at all. To go 12-13 years without understanding that kind of national, global tragedy -- well, it really was an enormous loss of innocence (pardon the use of that OVERused phrase).
The only other moment I can think of my from my adolescence/teen years that touched me the same way was the eve of the first Gulf War, when the CNN reporters were under a table in the middle of a warzone.
I suppose 9/11 was like that for its generation. It was certainly a horrific and unexpected day that will also earn a "flashbulb" moment status in our lives... but our gen had Challenger first, and then almost 20 years of MTV, CNN, and Internet overstimulation to wear away the remaining innocence we had left.
Thanks for posting this.
Post a Comment