Do You Have a Kennedy Moment?

What do I mean by Kennedy moment? Okay, in my life time, I have heard these words at least a hundred times, "I remember exactly where I was the day they shot Kennedy."

My mother told me her story about where she was when she heard the news. She was home alone. She had all her chores done, and she was sitting in my grandpa's big chair, listening to the Beatles on the radio. She was also eating a bowl of strawberry ice cream. The DJ interrupted the music to announce that President Kennedy had been pronounced dead. My mother started to cry hard. So hard she hadn't paid attention to the spoon still in her mouth. As she clenched her teeth as she cried, she bit down so hard on the spoon that she broke her front tooth in half.

All my life, from some of my earliest memories of my mother, I can remember her cussing because her tooth was giving her problems. She was always having to return to the dentist to have it recapped, or worked on in some way. I was 32 years old the first time my mother shared her Kennedy moment with me. All my life I had known she had a tooth that was a real pain in the ass to her, because that's exactly what she called it...lol. But I never knew how she came to have that bad tooth until only 2 years ago.

I have two Kennedy moments; two dates in history that I will never forget, and I will always remember where I was and what I was doing when these dates occurred. The first date occurred when I was still very young. It was 1985. I was in the fourth grade. My teacher's name was Guillum. I was sitting in the second row, second seat from the window. The teacher rolled a big tv up to the front of the class so we could all watch the space shuttle Challenger take off with a civilian teacher inside. The teacher turned out the lights, and we all watched and counted down with NASA. Then the shuttle flew off and we all cheered. Then, moments after take off, the shuttle exploded right before our eyes. The teacher stood there in utter silence. Some of the kids in my class had started to cry. Then the teacher started to cry. She didn't know what to do with us, so she told us all to go to the gym for an extra recess. After that, well, it was a rough day, to say the least.

Since I wrote so much about my first Kennedy moment, I'll spare y'all the other one.

 

^^I know, I'm an old fogey!

 

My dad always did the "where I was when Kennedy was shot" thing, but he was only 2 years old so it wasn't much of a story.

I guess the only one I really remember would be 9/11. I remember more from that day than I do about most of my life from age 15-19.

I remember being in bed, age 14, and my mom opening my door like she usually did to wake me up for school. Except this time instead of "time to wake up or you're gonna be late!" it was "wake up and turn on the news".

I turned on the news, saw the towers burning. Turned it to another news channel where they had a correspondent inside the Pentagon, heard the noise and saw the dudes reaction as the plane hit.

Went to school (my freshman year of high school), and in my first couple classes they just wheeled in the TV and we watched everything unfold.

No matter what anyone believes about it, it's still a day I'll always remember.

I don't really have any others, though. Guess I'm not old enough yet.

 

Don't feel bad. It's all in good fun.

I figured there are a lot here who would consider 9/11 their Kennedy moment. I suppose that's another one for me too. You have more as you get older...trust me!