In 1986, I was in ninth grade. I was in school on January 28, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. There was a group of kids in the library, watching the launch, and while I was not among them when it happened, when the word spread throughout the school I asked to be excused from class to go to the library and see for myself. Atypically, the teacher agreed, and I went, and I watched, twice.
At home, I had a very detailed model of the space shuttle, that I "overbuilt" with my inexperienced hands...a little too much glue, a little too much putty along the seams, lots and lots of paint. By the time it was done the thing weighed so much that it fell off of the ceiling a few days after I hung it up, and required still more putty to fix its hull where it split open. The model kit had come with name decals for all of the shuttles in the program: Columbia, Discovery, Challenger, Atlantis, and the Enterprise prototype. By prescience or coincidence, I had chosen the name Challenger. I had the "Space Shuttle Operator's Manual" on my bookshelf, a thin blue volume with fold-out pages depicting all of the shuttle's flight deck control panels, and nifty diagrams of various systems and mechanisms. This was the 1982 edition of the book, back before they replaced all of the cockpit avionics and dials and gauges with flat-panel LCD displays, so there was an abundance of knobs and switches and toggles, all very spaceship-like. I dug out the book this morning, and it's on my desk next to me, right now.
I remember a kid named Joe. Kinda dumb, would have been a bully if he had more focus, that kind of kid. In the lunchroom that day, he was enthusiastically recounting the Challenger explosion, making what he thought were funny comments. Now, I was not an imposing kid in any sense of the word, and I wasn't popular. But I looked at Joe, and I said to him, "What the hell is wrong with you? People are dead."
Such was my tone that not only did he shut up, he actually looked shamed.
And now, almost seventeen years to the day since the Challenger disaster, the Joes of the world have Internet access, and they work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
What the hell is wrong with you people?
I hope that's a blanket indictment of the CBC, not Canadians in general.
Posted by: Terry | February 1, 2003 08:04 PM
Of course! My impression is that the CBC is sort of like NPR is down here...often interesting, sometimes infuriating.
Posted by: --iaw | February 1, 2003 09:37 PM
I wasn't in school that day Challenger blew (I was in the ninth grade too, though) I was at home watching T.V. I think it was a school state professional day, and I saw the news from my living room.
Yesterday I was brewing a pot of coffee. Oddly enough, the *exact* same thing I was doing when I first heard about the world trade center. Oddly enough, I had the radio on back then... NPR.
Yesterday morning I was home. I saw bits and pieces of Columbia streak across the sky, I saw the brilliant starlike flare, the debris, I never even had known up to then Columbia was on it's way home. I had yet to enjoy my coffee. I never really got a chance to savor too much yesterday.
I was in school, however, when I saw this.
I was in the fifth grade then. The whole school (it was a parochial school, and we were actually in a pastor's home, sitting around a kitchen table) watched it from a tiny t.v. on the kitchen counter. Every student held their breath as the shuttle made it's way down and landed, for the very first time. It was an intense experience, it was the beginning of something very new and exciting.
I watched it land, safe and sound that day, I watched it dissapear with it's very last crew...forever... another.
Dear Lord bless them, and us all. Amen.
Posted by: Deb | February 2, 2003 01:23 AM
What I can't believe is that when Ian posted this and I commented, I hadn't listened to the news at all that day (Saturday) and had no idea what had happened. I saw stuff all over the Net about Columbia this morning and for some reason I thought it was a Challenger anniversary. DUH. Call me CluelessCanuk now, and you'd be right...
Posted by: Terry | February 2, 2003 05:27 PM