Where Were You When?

I was searching for an interview that my friend Dave, who works for the AARP, had conducted with Martina Navratilova when I happened upon an article on their site entitled, “Where Were You When?” in which AARP staff members describe the ten moments they’ll never forget. Since I was not yet on this planet or too young to remember, I cannot comment on the assassinations of JFK, MLK or Robert F. Kennedy or the shootings at Kent State but some of these other events do stand out in my aging memory bank.

December 8, 1980: John Lennon is killed: I was preparing for midterm exams on the couch in my parents’ living room. I was a junior in HS and had the radio on while studying. Go figure.

January 28, 1986: The U.S. space shuttle Challenger explodes 72 seconds after takeoff, killing all seven crew members. My roommate Berrie and I were in Professor Bob Arnold’s film class at SU where he announced the news. I remember the horror not entirely registering with me until later possibly because I hadn’t yet seen the images.

November 9, 1989: Borders between East and West Germany open—leading to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. I was sound asleep in my room at Brad and Kristin’s house on French Road when my girlfriend Meg called to wake me up. “I knew this is something you wouldn’t want to miss.” Although it was cool to watch, I would rather have been sleeping. She also called a few months later, again really early in the morning, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. I’m still tired . . .

August 31, 1997: Princess Diana dies. I was in a cab headed back uptown having just left my friend Barton and his photographer friend down in Union Square when I heard that she had been shot, er, I mean in a car accident. The next morning, as we took the train out to the Hamptons to celebrate my girlfriend Laura’s birthday, the news of Diana's death was all over the airwaves. Two years later, again headed out to the Hamptons, I remember being at Penn Station as people were freaking about JFK Jr.’s missing plane. The worst was confirmed when we got to Laura’s house. It was almost a surreal, “how can this be happening again?” experience.

April 20, 1999: The Columbine High School massacre occurs in Littleton, Colorado. I honestly cannot remember where I heard this news. I remember watching the coverage and wishing that those boys could have had the foresight to realize that the pains of high school fade quickly upon graduation.

September 11, 2001: Attack on the World Trade Center. I was at my desk here in Rochester when my husband called. I immediately called a girlfriend who I used to work with in the World Financial Center to make sure she was okay. She actually picked up her phone in her office and chatted with me for a minute to tell me that they were evacuating the building. I heard later that another girlfriend from work had gotten off the subway in the WTC and when she saw everyone running, she assumed there was a gunman. So, instead of leaving the building, she stayed and hid behind a garbage bin. It wasn’t until she realized that there were no gunshots that she decided to run in the same direction as everyone else. She was halfway uptown when the building collapsed behind her.

What’s missing from this list?

October 3, 1995: The end of the OJ trial. Working at Draft, we all went in to the conference room to watch the verdict being delivered on TV. Wow. Talk about a collective groan heard worldwide!

Sidebar: I have been reading bits and pieces of Leonard Mlodinow’s book, The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, which shed light on how the jury was fooled by misleading statistics. During the trial, lawyer Alan Dershowitz shared that in the U.S. each year, 4M women are battered by their male partners, yet only one in 2,500 is killed. His argument was that just because O.J. was a known abuser, the chances of him actually murdering her were slim. However, that wasn’t the relevant statistic. The opposite side of the equation, which never surfaced in court, was relevant: 90% of all battered women who are murdered are killed by their abusers. Retrial!

Pan Am Flight 103, Lockerbie, Scotland. December 21, 1988. This tragedy, more than any other, has directly affected people I know and has haunted me for years. One of my girlfriends, who was supposed to be on that flight but decided to travel in Europe a bit longer, lost many of her close friends from SU that day—along with her faith. I remember my sister calling to tell me what had happened. As a former student of the SU London Centre only three years earlier, I felt devastated by this tragedy. And 20 years later, it still makes me cry just thinking about it.

But, more importantly, what’s next?

Tomorrow: the Obama inauguration! Good luck to the man who has to pick up the pieces after “Mission Accomplished.” I can’t wait to tune in!