....This is kind of an odds and ends look at some of the actual moments in history I was fortunate enough to remember...Call it my FOREST GUMP MOMENTS...!!!!
...First up...I was actually 6 years old, completely wrapped up in a plaster cast from neck to hips, lying in a hospital bed placed in our basement in front of our tv when I first witnessed a hisorical moment...It was about 2-3AM when I was actually woke up by a bee sting of some sorts....It scared me out of my sleep and I couldn't figure what had bitten me...I awkwardly rolled back and forth trying to regain my composure...As I looked down at the TV...something very bizarre was occuring...Neil Armstrong was about to walk on the moon...I was just startled that this amazing moment was occuring at 3AM and I was the only one in my house awake to witness it...Of course, by the next day I was more fascinated by a rerun of the Addams Family than I was of some silly little moon walk...but it was always something that would stick with me...and I would come to appreciate this unique experience...and how a bee bite...would allow me to catch one of the most hallowed moments in American history...
Down the line...I was always an addict of Monday Night Football on ABC...One special evening, well into the 3rd Quarter of some game...announcer Howard Cossell, suddenly stopped talking about the game in progress and just began mumbling in disbelief that John Lennon had just been shot in New York City...I could tell Cossell was very shaken because only a year back they had John Lennon in the booth with them and they were having a ball...going at each other. Lennon admitted he had no idea about the rules of American football but he enjoyed the spectacle surrounding the event...Spring ahead a year later...As the broadcast continued, Cossell came on with the news that Lennon had been pronounced dead...He just sort of cursed at how could this possibly happen...It was a very strange moment where sports took a backseat to reality and it kind of left you numb that such a tragedy like this could ever happen...
...One day while having lunch at this giant Greek restaurant that was kind of a cafeteria, a block away from DePaul's downtown campus...I'm guessing around Wabash & Addams...I was in the cafeteria line looking at the various entrees and what-not...Suddenly we looked up at a TV screen above us about 7 feet away and the Challenger space ship was taking off...It was really no big deal...We've all seen so many blast-offs over the years...As the rocket rose about 30 seconds into its lift-off...it just blew up and disintigrated in a flash...We all just kind of waited for some kind of picture showing the rocket going further up in the sky...But instead the camera began to descend lower and the smoke and flares were all that remained of this horrifying moment...it was pretty bizarre trying to make sense of what had just happened...
...When I had moved to Williams Bay in the early 90's...I kind of got hooked on late night talk radio that was just exploding on the scene...Larry King...Tom Snyder...many, many others would bring on controversial individuals and let them vent their radical views on the public...For some reason I woke up one morning and the radio was still on...A somber voice came on and announced that famous blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn had disappeared after a concert at Alpine Valley when he was last seen flying off in a helicopter...Later on, they found the wreckage and all lives were lost and it would literally mean the end of the hey dey of Alpine Valley being a prime destination for all the famous musical acts...In so many ways...it was very, very sad...
...Finally...one morning I was up early...not too early...but some plane had just crashed into the Twin Towers in New York...I had on the NBC Morning Show with Matt Lauer and Katie Couric and nobody had really been able to put together any notion of all the events that would rapidly occur in succesion as the morning moved forward...I wasn't so shocked because it all seemed like it was all part of some hoaky action movie...Towers collapsing...clouds of smoke everywhere, people just running for their lives...As the day progressed...so many other networks each had a unique perspective of all the chaos that had ensued...It was just totally unbelievable...I'd be switching back from CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC...and on and on and on...It actually seems like such a long time ago...and everyone really wants to forget about that day...But it truly was...one of the most terrifying days in American history...
...So as you can see...there are some moments of historical events that I can reach back and recall very vividly...Most of them I wish never happened but you really can't change those moments in any way...There are always going to be some shocking moments in history that will be a part of your life whether you like it or not...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment