Where were you...

Wow, just over a year since I wrote anything on here. 

I was watching a Netflix show (or show on netflix, I suppose) called Zero Hour - dealing with the time just before various events. One was on Columbine. I remember where I was then... sad that now it's like "oh, another school shooting." 

Still, trying to think of events I was around for and where I was:

Reagan's shooting. 
I don't actually remember.Though I would have heard about it on the news, and I was young enough I'd be at home in Oak creek. But I don't remember as far as a "What were you doing." 

The murder of John Lennon. 
This one I do remember, roughly. And there's a little bit of a story behind it. The church I was in as a kid was a fundamentalist (as in "anything newer than the King James is too liberal" level) baptist church. So I grew up with "Rocka nd roll is evil, the concerts are satanic rituals, the singers are priests and whores." (Seriously. If you can *borrow* it, read "Backward masking Unmasked." Don't' buy it. Don't' give those assholes any money.) I remember being in the basement of the house I grew up in. I remember being in the bathroom down there and just being *happy* John Lennon was dead, because he was such an "agent of Satan" and "a would-be antichrist." 
Yeah. I'm not proud of that at all. Makes me sick to think of it these days. 

Challenger disaster. 
I was in middle school and a friend of mine said he saw the shuttle blow up in science class. My reaction was "yeah, right..." Then I got home from school and saw the video on the news. I just watched for a while and went to my room, hurting. I didn't know anyone on it, but I remember feeling like crying. And for some reason, saluting. (Yeah. Slightly weird kid.) 

Columbine. (What started this train of thought.) 
This, I remember. I was married and living in Florida. Leah (my wife at the time) and I were at a little - diner, I suppose - on 436, across from a bookstore, behind an officemax. And we saw that on the news and were just dumbfounded that anything like that could happen. Not here. It was just so out there we had a hard time picturing it - and felt horrible for the parents and families. But we just couldn't picture it. 

9/11
I was married. I'd moved back to Wisconsin, because job hunting in coastal Oregon sucks. The plan was for me to get an apartment and job and bring Leah afterward... yeah, didn't happen. But I remember playing Diablo II (and being so proud of my great dialup connection.) I remember someone mentioning a plane hitting the world trade center, and we were talking about "No, no. Probably something like a Cessna. Wonder what happened to the pilot - heart attack or something?" Someone mentioned a suicide attack - specifically saying "kamikaze," and we started getting into a little discussion - then they said "Go watch the news." I actually had a TV then. Turned it on... the story was everywhere. And I remember watching it and seeing the second plane hit as the cameras rolled. Just standing in my "living room" in an apartment (former / current store/hotel/something, first floor... ti was a weird layout) in Johnson Creek, WI. I'd been working overnight at Walmart. For some reason I went back... like a need to tell someone. Or just be around people, i don't know. 

Still there when the Patriot Act was being pushed through, and I remember being worried about it. And I remember watchign Colin Powell give his case for why we had to invade Iraq, and calling him a liar. (Well, his picture on the TV.) Though I was back in Oregon by that point. 

George Harrison's death
Not only because of losing a great musician, but in contrast to Lennon. I was driving - part of me wants to think I was moving back to the Oregon Coast, or it was shortly after. It was night, it was raining, and I was just about to turn onto the road going over the bay bridge going into Coos Bay / North Bend that otherwise led from a friend/artist's house, and I heard it on the radio. I just remember being sad we'd never get anything new from him again and wondering how long we'd have the last two Beatles.

Barak Obama winning the presidency the first time:
Florida. Kitchen of the house in Mount Plymouth. Living with mom, trying to get on my feet after my divorce, trying to help her out. She'd gone to bed. I stayed up... and I remember being *extremely* happy with Obama being declared the winner. Partly because McCain/Palin would have been a disaster - and I say this having thought McCain would have been good a few years previously (and come on, *sarah palin* in any position of power? Ugh....)  - and partly for the sake of history, with our first black president. 

So. Those are the moments I really remember. (Well, other than the first.)