pat loughery

1) …John F. Kennedy was shot? (11/22/1963)
Not yet born.

2) …Mt. St. Helen’s blew? (5/18/1980)
My family was at Fairchild AFB in Spokane for the annual open house. I was 11. This was the first year that the SR-71 spyplane was revealed to the public, and there was a lot of concern about the ash’s effect on the titanium hull. It was fascinating watching half the planes at the show get into the air ASAP, and the other half get wheeled into storage hangars.

We drove home to Montana. We were still in Spokane when the cloud of ash hit. We still had two and a half hours’ drive to get home, so naturally we did the Loughery tradition and stopped at Wendy’s for drive-thru food (my dad LOVED Wendy’s). I remember how dark it turned in the afternoon, and the eerie evil-snowstorm sensation that the falling ash gave us.

3) …the Challenger exploded? (1/28/1986)
I was sitting in class, my senior year of high school. Teachers wheeled in TVs and we watched, shocked.

It hit me hard. I wanted to be an astronaut, and had studied the space shuttle systems for a long time. I had models, pictures, model rockets, all that good stuff. But I realized that the normal path to astronaut-hood (military academy, then flight school) wasn’t going to work for me because my vision is nasty bad. People with cokebottle cotact lenses don’t fly F-16s. Or at least didn’t then.

4)…the 7.1 earthquake hit San Francisco? (10/07/1989)
I don’t know.
I know that I WASN’T watching the World Series, because I wasn’t a baseball fan back then.

5)…the Berlin Wall Fell? (11/07/1989)
I don’t know.

6) … the Gulf War began? (01/16/1991) Senior year in college, sitting in my 1-BR apartment, with the tv turned on. I didn’t study much that first few days. I was afraid that it would turn into a quagmire and I would be drafted.

7) … OJ Simpson was chased in his White Bronco? (06/17/1994)
Watching the NBA playoffs with my wife and friends Dan and Cristina, in the living room in the first apartment that Shannon and I lived in after we were married. Talk bout surreal.

8) … the Afred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed? (04/19/1995)
I don’t remember.

9)…Princess Di was killed? (08/31/1997)
I was at a concert at Seattle’s big music festival, Bumbershoot. Shannon and I went in the morning, I wanted to stick around and she wanted a break, so she went home. I was leaving the mainstage show with Beck and Medeski/Martin/Wood and when she picked me up she told me.

10) … Bush was first announced president? (11/07/2000)
I don’t remember.

11) … terrorists destroyed the WTC? (09/11/2001)
I was on a cross-country motorcycle trip (my goal was Seattle – Key West and back home to Seattle). I was in a dry county in northern Texas. I remember this clearly – I was hoping to find a little sports bar to have burgers and a beer after a lot hot day on the Harley, and to sit down and swatch Monday Night Football. I stopped at a campsite and told the lady there my plans; she uttered words that I thought didn’t exist anymore: “Son, you’re in a dry county! The next place you can buy alcohol is two hours east of here.”.

I settled into a dingy hotel, got a takeout burger from the greasy spoon next door and watched the game in my room. I slept uneasily that night. The next morning I headed east, and turned to the sports talk radio station in Oklahoma City (the Harley I had at the time had AM/FM/CB/Cassette which was great on the trip). They had just announced the first plane attack, and I heard the second one.

I kept looking for a place to find a TV – but with a dry county, there’s no bars, etc. I called Shannon at home to see if she had heard the news yet, and she had. I finally found a truck stop with a driver’s room in back that was turned to the news channel. I watched for a long time, then rode to the next town, got a good hotel and watched CNN. I bought beers at the gas station and ordered pizza, and watched the news for hours.

There was a hurricane approaching the Keys, so I went to Washington DC (my first visit) instead. I was in DC the weekend after 9/11. Truly a powerful place to be at a powerful time in history.

12) … Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas? (02/01/2003)
I don’t remember.

(found via jessica’s this n that)