Where were you?
I was a student at Northeastern University in Boston and had a 12:30 appointment with my advisor on January 28, 1986. The television was on in the background as I got ready… yet another shuttle launch was being shown… Shuttle launches had become so routine that people barely paid attention.
The shuttle lifted off just after 11:35, in an attempt, as President Reagan called it that evening, “to bringing seven astronauts “to touch the face of God.” I turned off the TV just as the shuttle cleared the launch pad so I could catch the T from Allston to the Northeastern to get to my meeting.
As I sat down with my advisor, a guy who liked to tell jokes, he said “did you hear about the space shuttle?”
“No,” I answered with a smile, expecting one of his one-liners. What followed was no laughing matter.
As news of the explosion spread across the campus, a grey sadness filled the air. Many Northeastern students lived close by… some from Concord, New Hampshire, the home of Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who was among the astronauts who died that day. A few of my classmates who had her as a teacher were heartbroken to lose such a special person. Although classes met that afternoon, all education stopped as stunned professors and students shared their thoughts and grief.
We’ve seen events like this before…. and we will see them again. I remember my parents telling me in detail about how they learned of the shooting of President Kennedy. The shuttle crash was the first of these epic events in my lifetime… followed years later as I watched the events of September 11, 2001 unfold. Unfortunately, now I have my own stories to tell.
Technology brings us ever-closer to national events. Think of how the public learned of the assassination of President Lincoln versus the live accounts of the shooting of President Kennedy on radio and the relatively new medium of television…. How cell phones changed the way we shared news of 9/11, and how Twitter and Facebook have brought us instantly into the breaking news of the shooting in Arizona just a few weeks ago.
Although the method of delivery of news changes almost daily… the feeling of loss that comes with the news of a national tragedy will always be the same.
