Where were you?

We were sitting watching some country music awards show the other night and Alan Jackson came on and sang part of his “Where were you (when the world stopped turning)” song.  Hearing that song always brings me back to  9/11/2001 and the events of that day.

Doing my morning browsing and facebooking this morning, I was reminded that it was 30 years ago today that Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon.

This got me thinking of “Where were you” moments – those significant events in the past 30-40 years that are forever etched in our memories.  The mere mention of them sometimes is enough to invoke great sorry and sadness as our minds are suddenly transported back to that moment in time.

So I got to thinking, what are my “where were you” moments.

1. Elvis Presley – August 16, 1977. When I was growing up, my family worked carnivals during the summer – running various consession stands and carnival games.  I remember I was at the Deleware County Fair in Walton, NY when we heard about Elvis.  I would have just turned 8, so I don’t know that I was real big into music at the time, but I do remember how sad that made my mother on that day.
2. John Lennon – December 8th, 1980. “I read the news today, oh boy”.  I would have been 11 years old – 6th grade.  We had moved back to Syracuse a couple years before.  I remember being 5 or 6 and playing 45’s on the record player endlessly as a kid.  I think there were some early beatles 45’s floating around the house, so I knew who the Beatles were, but at 11, I really had not gotten into music yet.  I remember my mom being upset when we saw this on the news the next day.
3. Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion – January 28, 1986. I remember I was home from school that day – not sure why.  Knowing Syracuse, it was probably a snow day.  I was sitting at the counter in my family’s diner in Syracuse watching the launch.  As it exploded, I remember my first reaction was to laugh – almost thinking it must have been some kind of cruel joke.  As the sadness set it, I remember being glued to the TV the rest of the day.
4. Y2K – January 1, 2000.  After a year of hype over the world ending, I remember staying up past midnight and monitoring severs at work to make sure nothing happened.  In the end, this was all hype as far as I saw – absolutely no impact what-so-ever.
5. Attack on the US – September 11, 2001. I never got to see the towers myself.  My wife tells me to stand at the bottom and look up at the towers was an awe inspiring site.  I remember I had just gotten to work and was checking out cnn.com when I first heard the news.  I called my wife and she thought I was joking at first.  Another day where we were all glued to the TV set watching the news.

I am sure there are other less significant events that I missed.  These are the major ones I remember.  I would have been 1 for the Summer of ’69, Woodstock, the moon landing, so a little too young to remember those events.

What are your “Where were you” moments?