Where Were You?

Our brains and hearts seem to have an almost photographic memory when it comes to certain events in our lives. It's interesting how the mind seems to take a snapshot in time when certain stupendous or horrific events happen. (Yet, why can't we remember what day it is sometimes?) I thought about certain extraordinary occurrences that have taken place in my lifetime that, with vivid recall, I remembered where I was, who I was with and how I felt. Also, there are so many other events of note that I have no particular recall of whatsoever. Most historical events have gradually faded out of memory over the decades; many of which I'd shoved so far back in the dusty recesses of my mind, I'd forgotten about entirely. Age happens!

Sometimes I marvel that I'm old enough to remember such exciting innovations as color TV, central air conditioning and heating, the birth of the microwave and the marvelous miracle of pantyhose! Girdle and garter belt be gone! Digital alarm clocks! Bean bag chairs! And what about 8-track tapes that were replaced by cassette tapes that were replaced by CDs? No more vinyl records and record players, though I'm happy to see those are making a tiny comeback in certain circles.

Definitely remember the many new toys that were introduced in the late fifties and early sixties, including the hula hoop, Etch-a-Sketch, and Barbie. I had an Etch-a-Sketch, but have to admit that I didn't play with it much. Too restricting, required better motor skills than mine and a patience that I never possessed. You can see this today with my inability to follow a recipe to the letter and my proclivity to bend the rules when it suits. Of course, I prefer to think of it as creativity...

I remember being ten years old and in the fifth grade; it was November 22, 1963. Where were you that day? It was just an ordinary school day like hundreds of other school days. For us, in Mrs. Trebuchon's class, time stopped for a while when the school principal, Mr. Buckles, came on the intercom and announced that President John F. Kennedy had been killed and asked for some moments of silence. We all got up from our desks, stood at attention and faced the flag on our wall, with our hands over our hearts. Many kids began to cry and one little girl became so hysterical she had to be taken home.

Unfortunately, it was not the last great tragedy we innocents were to experience. And with each event, we shed pieces of that innocence like the fading blossoms falling off the mulberry tree outside. I don't recall with as much detail about where I was during the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. or of Bobby Kennedy; just recall hearing about it on TV. Both men were killed in 1968.  MLK Jr. in April and Bobby only 2 months later in June. I was fourteen, nearly fifteen at the time and remember wondering if the world had gone stark raving mad. Forty eight years later, I'm still wondering the same thing!

The sixties also brought us the Veg-o-Matic, the Superball (that little rubbery ball with the ultra high bounce factor), and the first hand-held calculators, though I never actually saw one till the seventies. John Glenn was the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth in 1962. President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. Who can forget "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  I'm amazed at how many conspiracy theorists believe the moon landing never really happened and that we've all been duped about it for decades.

The seventies brought us the Kent State shooting of four students at an anti-war protest, Roe vs. Wade, Nixon's resignation, the Watergate trials, Ethernet and the Internet, though most of us wouldn't get into the latter till much later. We also got Post-It Notes and the Rubik's Cube while Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer. Again, those wouldn't become common as white bread for a good while.  The Pong game was invented in 1972 and opened the door for Atari, Sega, Nintendo, all the way to Wii and Xbox One. Game systems have evolved way too fast for me to keep up with!

August 16th, 1977: I worked for a dentist in San Antonio, TX. We were bent over a patient, intently focused on filling a tooth or something when the radio announcer broke the news that Elvis Presley was dead. I remember Dr. Marcos and I looking up from the patient and into each other's eyes for several seconds in disbelief. Neither of us said a single word and we went back to taking care of that filling, while our minds pondered the sad news. We loved you tender, Elvis.

Just a few years later, the eighties roared in like the proverbial lion. Thirty nine officials including a state senator and seven members of the house were implicated in Abscam, a bribery investigation conducted by the FBI. Eight servicemen were killed in an aborted attempt to rescue Iranian hostages. But about year later hostages are released after 444 days in captivity. And we elected a renowned actor to the presidency of the United States. Two months later, Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest but not fatally, by John Hinckley, Jr. Reagan lived, thankfully, to go on in the late eighties to entreat Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" in Berlin and open Eastern Europe to political and economic reform.

In the eighties, we gained the veggie burger, the mobile phone, and were barraged by Cabbage Patch dolls. I was at work at Ozarka Drinking Water, in Fort Worth, TX on January 28, 1986 when the radio news broadcasted that the Challenger space shuttle had lifted off carrying a civilian, teacher Christa McAuliffe, along with its crew. Seventy three seconds after liftoff, the vessel exploded killing them all. I'll never forget the shock and immediate sorrow we all felt while we had to continue to answer the phones ringing off the wall.

The nineties brought us the World Wide Web, the Persian Gulf War, the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings, the end of the 'Cold War', LED lights, the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots when the four white officers involved were acquitted, the first World Trade Center bombing, and Beanie Babies. As well, the Oklahoma City Federal Office building bombing, Teletubbies take kids by storm, Google is born, Bill Clinton is acquitted of impeachment charges by the Senate, and the horror of Columbine sent us all reeling.

At the end of 1999, many of us were convinced that the world was going to come to a standstill at midnight New Year's Eve in a cataclysmic event called Y2K. Remember that? Many companies collectively spent billions of dollars upgrading their computer systems and horrific catastrophes were predicted...but NOTHING happened. What did happen was that we entered the 21st century.

In late 2001, my ailing mother collapsed; my sister had her taken to the hospital and we learned Mom's renal cancer had returned. On the morning of the eleventh of September, I dropped my daughter off at her school; I remember Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start The Fire' was playing on the radio and I was singing along. Shortly after, I was at work making sales calls. I called a favorite customer who acted strangely, said strange things and advised me to turn on a TV or radio. "It's no accident," he said, "No way is it an accident!" I didn't know what he was talking about but the fear in his voice was obvious. Then my co-worker next to me stood up and said a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. Then moments later, another one! We didn't know what was going on. Then we heard about the attack on the Pentagon and not long after that we heard about Flight 93 that went down in Pennsylvania. All of us were in complete shock--me, you, every citizen of the U.S. We all cried our eyes out, every one of us for days, for months even. And we will never forget it. Three weeks later, the day after my 48th birthday, my mother died. I don't remember 2001 with any fondness whatsoever. And I never hear 'We Didn't Start the Fire' without thinking of 9/11.

With such a horrific start to this new century, other happenings that followed nearly pale in comparison: the 2003 explosion of the space shuttle Columbia which had me shaking my head and wondering why we kept putting people on these shuttles. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck. In 2007, the Virginia Tech shootings occurred. 2008 brought us the election of the first black President of the United States. Ted Kennedy died in 2009. In 2010 Don't Ask Don't Tell is repealed. In 2012 Hurricane Sandy struck the east coast and later Sandy Hook saw 20 of its children killed plus 6 others in yet another senseless school shooting. The Boston Marathon bombing happened in 2013. On the up side, we gained Bluetooth technology, MP3 players, Firefox, Skype, Facebook, YouTube, the Kindle, Spotify, 4G mobile broadband, the iPhone, iTunes and iPad, the wider spread use of electric cars, the completely artificial heart and countless other gifts of technology and innovation.

Speaking of technology, just the other day, my sister went to visit my mother's last remaining living sister, my Aunt Sarah and took her iPhone with her. She dialed me via Facetime and handed the phone to my 88 year old aunt. The look on her face was so priceless, I will never forget it. My sister later told me my aunt nearly cried at the thought that 'she held Leslie in the palm of her hand.' What a great gift!

Now in 2016, women can do almost anything they want. We can be doctors, lawyers, astrophysicists, marine biologists, or work construction if we want. We wear fashions and hairstyles that once we wouldn't have been caught dead in such as mismatched fabric prints, pants that hit above the ankles or hair that looks messy on purpose. If we want to pierce or tattoo ourselves into oblivion, we can and we do.

In 1968, at fourteen, I wondered if the world had gone mad; now I think it was just the beginning. But then I look again at the history of the world and realize that it's been a mad, mad, mad, mad world since "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." It's no different now, it's just that we are alive and experiencing the 'here and now-ness' of it all.

Till next time,

"If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath." ~ Amit Ray