A sad anniversary

Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the Challenger explosion.

I think of all the news events in my life, that is the first one where I really, clearly remember where I was. I was a junior in high school - 16, not quite 17 yet. I remember a friend coming up to me in the hall and asking me, "Did you hear that the space shuttle blew up?"

Thinking of all the previous rocket-failures where the fire had been on the ground, I immediately said, "But they got the astronauts out okay, right?" She shook her head sadly.

Later, one of the teachers (it might have been the 3-D Art teacher) had a little black and white tv set up, aluminum foil on the antenna, watching the news. (Ironically, I remember on Sept. 11, 2001, our secretary here had a little black-and-white tv set up with aluminum foil on the antenna. I guess the aluminum foil trick - if it ever worked - went out with the advent of digital tv.)

And at lunch. They announced it, they talked a little about it. We had a moment of silence for the astronauts. And I kept thinking: what a horrible thing. What a horrible thing. So sudden.

Then again, with more maturity, I think: maybe they never knew. One moment here, one moment, on the Other Side, whatever that constituted for each of them. And maybe, just maybe, dying doing something you love and have dreamed about it is preferable to dying in a hospital in pain.

It's weird, isn't it. I've read how big "traumatic" memories mean that sometimes things get cemented more in your mind. I still remember the quality of light in the big old prep-school dining hall that day. (I don't remember what they fed us.) I remember the junky little black and white set Mr. Armbruster (I think it was) was trying to tune in to see the news.

I suppose just HEARING about it was better than actually seeing it as it happened - I have heard stories of kids (most of them were younger than I was) sitting in their school libraries or auditoria, watching the launch, expecting it to be another successful launch with clapping and cheering at the end....and then. How hard it must have been for the teachers to figure out what to say.

I don't remember the Columbia explosion, in 2003, nearly as well. I suppose I was busier, (I remember I was getting ready to go hiking with a couple of then-colleagues; I mostly remember hearing the rangers at the Chickasaw NRA have the exchange about how it was "official now" and they had to move the flag to half-mast.) Also perhaps there had been more sad things happen in the news that I had experienced by then.