36 years ago this morning

Bitterly cold night. NASA Select was showing icicles on the pad. WMEL news director Don Germaise and I debated whether we should even waste the drive to the Cape because we were certain NASA would scrub. All I had was a lined wind breaker and a thin sweater. I was 27. It was one day after the anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire.

Everything appeared nominal through "go with throttle up." Then there was a ball of fire and the two solid rocket boosters appeared on the other side. But there was no Shuttle. Just streamers of debris floating back to the ocean.

The contrails hung in the clear blue sky for hours. The huge clock near the American flag at the media viewing area was still counting a mission that had ended hours ago when I left after President Reagan's speech.

RIP, crew of 51-L.

NASA Remembers Fallen Heroes - YouTube

 

A friend stopped me on the university concourse as I was going to morning classes and said something had happened. I hustled to our student center, where in silence and some tears a group of us watched CNN. A lot of professors canceled classes. My roomates and I watched CNN pretty much for the rest of the day. Still shocking to watch.

 

Damn, can't believe you witnessed that. I was in an elevator going up to my dorm room when a friend asked me if I knew what had happened. I was in class, so no. I didn't. Like everyone else, w were glued to the TV the rest of the day.

 

Getting ready to go to the office. Heard the news break on the radio, so turned on the TV. There it was. Haunting all day trying to go through my regular routine.

 

I was 13, and for some reason, we already had a half-day of school scheduled that day to take some sort of standardized test (that I never found out the results of), which took maybe an hour tops in homeroom, then we watched some sort of 1960s-era cowboy movie for the rest of the half day. I think John Wayne was in it.

Came home, made myself a peanut butter sandwich, and turned on the TV to watch "The Price Is Right", and the news was already on with shuttle explosion. I went to tell my Mom, who was in her bedroom cleaning out her closet, and she kinda blew me off. Spent part of the day watching the news coverage.

 

Fourth grade and I believe it was a Tuesday. We had had the day before off I believe for snow. Mrs. Ulakovic was in the middle of teaching us something when another teacher came in and told her what had happened. Each classroom in that Catholic school had an old school black and white TV on a cart in the corner. She wheeled it out, turned it on and that became our lesson for the day. We had a kid in that class who was obsessed with wanting to be an astronaut and everyone kept looking over for his reaction.

 

It was a snow day in Tennessee as well, so I was sleeping in. Woke up late and went to look for The Price is Right (amazing how that keeps coming up) and the news was on …

 

I was in the 8th grade and P.E. was about to begin. Mr. Turner still made us do calisthenics that day.

 

Just another day in my senior yr at college enjoying life and studying for LSAT. First real tragedy I’d seen.

 

Looking it up, Wikipedia has "Wheel of Fortune" on at 11 a.m. and Scrabble at 11:30 on NBC, and on ABC, there was some show called "Fame, Fortune and Romance" hosted by Robin Leach and Matt Lauer (!), which was a spinoff of "The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". Unsurprisingly, it lasted one season.

NBC was fine, but no wonder we all loved "The Price Is Right".