PORCH PONDERINGS

History

PROMPT May 19th

Write about the most historic world events of your lifetime. How are they (or will they be) remembered? What will the history books focus on?


I’m of the age that remembers when JFK got shot. I think I was in elementary school. Not too much beyond the fact of the incident. People are still discussing whodunit and so forth.

I do remember the moon landing with John Glenn. I was just out of high school. I seem to remember being in my grandmother’s kitchen. Perhaps I watched it on her B&W TV. Some time later there was talk it was all a fake, it was filmed in Utah. I just remember that big hullabaloo that we, the USA, had to win the space race against them, the USSR.

When the Twin Towers were hit, I was in Ohio, sleeping. I didn’t go to work until about noon. My current husband had flown to Chicago earlier that morning. He called me, waking me up. He said, “I’m alright!”

I said, “Great! Glad to hear it.”

“No really, I’m fine.”

Still unaware, I said, “Wonderful. Thanks for letting me know.”

Then he told me what had happened and I turned on the TV. And of course, it was all over the TV for weeks, months even. You couldn’t stop watching those planes hitting the towers, listening to the man on the plane talking to his wife.

Hubby had to get a rental car to drive back to Ohio since the planes were all grounded for a time. So glad he was safe, so sad that happened.