There are moments in all our lives that are memorable. Graduation from high school. Wedding days. Birth of children. You get the idea.
But then there are "stunning events". These are things that rock your world. You can remember every detail of your life at those times.
Sunday, Dec. 7, commemorates one of those moments. It was 67 years ago that the Japanese invited themselves to Pearl Harbor and made it an "explosive" event. I was only 20 months old at the time so I could hardly remember. I would live the consequences of the bombing for many years. As significant as the bombing was, there were a lot of Americans that had to be told where Pearl Harbor was. We didn't have the instant CNN real time broadcasts.
The events that are stunning to me begin with my Dad dying at age 37 in 1957. I know exactly where I was. Your Mom and I had gone to see a Sunday afternoon movie at the local Plymouth Movie Theater. The manager of the theater found me in the theater and told me I was needed at home immediately. I left your Mom at the theater intending to return. It was an event that rocked my world.
The second stunning event I can remember was Kennedy being shot in Dallas. It was a Friday and I had my first engineering job at Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee. My buddies and I would walk down to the local VFW hall for the Friday Fish Fry. I was sitting in a booth when a "buzz" fell over the entire restaurant. Out waitress wandered by and asked if we had heard the news. President Kennedy had been shot. Nobody knew if he was dead or not so the restaurant TV became the focal point. Suddenly getting back to work on time seemed to lose relevance. It would be another hour before the fate of Kennedy became known and I was back at work.
The last stunning event was the 9/11 assault on the Twin Towers in New York. An airplane had crashed into one of the towers and there was a lot of confusion about whether it was an accident or an intended assault. When the second plane hit the second tower, all doubt was removed. We were under assault! I had finished my walk at the local mall around 8:15 AM. I was driving my Volvo Wagon to the local McDonalds when WTMJ in Milwaukee joined the national broadcast of what was happening. I guess I couldn't believe that some hateful foreigners would have the guts to kill thousands of Americans on our soil.
I don't know if there will be any more stunning events in my life time. Only time will tell!
Events that are stunning to me may not affect other people the same way. The question Grasshoppers is "what events have rocked your life to the point where you can remember every detail of where you were when it happened"?
Love,
Dad