(no subject)

[kinzel]

What an odd thing is this human predilection for anniversary.

Come Monday we're promised a flood of remembrance, and with it renewed rancor. There will be a raft of finger-pointing and a mini-series, speeches and marches, "real-time recall" by news services (oh what a joy that will be!) and new releases of terrified phone calls and images of horror. We're already seeing the start: releases of reports on air quality following the collapse of the trade center, video of the perps preparing, discussions of of PTSD...

And so Monday, rather than being a simple day -- say a day we could comfortably celebrate my wife's birthday -- becomes an international day of extravaganzic memory, a reordering and filtering of experience. Some will seek to use the day for political gain. Some will use it to finally let grief go. Others will use it to sell advertising.

Meanwhile, days go by. This year I hardly heard about D-Day, nor to I recall seeing anything about the old VE and VJ days. I don't recall seeing a celebration of the end of the Civil War any time recently.

Days go by, anniversaries get thin...

Oh sure, we have Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July, and all those Federal holidays held every year to celebrate something and which become, in time, simply excuses to relax or to buy. In 1961 could you have imagined a Martin Luther King's Birthday Sale?

Me, I didn't live through Pearl Harbor or D-Day. I can, for some reason, recall walking about through the litter of Dwight D. Eisenhower's victorious election in 1956 with my older brother... maybe it was that we found a dollar and so bought ourselves ice cream in November. I remember waking my family up with the news that we'd launched a satellite into space in 1958...(and getting yelled at for sharing...). I was in school when John Kennedy was shot; I saw the flag being lowered to half-mast, which confirmed the rumors our teacher was trying to dispel. I can recall much of that day, including going to the barber shop where the TV was on... in fact I recall the TV being on loud so the barbers could hear over the cutting. I recall the images of the funeral train going to DC....

I recall the night we of the moon landing -- Roger Zelazny called to celebrate -- and ... I recall...well.

But disasters are somehow more public....

I recall the Space Shuttle disaster -- in 1986 -- since I was home that day and had cable on... I did not see the live feed, I was watching music videos on MTV, but I saw the first replays on CNN... I recall the second Space Shuttle Disaster....

And I recall waking up in Canada to hear that George Bush had been elected, again.

So, what days come back to you, year after year?

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just a symptom of my peculiar brain-chemistry, but I find a lot of the current 9/11 fixation rather . . . voyeuristic. Like that Bradbury story about the people who gather at auto accidents to suck up the pain and death.

The portions that aren't political-opportunistic, that is.

[otaku-tetsuko.livejournal.com]

Well, since you ask -


27 years ago I was getting ready for my wedding. Today I'm hoping the lawyer will actually mail the divorce papers like he said he did two weeks ago.

But as to 9/11 - yes, there will be people seeking to use it to their advantage, but they will be massively outnumbered by the people who are simply determined not to forget - any more than the Holocaust, Hiroshima or Jonestown - that man is capable of incredible brutality, mostly when a few are allowed to speak for the many, and those few are Bad Men. Whether chosen by election, inheritance or "appointed by god," most societies at some point put most of their power in the hands of one or two. And there will be time after time that those few are going to choose a path that will be so incredibly horrific, it will serve as a warning for generations to come, and for some little time, people will be more careful - of and for each other. It happens over and over, and will not, I think, be changing any time soon.

So let them do what they have to do. I will fly my flag in honor of those whose first reaction was to run, not away, but toward the disaster to offer what help they could. I will pray for a day when the Islamic faith will no longer be used as a flag for terrorism and death, and for a time when people worship God, not religion, and serve Him, not some self-appointed messiah.

May your day be peaceful and filled with the things that heal your heart and comfort your soul.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I remember the day the Berlin Wall came down (tho I don't keep the anniversery holy).

I remember 9/11, and I wish I didn't and I refuse to treat the anniversery as a holy day.

I remember Columbia.

I remember Challenger.

That's all. I'm young.

[not-croaker.livejournal.com]

I remember 9/11. I remember feeling the kind of things my grandfather talked about feeling when he heard about Pearl Harbor.

I remember Challenger and Columbia.

I remember the day Desert Storm started, sitting in a friend's dorm room at college and talking with them about it, and wondering what might happen next.

I remember coming home from church on Christmas Eve and learning that my grandfather had just died.

I remember my brother's wedding, when I stood as best man.

I will never forget any of those days.

[debmats.livejournal.com]

I remember sitting on Mom's lap during Grandpa's house service - in October of 1963. All the adults in my life were sad.

A month later, I remember bits of JFK's funeral. I remember more the emotional overtones, I think. Mom watched it on the black and white tv.

Martin Luther King's assassination - Oakland schools closed and we were all sent home. I remember my friend Eugene crying because he didn't know where to go. My sister and I walked home - I was in the 2nd grade, my sister was in kindergarten.

I was washing the kitchen floor while watching the Challenger launch.

I listened to the "as it happened" broadcast of 9/11 - my alarm went off at 6am CA time and that's what I woke up to.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I remember July 20, 1969, and being glued to that dinky black&white TV set and being excited and nobody else among my relatives giving a hoot but I didn't care. I also remember Challenger and where I was when that happened and not just because my wife and I had been married two days before. I remember 9/11 and we usually commemorate it by popping in the DVD of 1949's musical On The Town and its joyous celebration of the Big Apple.

REMEMBRANCE

[(Anonymous)]

I remember - coming home from somewhere that morning and the next door neighbor telling us "We're at war!" I said "With who?" He answered, "We don't know." I went inside, turned on the television,and remained glued to it the rest of the day.

I also remember that we were due to fly to California the 13th, and talking with air lines about the air shut down (how strange to see and hear no airplanes in the sky for two or three days). We got a flight on the 15th,crammed with people trying to get home, and someone saying to me "You're going on a vacation, now?" I tried to explain that our 50th anniversary was the 22nd and "No terrorists are going to stop us from this family reunion and this occasion."

I remember the Columbine disaster, and the Challenger, and VJ day and VE day, and Pearl Harbor - I was 11 years old then - I remember Ration stamps, and Savings stamps and bonds and scrap drives. I collected milk pod silk to go into life vests and kept scrap books of Pacific sea maps, and read books like "We were Expendable" and "The Raft". I went with my parents to Iowa, and South Dakota, while he trained. And I remember being downtown in Rapid City the night the new Colonel for the Air Base tried to land on the main street, with all its red and green Christmas lights. The Colonel's pilot became the former pilot for the Colonel, the next day. Christmas party the same Christmas at the Air Force Base - Ellsworth AFB, riding in the big rattling bus, or the towed second section (called the Cattle Car) behind it, that took dependents from the City out to the base. I still can tell a B-17 in the air or out.

Joan C

[saruby.livejournal.com]

wow. So many things. I remember the pit in my stomach on 9/11, because I just knew this was going to be an excuse for Bush to do something horrible. I remember JFK's funeral, because I was young enough to be upset that there were no cartoons on TV. I was at Girl Scout camp when we landed on the moon, but remember listening to the radio. I remember the 1986 Space Shuttle disaster - a different sort of pit in my stomach, but still...). I remember Columbine, because it happened here and I knew someone with children at school that day. I remember my aunt calling to tell me that Mom had died a few minutes before.

I remember happy things, too, although this doesn't really seem to be the theme today. I remember my son's fuzzy red hair when he was born and my mother's smile and running barefoot through the wet grass to see if the fairy in my grandmother's cherry tree had left any gifts. I'd rather mark my life by these memories, although the more publlc disasters provide a common background, I suppose. Sad, in a way, that our shared remembrances are so often tragic.

Days I remember

[(Anonymous)]

JFK - I'm told the entire family sat in front of the tv for 4 days because there was just about nothing else on tv to watch.

I recall getting to stay up late to watch the Apollo 11 astronauts walk on the moon (and being told later that I fell asleep just 10 minutes before they did). Dad worked at the Kennedy Space Center from 1967 to 1975, so everything dealing with space was important in our household.

I know where I was when I heard on the radio about Elvis Presley's death (Bellevue-Redmond Road, approaching 156th Avenue from the NE; I don't know where I was going or why, but I know where I was *at*)

I know where I was when I heard about the death of John Lennon.

I know where I was when I heard about the murder of Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten.

I heard about Challenger while I was driving to work as a pharmacy clerk. I'd been watching the countdown and turned off the tv 20 to 30 seconds into the flight . . . . 2 minutes later, heard the music station I was listening to break into their programming . . . .

On September 11, 2001, I was homeless, waking up after having spent the night in my pickup truck at a small out of the way park/baseball field with a parking lot. Woke up, turned on the radio . . . .

For Columbia, I didn't hear about it until the library opened; I was still homeless . . . . although I was less than 3 months away from getting a subsidized apartment.