Re-entry to blogging

I haven't felt like blogging in quite a while. For the two people who actually read my blog, it has been pretty rough. I am sorry. So I am re-entering my blog in the most lazy of ways. You'll see.

I have been thinking about the past a lot lately. Specifically, news/sporting events during my life that stood out as clear memories. Not surprisingly, I found each of these events on Youtube. We live in a time when the movie Total Recall isn't as crazy a premise as it seemed in 1990.

This isn't really the total of my lifetime memories, but sadly it is pretty close.


As an 8 year old I watched the 76 Olympics with my dad. I remember the struggle I had understanding how our guy, Bruce Jenner, won the gold & set a world record. I just watched him lose the race!?! I figured it out at some point in my life that the 1500m was the 10th of 10 events.


It was a normal afternoon for a 9 year old kid in August of 1977, watching Beverly Hillbillies while eating a bowl of Fruit Loops. Then the TV screen changed and the program was interrupted by a special news announcement, Elvis had died. Remember it well.




Sporting events tend to dominate my lifetime memories. I believe this was the first hockey game I had ever watched. 1980 Olympics, the miracle on ice. Watched it with my dad at my grandmother's house in Monterey, IL. Pretty much everyone my age remembers this.



JFK was shot way before I was born, so this is my presidential assassination attempt memory. I was in PE at Chilli Jr. High in 1981 and Mrs. Kinney was my teacher. We were sitting on the gym floor stretching when Mr. Greene came over the intercom and announced that the president had just been shot. A weird moment for me. Didn't know what to think.



January 1986 and the second semester of my freshman year at Bradley U. was just a few days underway when this memory was burned in. I had just returned to my dorm room in the basement of Heitz Hall and flipped on the TV to relax between classes (probably should have used that time to study, but my poor study habits meant that I saw this live as it happened). Since I didn't have cable I was on a network when they interrupted the programming to show the space shuttle Challenger launch. In those days, all shuttle launches were newsworthy and this one more so with a civilian on board. Then it just blew up while I watched it. I sat stunned for a long time.



In 1990 I took a short trip to Chicago with Pam and her entire family. We arrived after interesting circumstances (Pam's grandma passed out on the ride up). We stayed at the Courtyard in Oakbrook and they had free HBO...sssuuuwheat! Em and I turned the TV on as soon as we arrived, just as the Mike Tyson/Buster Douglas fight was getting underway. At that time, Tyson was considered completely dominate, unbeatable. We put off going to dinner for a long time as we all watched in amazement as Tyson lost for the first time.



January 17, 1991 and Pam and I were driving down Rt. 6 as we listened to the radio report of the start of the Gulf War. It was very eerie to drive on that dark night listening to foreign correspondents report live from Baghdad with the sound of constant explosions near them. It was like we were waiting to hear them get killed. We later learned about many things we take for granted these days, like stealth bombers and precision guided missiles, etc., things that kept the destruction of civilians (at least the reporters in their hotels) to a minimum.



Pam and I stopped in at her folk's house for a visit on June 13, 1994, just as the strange news coverage of a police chase in LA began. We watched with intrigue as we learned the slow moving white Bronco might be carrying OJ Simpson who may have just killed his wife and her friend with a knife. It took years of TV to figure this one out. Oh, I guess we still don't know what happened.



In August of 1997 we had a bit of a OJ/celebrity/auto/drama deja vu. Again, Pam, Josh and I stopped by to visit Pam's folks just as news reports from Paris began to stream on the news channels, Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. We couldn't believe we were sitting there watching this. She was only 36 (seemed old then, now that seems so young).


1998 and I began a tradition of watching championship games with my son. Nearly 2 year old Josh and I watched as Michael Jordan and the Bulls won their 6th NBA championship. We have watched pretty much every major sports championship since. Not soccer of course, just the good sports ;)



9/11, prior to this day in 2001, 911 was the number known as the number you dial for emergencies. That changed. Pam was teaching at Mossville. I was getting Josh ready for preschool and 1 1/2 yr. old Erin ready to go to my folks so I could get to work. I got a call from my dad who said I should turn on the TV. The World Trade Center had just been hit by a second airplane. I watched in stunned amazement with the rest of the country as I held Erin in my arms and Josh sat nearby. I called Pam to let her know what was going on. Not long after, I watched live as the towers fell. Later in the day as I was stopped at the gas station, waiting in line to pay over $4 per gallon (Casey's, they got in trouble for that later), I watch Air Force One, escorted by 3 fighter jets, fly east over Chillicothe toward Washington DC. That day was the strangest day I ever remember. A perfect, beautiful, horrible day none of us will ever forget.