Ah, but having THAT moment in my own life is why I could understand in retrospect the look on my grandmother's face when she talked about JFK's assassination.
I remember watching news footage of Reagan being shot, but it was... political, rather than striking at the heart of the things I try to hold hope for. Politics is nasty, messy, and often underhanded, so that kind of danger is not unusual. It was a far more impersonal tragedy to me.
It was said by a history teacher of mine, shortly after another day that won't soon be forgotten, that September 11 was my generation's Kennedy assassination. I didn't quite understand just what my mother meant about that day in 1963 until the aftermath of 2001's events.
My boys were very young when 9-11 happened. They were SO agitated and upset by the live footage that I turned off the television after somewhere between fifteen and thirty minutes. Definitely less than thirty, but not by much.
They talk about it more in the abstract, because I wasn't going to allow my feelings of trauma to bleed over and wreck THEIR psyches (they were barely in grade school). Very similar to the impact of Reagan's shooting, though I was in middle school when that happened.
I just hope they have another decade or more before they grok, too.
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chanter1944) wrote2015-01-28 07:20 pm
OH, dear--
Re: OH, dear--
Re: OH, dear--
Shit.
As a friend aptly says: The first day the world did not make sense.
That was one of two days you remember where you were when it happened.... I hope there aren't many more of those.
Re: OH, dear--
I remember watching news footage of Reagan being shot, but it was... political, rather than striking at the heart of the things I try to hold hope for. Politics is nasty, messy, and often underhanded, so that kind of danger is not unusual. It was a far more impersonal tragedy to me.
Re: OH, dear--
Yeah, I remember my folks telling what they were doing that November day... and I *understood* but I didn't *grok*....
Re: OH, dear--
Re: OH, dear--
They talk about it more in the abstract, because I wasn't going to allow my feelings of trauma to bleed over and wreck THEIR psyches (they were barely in grade school). Very similar to the impact of Reagan's shooting, though I was in middle school when that happened.
I just hope they have another decade or more before they grok, too.