🚀 go-pugleaf

In our last episode, <4afeba61.4877156@news.usenetmonster.com>, the lovely
and talented Way Back Jack broadcast on alt.obituaries:

> 9/11:  There's a path on my property that I used for jogging, naked in
> warm weather, except for running shoes, baseball cap, and radio ear
> phones.  Anyway, the news interrupted the soft-rock show and I ran
> back to the house and told the old lady to turn on the tube.

My companion was preparing to go to work with the TV on in the other room
and woke me when only the first plane had hit the first tower.  Because
there had been a paraglider stunt that had gone wrong at the Statue of
Liberty a few days before, I thought at first that there was some chance it
was an aviation stunt gone wrong. The scale of the damage to the building
was not clear in the TV shots we were getting.  I realized the excellence of
the weather made an accident very improbably.  As I saw the second plane
approach in the televised picture, before the newscaster commented on it, I
knew what was happening.

> JFK: I was cruising in a '58 Impala on Pulaski Hwy. when the news of
> the shooting interrupted Johnny Tillotson's "Talk Back Trembling
> Lips."  Death had not yet been confirmed.  Man, I had to tell someone
> so I stopped in this redneck dive in White Marsh.  There were no
> patrons just an old hag behind the bar.  She just stared without
> responding.  "Aw ya old fart, if you don't believe me, turn on ya
> radio, if ya have one."  Whereupon I left.

I was in junior high school.  The school was put on lockdown after lunch. 
We had had at least one school bombing in my memory in Houston, which was
the only previous lockdown I could remember.  Some kids did have 9-volt
transistor radios, but since it was after the free time in lunch period, it
was one class change before those with radios could consult them and start
spreading the news by rumor.  Before school was out there was a PA
announcement.  Some kids did cheer.

> Buddy Holly: I was in 9th grade and moms told me when I returned home
> from school.

I was 11 and not interested in popular music, so I took no notice at the
time.  Some months later a friend had "tribute" 45 titled (I think) "Three
Stars," and he explained it to me.  I was in college before I had any real
appreciation of who Buddy Holly was.  For some time I had him confused with
Roy Orbinson.

-- 
  Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/>                 September 5919, 1993
            297 days since Rick Warren prayed over Bush's third term.
  Obama: No hope, no change, more of the same. Yes, he can, but no, he won't.

On Nov 14, 8:10 am, h...@home.org (Way Back Jack) wrote:
> 9/11:  There's a path on my property that I used for jogging, naked in
> warm weather, except for running shoes, baseball cap, and radio ear
> phones.  Anyway, the news interrupted the soft-rock show and I ran
> back to the house and told the old lady to turn on the tube.
>
> JFK: I was cruising in a '58 Impala on Pulaski Hwy. when the news of
> the shooting interrupted Johnny Tillotson's "Talk Back Trembling
> Lips."  Death had not yet been confirmed.  Man, I had to tell someone
> so I stopped in this redneck dive in White Marsh.  There were no
> patrons just an old hag behind the bar.  She just stared without
> responding.  "Aw ya old fart, if you don't believe me, turn on ya
> radio, if ya have one."  Whereupon I left.
>
> Buddy Holly: I was in 9th grade and moms told me when I returned home
> from school.

9/11: My wife and I were on a seniors' group  tour going up the
Mississippi river. The group had spent overnight at a Holidome in
Davenport, Iowa. We embarked on a large riverboat the morning of 9/11,
and began the cruise up the river. It was a beautiful day; sunny,
clear blue sky, windless, etc.Our destination was Galena, Illinois,
where one of U. S. Grant's post civil war homes is located. About
halfway thru the cruise there began some strange mutterings and
uneasiness among the passengers. No one seemed certain as to what was
going on, but somehow rumors had begun about an airplane striking a
building in New York. Eventually some people with cell phones were
able to make reliable contact with friends and learned the horrible
truth. The tour director came around to each of us personally and
divulged the whole story, so as to avoid conflicting accounts. Someone
pointed out that there were absolutely no jet plane trails in the
completely clear sky; lending credibility to the account that the
government had suspended all flights of any kind but military. When we
reached Galena, my wife and I just spent the evening and night
watching the disaster unfold on the TV in our room. We sinply couldn't
believe our eyes and ears! Needless to say our entire group grew
completely silent and introspective for the remainder of this sad trip

JFK: I was in my office when the word got out. I'm not sure how I
initially heard about it, but when I tried to call my wife the entire
phone system was bogged down. No surprise.there. When I did reach her
she of course already knew about it from TV.

On Nov 14, 9:10 am, h...@home.org (Way Back Jack) wrote:
> 9/11:  There's a path on my property that I used for jogging, naked in
> warm weather, except for running shoes, baseball cap, and radio ear
> phones.  Anyway, the news interrupted the soft-rock show and I ran
> back to the house and told the old lady to turn on the tube.
>
I just happened to go online a little past 9 AM (Eastern time) and was
viewing the home page of my local newspaper, when there was a bulletin
about a plane crashing into the WTC.  I just assumed that it was a
small private plane gone terribly off course.  I decided to turn on
the TV to CNN, and that's when I found out.  I called my wife on her
cell phone, she was in line at a grocery store check-out, and she told
everyone there.  I was listening to my car radio to a reporter who was
stationed at the Pentagon, when he suddenly stopped, and said, "Oh my
God, there was this terrible crash and explosion at the other end of
the building"...yep, he was broadasting live as the plane crashed into
the pentagon.  The whole situation, with the "what's going to happen
next" feeling reminded me of when JFK was assassinated.

> JFK: I was cruising in a '58 Impala on Pulaski Hwy. when the news of
> the shooting interrupted Johnny Tillotson's "Talk Back Trembling
> Lips."  Death had not yet been confirmed.  Man, I had to tell someone
> so I stopped in this redneck dive in White Marsh.  There were no
> patrons just an old hag behind the bar.  She just stared without
> responding.  "Aw ya old fart, if you don't believe me, turn on ya
> radio, if ya have one."  Whereupon I left.

I was a 13 yr. old 8th grader on 11/23/63.  My last period of the day
on Fridays was a study hall, and then we returned to our homerooms for
a weekly spelling test.  While in the study period, we saw a teacher
come in and whisper something to our study hall teacher...all the
color left her face.  Then the bell rang, and we went to our
homerooms...I heard something about Kennedy, but didn't really know
what was going on.  My homeroom teacher told us the news that Kennedy
had been shot, but when the dismissal bell rang, we didn't know he was
dead.  When I got home, I told my mother that I heard JFK had been
shot in Dallas, and she replied these five words that are forever
etched in my brain, "The poor man is dead."
>
> Buddy Holly: I was in 9th grade and moms told me when I returned home
> from school.

I was in 3rd grade, and had no idea who Buddy Holly was.  I didn't
discover him until after The Beatles conquered America

On Nov 14, 11:26�am, Lars Eighner <use...@larseighner.com> wrote:

>
> My companion

Why not just say your boy toy?

9/11-Heard about it on 1010 WINS radio-live coverage before I left for
work. When  I got to work, we watched one of the towers fall down.

JFK-I remember vaguely that something bad was happening but I was too
young to understand it.

Buddy Holly-Wasn't born yet.

On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:07:38 -0800 (PST), peterpuck86
<peterchuck@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Buddy Holly-Wasn't born yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly

(...)

Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 � February 3, 1959), known
professionally as Buddy Holly, (...)

(...)

"Way Back Jack" <here@home.org> wrote in message 
news:4afeba61.4877156@news.usenetmonster.com...
> 9/11:  There's a path on my property that I used for jogging, naked in
> warm weather, except for running shoes, baseball cap, and radio ear
> phones.  Anyway, the news interrupted the soft-rock show and I ran
> back to the house and told the old lady to turn on the tube.

At work. Somebody came through and said something about the WTC being 
bombed. We had a small TV and watched live coverage until the first tower 
fell, then the owner told us to get back to work.

> JFK: I was cruising in a '58 Impala on Pulaski Hwy. when the news of
> the shooting interrupted Johnny Tillotson's "Talk Back Trembling
> Lips."  Death had not yet been confirmed.  Man, I had to tell someone
> so I stopped in this redneck dive in White Marsh.  There were no
> patrons just an old hag behind the bar.  She just stared without
> responding.  "Aw ya old fart, if you don't believe me, turn on ya
> radio, if ya have one."  Whereupon I left.

I wasn't even sperm yet.

> Buddy Holly: I was in 9th grade and moms told me when I returned home
> from school.

Don Mclean told me about it.


-- 
"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - 
doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up 
the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the duke of Wellington and let them 
debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has 
settled more issues in history than any other factor, and the contrary 
opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forgot this basic 
truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."
- Robert Heinlein 

In our last episode,
<185d972c-e9e8-4b05-9d3e-79893e31f3c7@o10g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, the
lovely and talented islanders broadcast on alt.obituaries:

> On Nov 14, 11:26???am, Lars Eighner <use...@larseighner.com> wrote:

>> My companion

> Why not just say your boy toy?

After more than 20 years it doesn't quite seem to convey the facts.  Of
course, on 9/11 it would have been only about 13 or 14 years, so I guess
that would be something of a gray area.

-- 
  Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/>                 September 5919, 1993
            298 days since Rick Warren prayed over Bush's third term.
  Obama: No hope, no change, more of the same. Yes, he can, but no, he won't.

Way Back Jack wrote:
> 9/11:  There's a path on my property that I used for jogging, naked in
> warm weather, except for running shoes, baseball cap, and radio ear
> phones.  Anyway, the news interrupted the soft-rock show and I ran
> back to the house and told the old lady to turn on the tube.

I woke up in the morning, logged into my computer to see that I was 
receiving a whole slew of CNN Breaking news alerts in my email.  I turned on 
the TV, and every station was covering the event.  I called my sister, told 
her to turn on the TV, and she called me a few minutes later wailing that 
"the world is ending!  the world is ending!".

>
> JFK: I was cruising in a '58 Impala on Pulaski Hwy. when the news of
> the shooting interrupted Johnny Tillotson's "Talk Back Trembling
> Lips."  Death had not yet been confirmed.  Man, I had to tell someone
> so I stopped in this redneck dive in White Marsh.  There were no
> patrons just an old hag behind the bar.  She just stared without
> responding.  "Aw ya old fart, if you don't believe me, turn on ya
> radio, if ya have one."  Whereupon I left.

I was in Elementary School in Canada.  We were called into a school 
gymnasium, were the news was broken, and classes were dismissed for the day. 
In retrospect, I really don't understand - or cannot recall - why an 
American president's death would cause our Canadian school to shut down for 
the day, but that was cool.  We got to play outside in the crisp red and 
orange maple leaves for the rest of the day.

>
> Buddy Holly: I was in 9th grade and moms told me when I returned home
> from school.

It didn't even register on my radar.  Too young.

- nilita 

On Nov 14, 8:41�pm, Lars Eighner <use...@larseighner.com> wrote:

>
> After more than 20 years it doesn't quite seem to convey the facts. �Of
> course, on 9/11 it would have been only about 13 or 14 years, so I guess
> that would be something of a gray area.

Then why use beard words like companion? Simply say the guy you are
plowing in the ass.

On Nov 14, 6:21 pm, n...@anywhere.net (ObamaNation, Yuck, It's
Abomination) wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:07:38 -0800 (PST), peterpuck86
>
> <peterch...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >Buddy Holly-Wasn't born yet.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly
>
> (...)
>
> Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known
> professionally as Buddy Holly, (...)
>
> (...)

I wasn't born yet........

In the previous article, Way Back Jack <here@home.org> wrote:
> 9/11

Read about it here.

> JFK

Too young to be aware of his death as such; watching his funeral on
the TV might be my earliest memory.
-- 
  _+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\      /  baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Nov 14, 4:03 pm, islanders <islande...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Nov 14, 11:26 am, Lars Eighner <use...@larseighner.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > My companion
>
> Why not just say your boy toy?

Andy comments:

 Come on.... don't be an asshole.....

Andy writes:


  JFK......
   I was a freshman at NC State, in Room 248, Tucker dormitory......
My window was open , and I heard someone in the courtyard shout
'"They shot the son of a bitch"...... I didn't think any more about
it,
since I was not politically unmotivated, ,,,,, and didn't care... I
still don't ....
Who  cares about one person dying  1500 miles away?...

(9/11)
  I was sitting in my office at Raytheon, head of the Electromagnetics
Lab, and  thought it was just some really bad accident.....I went back
to work...

Buddy Holly
    I don't remeber anything about that.  I didn't know who BH was.
To be honest about it, I still don't , except for the biographies on
the TV....Mildly interesting.....

" And they, since they were not the one dead, turned back to
   their affairs"      R. Frost

On Nov 15, 10:14 am, AndyS <andysha...@juno.com> wrote:
> Andy writes:
>
>   JFK......

> Who  cares about one person dying  1500 miles away?...

Apparently, that was the view of the Bush Administration when they
calculatingly, yet needlessly, sent thousands of US soldiers to their
deaths in Iraq.
>

On Nov 15, 10:04�am, AndyS <andysha...@juno.com> wrote:

> �Come on.... don't be an asshole.....

Talk to him about that.

"J.D. Baldwin" <INVALID_SEE_SIG@example.com.invalid> wrote 
in message news:hdp2o7$q1u$2@reader1.panix.com...
>
> In the previous article, Way Back Jack <here@home.org> 
> wrote:
>> 9/11
>
> Read about it here.


I agree.  Fascinating reading.  Many of us came to 
alt.obituaries for our information.  I heard about it first, 
though, because a friend of mine was staying in the hotel at 
the WTC.  He called me and asked what he should do.  I told 
him to get the fuck out of there.*  Then I turned on the TV. 
I hadn't left for work yet.  I can distinctly remember the 
idiot on the news station saying after the second plane hit 
that there must be serious problems at air traffic control 
this morning.

My colleagues who get to work on time were rewarded with a 
view from the window of the towers burnng and falling.

*a year later, he was able to pick up his travel bag, which 
he left behind.  It looked like it had been gone over with a 
fine-tooth comb.

JFK

5th grade.  Coming into the classroom after art class.  The 
loudspeaker was on and turned to the radio.  We figured it 
out from there.  Very dramatic.

Buddy Holly

No memory. 

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:05:29 -0800 (PST), Marcus <marcus60s@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>On Nov 15, 10:14=A0am, AndyS <andysha...@juno.com> wrote:
>> Andy writes:
>>
>> =A0 JFK......
>
>> Who =A0cares about one person dying =A01500 miles away?...
>
>Apparently, that was the view of the Bush Administration when they
>calculatingly, yet needlessly, sent thousands of US soldiers to their
>deaths in Iraq.

I suspect that Bush wanted to avenge his pappy's failure to get
Saddam.

Frankly, I don't know what the proper political-military response to
terrorism should be.

But the PC appeasement route that you cheek-spreading, leftist,
lunatic fringe, moonbat, girly-boys endorse ain't the way to go.

On Nov 15, 10:05 am, Marcus <marcus...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Apparently, that was the view of the Bush Administration when they
> calculatingly, yet needlessly, sent thousands of US soldiers to their
> deaths in Iraq.
>
Andy comments:
   And the view of the Obama administration as well, who is increasing
the troop levels and endorsing GWB's policies.   After a year of
Obama's rule, we have more troops in the middle east than GWB had....
and it's getting worse...

On Nov 15, 11:08 am, "Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> "J.D. Baldwin" <INVALID_SEE_...@example.com.invalid> wrote
> in messagenews:hdp2o7$q1u$2@reader1.panix.com...
>
>
>
> > In the previous article, Way Back Jack <h...@home.org>
> > wrote:
> >> 9/11
>
> > Read about it here.
>
> I agree.  Fascinating reading.  Many of us came to
> alt.obituaries for our information.  I heard about it first,
> though, because a friend of mine was staying in the hotel at
> the WTC.  He called me and asked what he should do.  I told
> him to get the fuck out of there.*  Then I turned on the TV.
> I hadn't left for work yet.  I can distinctly remember the
> idiot on the news station saying after the second plane hit
> that there must be serious problems at air traffic control
> this morning.
>
> My colleagues who get to work on time were rewarded with a
> view from the window of the towers burnng and falling.
>
> *a year later, he was able to pick up his travel bag, which
> he left behind.  It looked like it had been gone over with a
> fine-tooth comb.
>
> JFK
>
> 5th grade.  Coming into the classroom after art class.  The
> loudspeaker was on and turned to the radio.  We figured it
> out from there.  Very dramatic.
>
> Buddy Holly
>
> No memory.

12/7/41: I guess that I must really be old (78) compared to the rest
of you folks! I even remember Pearl Harbor! I was 10 years old, in the
fifth grade when it happened. I don't remember much about what my
folks had to say about it that Sunday, but the next morning in school
our teacher immediately pointed it out. She said, in effect, that
something terrible had occurred and that a horrible war was going to
happen. I also recall that a year or so before that our teacher told
us about how sad and awful it was that the Germans had burned all
their books. I guess us kids didn't really get the import of that at
the time.
JimCo

AndyS wrote:

>On Nov 15, 10:05 am, Marcus <marcus...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Apparently, that was the view of the Bush Administration when they
>>calculatingly, yet needlessly, sent thousands of US soldiers to their
>>deaths in Iraq.
>>
>>    
>>
>Andy comments:
>   And the view of the Obama administration as well, who is increasing
>the troop levels and endorsing GWB's policies.   After a year of
>Obama's rule, we have more troops in the middle east than GWB had....
>and it's getting worse...
>  
>

But at least this time, they are going after the terrorists vs. fighting 
/ cleaning up the consequences of GW's pissing contest with Saddam.

On Nov 15, 4:05 pm, clams_casino <PeterGrif...@DrunkinClam.com> wrote:
> AndyS wrote:
> >On Nov 15, 10:05 am, Marcus <marcus...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >>Apparently, that was the view of the Bush Administration when they
> >>calculatingly, yet needlessly, sent thousands of US soldiers to their
> >>deaths in Iraq.
>
> >Andy comments:
> >   And the view of the Obama administration as well, who is increasing
> >the troop levels and endorsing GWB's policies.   After a year of
> >Obama's rule, we have more troops in the middle east than GWB had....
> >and it's getting worse...
>
> But at least this time, they are going after the terrorists vs. fighting
> / cleaning up the consequences of GW's pissing contest with Saddam.- Hide quoted

What you have to remember about Bush apologists, Republicans, and
rightwing nutjobs is that as of the afternoon of January 20, 2009,
they become amnesiacs of what transpired over the previous 8 years.

9/11:   I was still in bed (MST) and my husband came 
up from our home office and told me to turn the station,
because a plane had hit the WTC.    I was bleary-eyed
and not focusing, and at the early stages, it seemed 
like an odd accident, so I fell back asleep.   A few
minutes later, hubby woke me up again and we watched
as the second plane hit.    Then the Pentagon.   Scariest
day of my life.   

JFK:    I was a high school junior, and as I walked out of the
noisy cafeteria with friends, we saw some girls crying in the
school hallway.     I had a transistor radio with me, so we
went early to our next class (gym) where there was good
reception, we learned what had happened.    Being young,
we figured it would all turn out OK.   After gym, in our
next class, the TV was on and we learned the President
had died.    School dismissed.    Three days of hell, even
seeing Jack Ruby kill Oswald "live" on TV.

Buddy Holly:    I was 11, and loved rock and roll (except
that horrid Elvis Presley, who I still detest).   Holly was one
of my favorites.    I cried.  

Kris

In article <hdpci0$esi$1@reader1.panix.com>, Hyfler/Rosner
<relfyh@rcn.com> wrote:

> "J.D. Baldwin" <INVALID_SEE_SIG@example.com.invalid> wrote 
> in message news:hdp2o7$q1u$2@reader1.panix.com...
> >
> > In the previous article, Way Back Jack <here@home.org> 
> > wrote:
> >> 9/11
> >
> > Read about it here.
> 
> 
> I agree.  Fascinating reading.  Many of us came to 
> alt.obituaries for our information.  I heard about it first, 
> though, because a friend of mine was staying in the hotel at 
> the WTC.  He called me and asked what he should do.  I told 
> him to get the fuck out of there.*  Then I turned on the TV. 
> I hadn't left for work yet.  I can distinctly remember the 
> idiot on the news station saying after the second plane hit 
> that there must be serious problems at air traffic control 
> this morning.
> 
> My colleagues who get to work on time were rewarded with a 
> view from the window of the towers burnng and falling.
> 
> *a year later, he was able to pick up his travel bag, which 
> he left behind.  It looked like it had been gone over with a 
> fine-tooth comb.
> 
> JFK
> 
> 5th grade.  Coming into the classroom after art class.  The 
> loudspeaker was on and turned to the radio.  We figured it 
> out from there.  Very dramatic.
> 
> Buddy Holly
> 
> No memory.

WTC

I was asleep.  My wife, who'd gotten up early, woke me up and turned on
the bedroom TV.  At that point, only the first plane had gone in.  The
north tower had this gigantic hole in it, and the first thing I thought
was, how the hell are they going to fix that?  My initial presumption
that this was some sort of horrible accident and that the tower might
be repairable seems horribly naive in retrospect.

JFK

Sixth grade.  We were going through yet another reading-comprehension
test from a firm called SRA.  They gave these stupid tests to
everybody, regardless of their reading level.  The head nun got on the
p.a. and got the younger half of the school into the church and the
older half into the auditorium below it, where we were going to have a
regular root-for-Jesus assembly that afternoon anyway.  She said
nothing about JFK.  In the auditorium, the head nun tried to tell us
what was going on but she was crying, and so she was hard to
understand.  I think we understood that JFK was dead, because I recall
trying to remember the vice president's name, and that it took me a
moment.  The cross-eyed nun in charge of the sixth grade accused either
me or someone near me of smiling, but to this day I have no idea who
she was angry at because, well, she was really, really cross-eyed. 
Then they brought us up to the church, above the auditorium, to say a
rosary.  All I wanted to do was go home, ask my mom if she knew about
any of this, and try to get some news.  Instead, we all sat in the
church for an hour while a priest from eastern Europe tried to tell us
what was going on (utterly failing to make himself clear) and led the
rosary-mantra for about an hour.  Finally, after all of that, they let
us leave.  Incredibly frustrating.  You can date a lot of my
disaffection for Catholic stuff from that afternoon.  Seriously.

Buddy Holly, Etc.

Don't remember it at all.  George Reeves died about four months later,
though, and I do remember that pretty well.

9/11 - I was between jobs and got up (ironically, I vividly remember
my alarm clock read 9:11 AM when I awoke) and got online to check on a
bunch of resumes I had sent out and was waiting for a response on.
When my AOL screen came up they showed the WTC on fire and I ran to
the TV and stayed glued to it for about four days.

JFK - It was about three months before I was born.

Buddy Holly - Before I was born.

Elvis - I didn't find out about the death of Elvis until about a week
after he died.  We were on vacation at a lake house in the middle of
the Allegheny forest without TV or radio or news or contact with
others for about 8-9 days.  The car radio did not work either.  It
wasn't until after we got back home and turned on the TV that we found
out about Elvis.  I think he died on a Tuesday early morning and it
was the following Monday I found out about it.  I remember the next
day going thru the newspapers that had accumulated on the front porch
during the week we were gone to see what else I missed and was more
upset that Groucho Marx had passed away a couple days after Elvis than
I was with Elvis dying.

On Nov 15, 8:42 pm, "Michael O'Connor" <mpoconn...@aol.com> wrote:
> 9/11 - I was between jobs and got up (ironically, I vividly remember
> my alarm clock read 9:11 AM when I awoke) and got online to check on a
> bunch of resumes I had sent out and was waiting for a response on.
> When my AOL screen came up they showed the WTC on fire and I ran to
> the TV and stayed glued to it for about four days.
>
> JFK - It was about three months before I was born.
>
> Buddy Holly - Before I was born.
>
> Elvis - I didn't find out about the death of Elvis until about a week
> after he died.  We were on vacation at a lake house in the middle of
> the Allegheny forest without TV or radio or news or contact with
> others for about 8-9 days.  The car radio did not work either.  It
> wasn't until after we got back home and turned on the TV that we found
> out about Elvis.  I think he died on a Tuesday early morning and it
> was the following Monday I found out about it.  I remember the next
> day going thru the newspapers that had accumulated on the front porch
> during the week we were gone to see what else I missed and was more
> upset that Groucho Marx had passed away a couple days after Elvis than
> I was with Elvis dying.

I'm a very big fan of the Marx Brothers, and remember well that Elvis
and Groucho died the same week.  I was quite sad about Groucho, but
Elvis' death was a shocker.

I'm not real fan of Elvis, but I appreciate who he was, what he did,
and enjoy a lot of his music.  I was 27 when Elvis died, and have a
good friend who is several years older than me...and a very big Elvis
fan.  He called me that afternoon to tell me the news...he just
couldn't believe it.  I comforted him the best I could...three years
later he did the same for me when Lennon was assassinated.

9/11:

In Los Angeles, my wife and I were up feeding our 3-week-old daughter when
the phone rang.  I answered, and my sister-in-law in Maryland cried, "Turn
on the TV!"  It had already transpired by then, the collapses, so we were
seeing replays.  (I read later that many children were traumatized by the
multiple replays, which led them to believe dozens of buildings were coming
down all around the country.)  I remember looking at my newborn child and
thinking, "What have we brought her into?"


JFK:

I was in 8th grade at Bowie Jr. High School in Irving, Texas, not much
farther from the assassination site than from the house where Lee Harvey
Oswald had lived with his family.  Coming back from lunch, it seemed
something was going on, and my English teacher was crying.  We settled into
class (world history) and the teacher said something about the president
having been shot.  I didn't think of it as a fatal thing, automatically
presuming he'd been winged or something.  Then the principal came on the
intercom and said the president was dead.  A kid to the side of me yelled,
"Yea!" and the kid in front of him turned around and punched him.  They
didn't let us out of school early, and they tried to maintain normal
classes.  When we got on the bus to go home that afternoon, some kid told
what may well have been the first JFK assassination joke:  What did Caroline
and John-John get for Christmas?  A jack-in-a-box.


Buddy Holly:

I didn't know who Holly was at the time of his death.  I learned of his
death and who he was from a movie magazine in which I was reading an article
about George Reeves, who had died a little more than four months later.
(Reeves's death I heard about while watching the Superman TV show.  My dad
came home from work during the show, sat with me for the remainder, and then
told me.  Did I mention I had a cool dad?)

Jim Beaver