Writer's Block: News development

[kanders07]

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The first major new event I remember was JFK's assassination. My dad was stationed in France, so we were living there. I was six and in first grade. My mother came into my bedroom and told me there was no school because someone had killed the president. She was crying.

It didn't really have an impact on my world view because I don't think, at six, I really had a world view. Other things had more impact as I got older and started to understand more. Things like the Viet Nam War, The Cold War, other assassinations. Most of those things turned me into a complete pacifist.

Comments

[bluemeanybeany.livejournal.com]

i can remember the Gulf War -I'd be four. There was a Raf base near us and I just remember everything being very, very busy. I got taken to a party on the base and wore a purple dress with a pink ribbon that I loved.

Id like to point out that Ive just turned 23 and that in my lifetime my country has been at war a total of 17 years. And that's not counting the Yugoslavian intervention or the IRA troubles. That just seems kind of wrong.

[msscorpioct.livejournal.com]

I remember things like "the day the music died"- the deaths of Richie Valenz, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper- at my age- I was born in 1952- that was a major event. But I would say the real major event had to be the assassination of John F. Kennedy- just 2 days after my 11th birthday. It was a Friday afternoon, and I was sitting in my sixth grade classroom. A teacher in another room had a television on for her class, and Walter Cronkite broke in with the news from Dallas. She called my teacher and told him, and then he broke the news to us. They sent us all home early, and it was just like the entire world came to an awful stop. What a terrible weekend that was. Some things you just do not forget.

[togsos.livejournal.com]

Three things i remember most are all from the start of the 80's...I remember a special report on the khmer rouge, it wasn't contemporary, maybe 2 or 3 years after the events but the image of the camera panning around the rooms full of skulls still remains vividly embedded in my mind. I also remember having a cake sale in school for the striking workers in the Gdańsk Shipyard. My assistant in work who is Polish thinks the idea of little irish kids baking cakes to make money for Polish workers is hilarious. Also the day Bobby Sands died and the absolute horror that it had happened and waiting to see how the troubles would escalate as a result, it was a truly scary time.

[bluemeanybeany.livejournal.com]

The only slight memory I have of the Soviet Union was that I had a jigsaw of the world which had little pictures on it of whatever was grown there. The USSR was on the jigsaw with little oil wells and bread baskets and I can remember my Mum explaining that people in the USSR were struggling at the moment and runing out of power and food. [so Im guessing it was 1989\1990] She also said they had had a war in which theyd got rid of a king and had two sides who were White and Red.

For some unknown reason I can also remember the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 [aged 8] and my Dad being annoyed because he said he was the best chance for the peace process there.

the first thing I can remember seeing and understanding was probably Dunblane when I was around nine, all the mothers outside the schoolgates were crying and I knew that the parents and teachers were more scared and upset than the children and we had to try to be helpful.

[bluemeanybeany.livejournal.com]

The news report that probably had the most lasting effect on me was Lockerbie. It wasnt the actual event because Id only be 2 then. But they did a 5 year anniversary report and I really, really shouldnt have watched it. I think it was because they showed a map of the flight path and it went over my town. And then they dissected the whole event with details and footage that to this day still cause me to be very, very afraid. For months I was convinced a plane was going to crash on my house. [which were not helped by living next to a runway] Since the age of seven Ive had nightmares about commercial planes crashing into buildings and Im not the worlds most happiest flyer either. Ive not been on a plane for two years. As I get older my fear seems to be growing and Im not sure there wont come a point when I cant get on a plane anymore. Though its not the flying because I love being in small planes and gliders, it is the awful big commercial planes that fill me with dread- I keep thinking theyre going to explode.
No idea how Im going to get over that.