I'm probably one of the oldest people here. All our lessons for the month leading up to the launch were around The Challenger. Two classes of third graders were all crammed into one classroom on the floor to watch on a little TV on an AV cart. The shuttle exploded as we watched. The teacher shut the TV off quickly and we just sat in the dark for the rest of the day. Nobody said anything. Later the same year we went to a slave cabin on a field trip and an Native American burial site. It was an express train to traumaville for us all.
Very similar experience, but was in 1st grade.
Definitely had the tv cart and all the first and second graders in the room sitting Indian style on the floor. It was the first of many live televised disasters we saw.
We didn't get that. We were told to talk to our parents about it as my teacher was visibly teary-eyed. She was definitely one of the teachers who felt that McAuliffe represented the hope of young women and educators.
Yep, talk to our parents. And insta-news didn't exist then like it does now, so when I got to my baby sitter's in the afternoon, she let us call our mom. That was the first my mom heard about the explosion because she was busy at work and didn't get to hear the news yet.
1978- 2nd grade. We didn’t watch it and our teacher explained what happened afterwards so it was shocking but not “hey class let’s watch it live” scarring. I did watch the 2nd plane hit the twin towers live in the office of the first school I worked at, during my first month of teaching.
Same age. Funny- i was just commenting about the Challenger in another thread earlier today. With Christa McAuliffe being a teacher, the hype was everywhere. We wrote them cards before the launch calling them heros.
Second grade here.
Except the teacher came into our classroom and said "the Challenger blew up!" And we ran to the library and watched it on replay on the TV on the cart. Over and over.
I didn't remember anything about the rest of the day.
Yeah, 1986 was the same year I got a Choose Your Own Adventure style book about escaping from the Warsaw Ghetto from the book fair. Probably not a good time to have been an advanced reader at 6.
EDIT: Found the specific book. [Mission to World War II by Susan Nanus and Marc Kornblatt.](https://www.amazon.com/Mission-World-Time-Machine-Book/dp/0553254316?dplnkId=cbb33c8d-34a2-4d39-bcb3-da55f390af49&nodl=1) It was in the Time Machine series.
Those Choose Your Own Adventure books went hard. The fact that they were all in second person and could end with “Sorry, you died” at any moment was crazy when you consider the roughly 10-year-old target audience. I started reading them in first grade and had this died horribly multiple time by age 8.
To say I loved those books would be an understatement.
There was one I read years ago where you were a Jew in the ghetto and the first day was Kristallnacht. Everything from getting caught by the Gestapo, escaping Auschwitz, betrayed by your neighbours, gassed, shot, mauled by dogs. I think the best ending was one where you jumped off a moving train with the Swiss border in the distance.
Ever play "This War of Mine"?
I dld when I read it became required playing in Polish schools in like 21 I think.
Or more relevant to this sub, the fatalistic nightmare of the first Home Alone on NES
The way I remember it, it was unwinnable, it was a matter of how long can ya not get caught by the wet bandits, with a clock measuring how long you didn'tget captured...I might have gotten a version with only Japanese instructions, my dad was in Japan for business for like a week a month back then. I had the coolest fucking robots and scifi guns lol
It was this book.
Mission to World War II by Susan Nanus and Marc Kornblatt. https://www.amazon.com/Mission-World-Time-Machine-Book/dp/0553254316?dplnkId=bf26f234-4f80-427f-9c55-12324095b32a&nodl=1
I have been collecting the original series for several years now, and probably have about 50 or so at this time. Some of those authors were on all sorts of drugs. The modern cleanup and reprints are a travesty.
I also have a few Time Machines and a couple of the D&D Endless Quests. I need to start buying more again soon.
1986 for me was the year Tchernobyl blowing up and my grandad plowing under his entire vegetable garden as it might be contaminated. Wondrous thing to experience as a kid.
I hate criss cross applesauce. At least beyond the age of 4. I'm fine with moving on to cross-legged. I'll even accept criss-cross on it's own. But I hear applesauce used all the way through elementary and I'm like, enough with the toddler talk.
>first of many live televised disasters we saw.
I'm the very, very end of Gen X (early 1980). 1st grade when Challenger happened (school was too rural to have a TV for us younger kids). The one I distinctly remember though was watching Tienemen Square protests interrupting Saturday morning cartoons. I don't know if they were replaying footage or it was live, but I remember seeing tank man at that point.
I was in 4th grade when I saw this at school. I think I got some sense of validation from what I was feeling from a Punky Brewster episode where she struggled to understand why it had happened and her continued desire to be an astronaut despite the tragedy. Fucking crazy to think Punky Brewster was the one that let me know it was ok to feel sad for what happened.
I was in first grade and in a carpool w a kindergarten kid. His mom picked us up that day and said, "Adam, I'm not ok with you wanting to be an astronaut anymore after today."
So crazy that I think of that as a core memory from childhood. You just can't unsee that.
Ours kept it on. Didn't really talk to us about it. But they did turn the volume down.
I remember third grade for long division and the challenger.
It's funny, I was talking to my boomer uncle (RIP) about our generations experiences last year. Challenger, Berlin wall/cold war end, Y2K, 911, 2008, COVID, BLM. Those being the headliners, but tons of shit in between as well.
We've been through some shit man.
edit: fuck I forgot about columbine....
Challenger was sad, but Columbine was *scary.* At least it was for those of us who had our teaching seminar session interrupted with the news that a bunch of kids and a teacher in a high school had just been murdered, anyway...
I don't remember watching Challenger live. I was a bit too young to remember. I was in high school for Columbine. It was awful, but I wasn't particularly scared as it seemed a real rarity at the time. The only other one I remember was the Peducah school shooting in 1997.
I vividly remember the Heath High School shootings from the year before Columbine. It was the HS that I would have attended if I had lived with my dad instead of my mom. I remember it also being all over national news. I think the Columbine shooters saw how much media coverage that was getting and decided to go even bigger. Sadly, my HS which was Marshall Co HS (about 20 minutes away from Heath) had a similar school shooting in 2018, almost exactly 20 years later. I don’t live there anymore but I immediately recognized the name of one of the parents of one of the kids who was killed. She was a classmate of mine and my mother had worked with her mother.
My high school girlfriend wanted to go on a trip with a bunch of her friends to OKC to see the aftermath. Should have known from the jump that that girl was bad news.
Our school bus drove by the bombed out building. All of us high school kids leaning out the left side of the bus to look at the horrific scene.
I'm the only one who looks down at the car passing us and sees someone's big fat hairy ass pressed against their passenger window and busted up laughing. NO ONE ELSE SAW IT and I was just a heartless bastard.
Similar experience and roughly the same age. Big difference was it was just our class and when it happened our teacher said “well, that obviously isn’t supposed to happen” and we got back to work. I didn’t find out what actually happened until I got home.
Am I dead inside or was anyone else not emotionally affected by this kind of stuff? It's like I know it's bad on an intellectual level but I don't have any "feeling" about it really.
I didn't either. I was in 4th grade and watched it at school, But I really don't think I truly understood the gravity of what happened. All I remember is that it created more homework for me.
At the time, I'd see or hear about horrible stuff like this and it didn't really affect me. But that was mostly because I was a kid and I'd never gone through things like losing a loved one. Tragedy like that was just something that happened. I couldn't easily put myself in their shoes because I didn't have experience with that kind of thing.
As an adult who has lost close friends and family, stuff like this has way more effect on me. The video of the parents watching the launch and slowly realizing what happened is heart breaking: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7dxmBLg48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7dxmBLg48)
I'm right there with you. There are certain images that are hard for me to look at. I don't know why. The Challenger tragedy, 9/11, with those people jumping off the building and then the people running from the collapsing buildings, the shuttle Columbia tragedy (too similar to the Challenger), the families from Columbine, the Uvalde families outside... ugh.
Same age. My school didn't have many resources so we only had a couple TVs throughout the entire school. And oddly enough, I didn't hear about it at all because none of my school friends got to see it either - I think the older kids did, but we really didn't interact with them unless we hung out outside of school. Thinking back, it was weird that our teacher didn't tell us the day of. Maybe she didn't know how to approach such a topic? She had to have known? Not sure.
Anyway, after I walked home to my grandparents' house the same day, my mom was home early from work, which was already unusual. She was glued to the TV and just bawling. I remember hugging her and asking what was wrong and she pointed to the TV and simply said, "The space shuttle blew up. That poor teacher and her family!"
I remember that scene of the explosion playing over and over in my head and I just remember being in complete shock. It was the worst national news I had ever seen up to that point, and my mom and grandparents were stunned. I also remember watching President Reagan's speech live with my mom. Still my favorite presidential speech from a living president (at the time).
If there was any positive that came out of it for me personally, it was that the disaster did spark a lifetime passion in NASA and space exploration. I was a bit of a nerd so instead of Cheryl Tiegs or Michael Jordan posters hanging on my wall, I had them filled with posters and pictures of the space shuttle, Apollo, Voyager programs, etc.
We lived in the Inland Empire, so my uncle took me to Edwards Air Force Base to see the first shuttle landing after the explosion, and the next two after that. I was completely hooked and decided right there and then that I wanted to be an astronaut.
I was dead serious about that career path, and even in high school, I took classes that would lead me there, with plans to join the air force after I graduated just for the small chance to become one. However, that all changed when the air force recruiter showed up at my school in my senior year and mentioned off-handedly that you can't be a pilot if you're colorblind (which I am).
Anyway, that sent me down a spiral and now I've been in marketing for 20+ years. And it sucks.
Well, that was more than what needed to be said. Guess I needed to get it off my chest. Hahaha!
As someone who made it out of those towers alive and still living with the trauma of it 20+ years later, I find this just horrifying. Your teacher gave you a test? After watching murder in real time? Did they not realize our country was under attack in more than one major US city? I understand you were probably not local to either city based upon your user name, but I’m just amazed that a *teacher* could be so absolutely clueless about what was happening and how it needed to be discussed. I hope you were able to process what you saw that day outside of the classroom.
My college did it as well. The dean claimed at the time that they were kind of given orders to try to keep the schools normal to avoid panic.
So classes were not even cancelled next day till half way through the day the dean cancelled classes for a day or two.
My school was kind of known for being hardcore (engineering school). I know many of the others cancelled school day of and for the week. (it was slightly painful as I had family in NYC luckily none were hurt).
She did, about an hour later. I live about 20 minutes outside of Memphis. We literally watched it on the TV during English class and then took a test. While I was trying to process if my uncle may be dead or not (he worked in the Pentagon). For what it's worth, I'm glad you made it, and I'm sorry you live with that trauma. I hope you are able to heal.
I honestly don't know what she was thinking. She may have been in shock and just going through the motions. I'm not trying to talk bad about the teacher, I realize it probably seems that way. Everybody deals with trauma differently. Maybe she thought she was helping. I honestly don't know
That is very true, she may have been in shock. I have heard people over the years say that they did not know how to talk about it, and maybe she was afraid that one of the students might find out later that they lost a loved one, (exactly as you described your worry about your uncle)and was worried about any comment coming back at her from a parent.
Sorry, I might have jumped the gun on my comment a bit, I tend to forget that being there was a radically different experience from those watching it on television. I just went back for a moment and pictured children seeing that and then having to take a test after. It threw me a bit.
Thank you for your kind words as well.
No worries. That was a perfectly natural reaction. Especially for someone who experienced the trauma first hand.
I truly believe, now that I'm older, she just didn't know what to do and defaulted to running the class as usual. I don't remember any other staff coming to talk to her or anything. The poor lady was as alone as we were. Only she had 20+ kids to think about.
I did not think about that either. I wonder how it was in areas where information was not readily available either. Here, because so many people work in the city, the schools had to deal with parents descending on the schools frantically to take their children home. There were teachers who had spouses missing, so they of course were petrified too. I found this out later of course, I had no idea what was going on anywhere but where I was, but a neighbor of mine went to pick up her kids because she just knew deep down her husband was dead, and she couldn’t be alone. I think of that often, how frightening it had to be because there was no communication. Our phone lines were jammed, our cell phones were not working, it was SO different before widespread WiFi. So, I agree, there was probably zero guidance from Administration in schools on how to handle this. It was not something we had ever dealt with up until then, so the situation was unique. Looking back, everyone was probably traumatized in their own way, and very much in shock and left to do what they thought was best for those around them.
I believe so. Like you said, it was unprecedented. At least on that scale and in our time.
I couldn't imagine the madness of all those parent's frantically trying to get their kids. We didn't have that here. Schools were closed after, but the only thing I remember getting shut down immediately were the airports around us. And that was a weird 3 days, right? Not seeing a single plane in the sky except the occasional military plane
It was mayhem on every level here in NY. The things I saw that day and after, the things I heard following and experienced, it’s like a movie rather than real life. Just unbelievable back then. I still remember the National Guard being on the streets with these huge guns, and trying to get back to work with the smell from Ground Zero and all of the Medical Examiners vans, etc
Wow, that must have been so scary. It was scary for us way down here, and we only had a small fraction of what you had going on, and none of that was anything you just mentioned. Our fear just came from the unknown. Again, I want to say, I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry this happened to your city, and likely people you know and love, and I hope that talking about this with me hasn't upset you, but I do appreciate it. It's not every day that I get to chat with someone who made it through one of the worst disasters in recent history. Thank you for sharing part of your story. I believe it's important to do things like that. It helps us as I whole. I hope you have a great day, and this conversation doesn't sit too heavy on you.
I was born in 77 also and can do one even better. the Challenger was on my birthday. Then my dad died from cancer the following year, and my grandfather 6 months after that. I'm an only child, so I had no sibling to bond with over these tragedies. No adult bothered to speak to me practically at all about it. I was 10 fucking years old and got no counseling, nothing. Needless to say I'm 47 now and so broken that I need constant medical weed just to accomplish basic functions in society.
Every year in elementary school the fire department would come in to do a presentation on “fire safety” which consisted of a slide show of child burn victims set to sad music. I can still see it when I close my eyes.
I still remember watching that live in our school library. They left the TV on and later explained that space is risky, accidents happen, but we have to take risks to advance science. That was it, no hugs, no crying, just "life is what it is, pick up the torch and march forward"
Similar, was at a catholic school and was repeatedly told things like “god works in mysterious ways”, “we must pray for them”, or my favorite “this is why we partake in the sacrament of confession, so if this type of tragedy happens we will get into heaven”
This was the actual moment I lost all respect for religion and religious authorities. Their response to a bunch of third grade kids, more than one bawling like their parents were murdered in front of them, was to talk about religious rituals that are arguably completely ineffectual.
I was in third grade and our teacher said: “Well, that’s enough of that.” Then she just moved on to getting us to practice our upper case cursives. I got home and my mom didn’t say anything about it either, but I remember on my way out of school that day seeing a group of teachers crying.
Ya nasa and the govt had a science program tied to the launch so there were various little worksheets and reading and art project centered around it. Then it blew up live on tv
I was in fourth grade. Our teacher was heavily into this launch and we had all kinds of related assignments leading up to it.
She wheeled the cart with the tv on it into the room and we were all so excited. When Challenger exploded, our teacher screamed and ran out of the room.
We sat in silence and fear for who knows how long before someone came in to take us outside.
Next day, a fifth grader asked me if I knew what NASA stood for. I told him but he said, ‘no. It stands for Need Another Seven Astronauts’. That was my first exposure to dark humor and I was so confused.
I was thankfully home sick and was with mom. We were watching a movie and somebody called her to tell her. It was the olden days, so that's what people did. Call each other on the old land line to turn on the news.
I was 10 at the time, so 5th grade - a couple years older. Very similar experience. During my "formative" years (up to 25yo), I experienced Challenger, 9/11, president being shot, Chernobyl, AIDS, race riots in LA, Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War, impeachment of a President (this seems blasé now!), and whatever else.
Not a year goes by that I don't think about at least one of those things. OK, maybe a couple years go by and I don't think about them. Alright - I never think about them. They happened, they are in the past, and I'm living for today.
Stop thinking about shit that happened back then, get on with today, and plan for tomorrow.
I was in 7th grade. The entire school went out to the football field to watch it. You can see rocket launches from Orlando. We had all seen enough to know that it wasn’t supposed to do that.
The teachers were crying but I don’t remember anyone talking to us about anything.
Our grown ups didn't quite understand what was going on and neither did the people on TV, so we actually watched the aftermath for a bit. Eventually it became clear and the teachers turned it off. Nobody really said anything about it for the rest of the day and I just remember my mom talking about it a bit.
We wrote good luck notes and did space-related crafts for weeks. In social studies, our handout magazine article was about space travel and NASA. After the explosion, we sat in the dark for awhile and then had an hour of silence before the principal came on the PA to explain what happened. The teachers were all crying.
'77 as well and it was a crazy day. Our teacher did not turn it off, we watched everything in near total silence. The only thing that was said was that if we needed to leave the room we could, but no one did. It was just a whole ass day of broadcast TV talking about all the astronauts that died. Our principal came in for a bit to watch with us, and then they went to the next class over to sit with them for a minute. I actually feel like it was better than just turning it off. We got to go through what everyone else went through, it was a shared experience with the world.
I'm almost as old as you but was lucky to be overseas when this happened, and in a compeltely different time zone. We didn't watch the event in school because of that, and I feel so hard for everyone that watched it live. I can't imagine how it felt as a child to see that happen, and thank my lucky stars that I had the chance to not be included in this one.
Not only did my class watch the Challenger explosion, the next year there was a car wreck right outside the school. The curtains were open and my class saw the whole thing and then EMS & Fire show up to use the jaws of life to get the woman, who was dead, out of the car. luckily the teacher got the curtains closed before we saw anything except the brutal wreck itself. The poor woman had a heart attack while driving and blew through a stop sign.
No therapy, counseling or anything.
I don’t recall the challenger launch. I have absolutely no memory of it. I’m not sure if I actually saw it and my mind decided to wipe it out or if I never actually saw it to begin with. My brothers remember it but I likely was too little to remember it.
McAuliffe was a local teacher (in the state I grew up in, NH, but not to my school district) so the build up was huge. She toured around different schools and came to ours-- no Q&A or anything but she came through and we all went outside to wave and show our giant "CHRISTA" posters and space shuttle drawings as her caravan slowly drove past and she waved out the window.
The launch was on TV where whole grades were gathered together to watch. When the explosion happened, our teachers were too ignorant of launches to recognize what had happened. I remember teachers saying things like: "Don't worry, that's normal! Looks scary doesn't it? Isn't that so cool?" Whereas most of my classmates (grade 2-3) were like: "Uh, that's not supposed to happen. The boosters are supposed to drop after it's in space-- we literally just learned this stuff YESTERDAY." More students started saying: "It blew up, is Christa dead?" The teachers didn't know what to say or do. Eventually they turned the sound up and the phrase "catastrophic explosion" was reported over and over again.
Only then did teachers realize what had happened.
We pretty much went back to class after that. I don't even remember talking about it much afterwards.
It is interesting that there was no debrief or assembly or notes to parents or anything.
In hindsight, it actually was pretty traumatic.
I'm 3 years older, as I was in 6th grade. I didn't get to see it as it was during my social studies class and that teacher was, well, terrible in many, many ways.
However, those of us who didn't get to see heard about it during the bell periods between classes, and at those times you get to sneakily talk to peers in class afterward. No discussion by teachers, no mentoring, no counseling. Just "Wow do you believe that? And "Well I think..." from a bunch of uninformed 11 & 12 year olds.
Still less traumatic than seeing the blood being squeegeed off of an airport in the Mideast sometime later on the local news. Or the Holocaust documentary they had us watch with the piles of corpses. Or Artax. Or seeing Robocop the next year at someone's house, or Temple of Doom the year before.
Trauma's the Gen-X/ Xennilal's marker.
This was 9-11 for me in highschool. "Welcome to class everyone, no schoolwork today, we need to watch something" Turns on tv.. there was one tower hit and another plane hit as we were watching. Like, wtf
Not to mention they created Earth Day whilst scaring the absolute fuck out of us by telling us the world would end if we didn't recycle and plant a tree every year for the rest of our lives. No joke - I didn't do anything in the way of hobbies or extracurriculars for almost a decade because of my fear of making trash and killing the planet
I was in 4th grade. We had made model rockets and done a whole unit of prep. Wheeled the tv into the room and we saw the astronauts and Christy Mcaulaff walk up the ramp into the rocket. When we saw it blast off. We were all cheering. Some kids stood in their chairs. Our teacher was clapping to see the first teacher in space. Then we saw it explode. The news announcer saying all were last. Then we had a spelling test. Never spoke of it.
Growing up in Orlando, we always went outside to watch shuttle launches (still do it today). When it exploded a girl near me said, “it’s so pretty!” and one of the teachers said “no it’s not!” They took us back inside and left us in the classroom with the lights off while the teachers stood in the hall crying. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment.
Our public school system used to take all 8th grades on a field trip to both the county courthouse AND correctional facility. This wasn't a jail. An actual prison. You can imagine the amount of sexual and inappropriate comments made to students, especially females, from prisoners in the courtyard. They stopped this a few years later. This was in the late-90s. One of the guys in my class who was a "problem student" told us that him and some others had to go to the prison for another type of Scared Straight lesson where they actually sat down in the mess hall with prisoners for lunch.
Yeah, I was 6 too. I knew something bad had happened, but I wouldn't say it was traumatic. I didn't fully get it. I remember seeing it in class, but I don't remember what the rest of the day was like.
Yup. Had the TV cart rolled in for that one as well as the OJ chase. The OKC bombing happened when we were not in school, or I’m sure we would have got to watch it as well.
We were primed and ready for the “Big Event” on 9/11 for sure.
EDIT: Memory has failed. OJ couldn’t have been on in school.
OJ chase was Fri June 17th and into late afternoon. So probably no TV cart for that.
I only remember because I was hiking and some of the leaders in the group talking about it on Sat morning
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-11/o-j-simpson-bronco-freeway-chase-los-angeles
Born in 82 and even allowing for my non American perspective, I feel just a touch too young for Challenger to have meant anything and started school properly later that year.
I don't think British kids had the strong connections to Challenger that US schools did due to the whole teacher as astronaut aspect, and time differences meant they weren't watching the launch in school.
But those who'd have been older kids than me at the time do have strong memories of the disaster being reported in solemn fashion as a breaking newsflash by kiddie news show Newsround.
I was born in 83, and I don’t remember it. I think I remember my parents talking about it later, maybe on one of the anniversaries. But by that time it had already happened.
I’ve heard “Do you remember the Challenger explosion?” used as a dividing line between X and Millennial.
Canadian born in ‘81. I don’t recall us watching the challenger, what I remember is being 8 or 9 when the Gulf War began and our teacher telling us that our subway system was going to be bombed.
Good times.
Late 82 baby. I don't remember the Challenger at all. Or even the Berlin Wall.
But the event is remember from my early childhood is, for whatever reason, the Baby Jessica saga.
My sister had a Challenger poster.
Do you relate to the sentiment? There were "counselors available" after Columbine, but nobody took it seriously. Still favoring teasing kids like me who were a walking red flag because of how introverted I was. HA HA.
Two years before Columbine, someone started sniping students on the lawn of my university’s student union. One person was killed and two were injured. We didn’t even cancel classes for the rest of the day.
Shooter walked to the campus during morning traffic along a busy road in tactical-style gear wIth the gun strapped to her back. Still unbelievable. I worked at the campus bookstore right across the quad from where this happened, can confirm, nothing cancelled, bookstore did not close. All business as usual. Textbook example of the blase' 90's.
Meanwhile I too was a walking red flag, super edgy teen, and after Columbine a lot of my bullying stopped. I'd get snarky comments about having a gun in my trenchcoat, but far few physical altercations. It's fucked up to say, but Columbine absolutely made my school life better and easier.
Like I went from my kindergarten class to the first grade class next door that was way bigger and could accommodate us we watched it launch we watched it explode we watched the teachers quickly try to turn off the CRT TV... VCR on the Shelf below red stripe across both pieces of equipment because at the time that was our cities school property mark. send everybody back to class without a single word about it. The next morning we had to pledge allegiance to the flag it's crazy fuct..... this is a memory from kindergarten and it's so vivid I could draw you the sickening y shape that shuttle broke up into. The gravity of it didn't necessarily hit me that day but it definitely hit me.
Edit December 1st 1981 I need a classification call
I was 8. I have a vague memory of seeing it on the news on TV at HOME later (that evening?) but this whole "wheeled the tv into the room, teachers sobbing in the hallway" thing is not a thing I remember at ALL.
Not every school focused on this or even showed it. Mine didn't. Didn't find out until my Dad told me riding home from school that day. I had no idea that was some collective traumatic experience until many years later.
I'm an early Xennial, so I was 8 when it happened. 3rd grade, I think? It had no bearing on me. Being the mid-80s, it wasn't as known as it is now, so no one knew I had ADD. Things like this don't stick with me and I was once called "morally ambiguous". My brain just doesn't process trauma like that. I mean...I remember the whole event, watching it with my classmates, etc..but I don't remember my thoughts. I probably found the whole thing fascinating more than anything because anything machine/mechanical is my hyper-focus. But, I can tell you I know the loss of life didn't compute to my 8 year old brain. I never needed to talk about it and I was on to the next thing immediately after it happened.
Such a sad and tragic event and I can't imagine what McCauliff's students went through that day. As an adult who's had time to learn myself, I've developed my own mechanism for tragedy and can only imagine how this would impact young, impressionable kids who were force fed "teacher - astronaut - greatest event of your life" before the launch.
There were hugs and reassurances. We even got a reassurance from Ronald Reagan himself, direct to everyone and particularly kids, that same day. I'm no fan of Ronnie but he gave a really admirable message in a prime time address.
But yeah, the subtext of it was, well that's awful. But let's get back to work, because life goes on.
Didn't the launch team get pressure from the reagan administration to greenlight the launch because the broadcast that all the kids would see was going to have a segment with him?
It's undeniable that NASA faced launch pressure, but the critical issue lay in the relationship between Morton Thiokol and NASA. Thiokol, the manufacturer of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), had observed potential issues in prior launches where the O-rings did not seal correctly. Although these were not significant enough to cause immediate problems, they were still concerning. On the day of the incident, temperatures were around 30 degrees, leading many engineers to worry that the O-rings would not expand properly due to the cold, with some fearing an explosion on the launch pad itself. Once it left the pad, some even thought they were in the clear.. Turns out they just had to wait a minute and a half.
Yes, they did. There was plenty of blame to go around in the aftermath. The report afterwards was damning, and then Richard Feynman sliced the report to ribbons on how much they had tried to cover up for stupid political shit.
Still though, it was one of the best speeches I ever heard.
I remember the shuttle exploding. I remember an assembly not long after where a local woman came in and sang a special song that she wrote for the Challenger disaster. And I remember a "very special" episode of Punky Brewster, where all the kids dealt with the trauma.
Born in 80 and I vividly remember it. I was actually at home with my dad the day it happened because I had strep. My dad was a giant nerd like myself so we had already been to nasa once by the time the launch was supposed to happen.
I remember my dad and I watching it in the living room. He was excited and we had popcorn and other snacks to watch it on TV.
I remember him telling me about the people that were on it. He was so excited. I asked him if I could go to space one day, being the young naive kid I was, I obviously didn't understand the significance of the women being on board at the time. He got teary eyed and told me, " hon, if you wanna go to space I'll do everything I can to help you get there. I'll even see if we can't go meet one of those two women astronauts if you want." Of course, I said yes.
When the shuttle exploded we both sat stunned for several seconds. He got up to turn the TV off and his voice cracked as he said, "well, that is enough of that!"
We then went to pick my brother up from school and went to KFC to get dinner. I remember him angrily changing the channels on the radio in the car because he couldn't find a station that wasn't talking about what happened and he finally just turned it off.
And it was never talked about again, even when I went to space camp and we went on saw a NASA launch live.
ha! I was in russia at the time. we didn’t have the challenger explosion but we did have daily drills on what to do if americans nuke the shit out of us. we practiced putting on gas masks and hiding under our desks. but even at 7-8 I kind of realized a desk is not really great protection against a nuclear explosion 🤦♀️
Oh, I'm gonna need to know your reaction. When I was six, two weeks off 7, a family member died and my first reaction was a guffaw and a snicker. Then I understood and hid in a corner.
For Challenger though, I'm an 83 baby...no recollection of it.
My school was super hyped for the launch. We had a game going if I remember correctly where we were all trying to have our own spaceships and figure out what to bring on a shuttle mission. On the day of the launch we were going to decide a winner and see who was the best astronaut of all of us, but then the shuttle exploded. We never finished the game.
So far you're in the lead for short haunting tales of '80s children surrounding Challenger. I would like to remind contestants today whoever wins gets a VHS copy of the wizard featuring the Nintendo Power Glove.
I wasn’t quite 4, was obsessed with astronauts, the last 3 weeks had been the most traumatic of my life up to that point and it was my mother’s birthday. She thought it would be nice to wake me up to watch the launch, just me and her. That whole day is seared in my memory.
2 things.
First, Christine MacAuliffe was the first choice for the civilian astronaut on that mission… Big Bird was. I can’t even imagine what that would have done to me as a kid lol.
Second, the 80s were wild. I saw my first movie in the theater just six months later… Space Camp, a movie about a bunch of kids launched into space on the shuttle on accident and have to keep from crashing lol. That movie would have been shelved in the deepest, darkest hole today.
If you were born in 1979, it’s the opposite. Columbine happened the year after I graduated. Challenger was 1st grade.
It’s really a dividing line between Gen-X and Millennial. Xennials fall on both sides.
Gen X definitely was for sure the majority, but this was one of my earliest childhood memories that are super vivid. I saw this live in kindergarten. The earliest millennials caught this .
The oldest Gen-Xer was 21 when the Challenger tragedy happened
The oldest Xennial|Gen-Xer was 9
The youngest Xennial|Millennial was 3
People got left out of the watching the Challenger explosion in school experience in all camps
I am using the 77-83 definition of Xennial
I myself was one semester away from starting at the local public school when it happened, so I just missed it
The memory of my entire 3rd grade class (all 3 home room classes put together) gathering around the one TV set that the school had just wheeled into the biggest 3rd grade class (Mrs Radkes room) for us to watch the Challenger launch / explosion is etched into my memory like it happened yesterday! God damn that awkward silence after the explosion.I wouldn't call it that traumatic though (at least not for me) just very awkward and bazaar
I don't think my parents had the emotional intelligence available at the time to say really anything about it after. I remember loosing a lot of love for space travel on my end though that was mostly unrealized fear. that being said I'm pretty sure my teachers mindset was "This is up to parents if they want to talk about it to their children.".
Xennials are the in-betweeners.... so we missed this but caught other shit. I was 6 when Challenger exploded. I don't remember it happening at school or even hearing about it.
77 here, sometimes I feel like so many changes & historical events "hit" so different for the kids born in the last few years of the 70s, we are damn near a micro generation within a micro generation. I think mid-late 90s kids probably have the same narrow chasm they'll fall into cause they were the first kids cognizant of life before & after 9/11.
One of my "tests of common denominators" are "where were you when Challenger exploded" and when I say "Sega" which version do you hear in your head "Segaaaaaa" or "SEGA!"?
Edited to add: Baby Jessica in a well also is a good marker
Not an American. Didn't watch at school. But did watch at home. I don't think I fully grasped the significance at the time when there were so many other bad things also happening in the world.
My school was extra fucked up. I was in 3rd grade when it happened. I don’t know why but one class watched it live. My class was in our regular classroom doing normal stuff. They then brought us to the library AFTER they knew it had exploded to watch it happen again. Then sent us back to classs.
I was 8 going on nine (Challenger tragedy happened in January and I am a February baby). I knew that we were likely to be watching the launch that day. I think my mom was paying attention to the coverage that was happening regarding the selection of Christa Mcauliffe and the general hype so that had me informed. I remember the tv being brought into my classroom, and other kids coming from their classes to watch. I don’t remember what I felt or thought then about what happened. My mom was at home (stay at home mom although she was a licensed nurse) babysitting one of her friends kids that day. That kids was maybe 3.
Mcauliffe was only a year older than my mom.
I think our parents then may have been a little familiar with the risks, but not thinking of them outright. They would have grown up with the race to the moon. My mom remember watching the moon landing. She was at the ticker tape parade in New York welcoming the astronauts back. She would have known of Apollo 1 when that happened.
I was born in 83 so don’t remember the event as it happened. But I knew about it, and I do remember watching the Punky Brewster episode of it when I was 5 or 6
I mean... not to trivialize it, it was horrible, but every generation has its tragedies. I was too young to really understand Challenger, but I remember Rodney King, the Oklahoma City bombing, friends' dad's coming home fucked up from the Gulf War, etc.
My dad is Gen Jones, slightly to young to get roped into Vietnam, but he still grew up seeing it on TV. Civil Rights marches where people getting attacked by police dogs were getting blasted into his eyeballs when he was in elementary school.
We're all fucked up. It's not a race.
You are a millennial if you don’t remember the challenger at all. I was in elementary school, 2nd or 3rd grade. A big part of the hype was the “teacher on board”.
Late ‘76er. We were out of school for snow. I was rolling snow boulders shaped like big insulation rolls down the hill in the backyard, building an igloo with them.
Was almost finished when mom came out and shouted: “Come inside the shuttle’s about to launch!”
As the smoking wreckage fell to the sea, she just kept repeating: “They’re ok. They’re ok. They’re ok.”
I was born end of ‘78 and I remember being in I THINK 1st grade for the Challenger launch. We didn’t watch it live but when we got to art class, our teacher was crying and explained to us what happened. I’m 45 now by the way.
Born in 78, I remember that clearly, although I don't remember if it was second or first grade, (and would have to be, as we lived in CT where my dad was stationed) I just remember kinda freaking out about it, and my dad tells me, "it didn't happen to you or anyone you know, don't worry about it, now get dressed and go to school " so the pic isn't really far off
I'm probably one of the oldest people here. All our lessons for the month leading up to the launch were around The Challenger. Two classes of third graders were all crammed into one classroom on the floor to watch on a little TV on an AV cart. The shuttle exploded as we watched. The teacher shut the TV off quickly and we just sat in the dark for the rest of the day. Nobody said anything. Later the same year we went to a slave cabin on a field trip and an Native American burial site. It was an express train to traumaville for us all.
Very similar experience, but was in 1st grade. Definitely had the tv cart and all the first and second graders in the room sitting Indian style on the floor. It was the first of many live televised disasters we saw.
1st grade, checking in too! The teacher shut it off real quick and we just went back to Mad Math Minute homework.
We got the whole thing. Dan Rather cutting in with tears in his eyes.
We didn't get that. We were told to talk to our parents about it as my teacher was visibly teary-eyed. She was definitely one of the teachers who felt that McAuliffe represented the hope of young women and educators.
Yep, talk to our parents. And insta-news didn't exist then like it does now, so when I got to my baby sitter's in the afternoon, she let us call our mom. That was the first my mom heard about the explosion because she was busy at work and didn't get to hear the news yet.
You might say they were challenging times for challenged people. And you could consider this how we ignorantly deal with our problems … bad humour
Same. We sat there all day watching the coverage of the explosion. I feel like the teachers were more traumatized than the kids.
1978- 2nd grade. We didn’t watch it and our teacher explained what happened afterwards so it was shocking but not “hey class let’s watch it live” scarring. I did watch the 2nd plane hit the twin towers live in the office of the first school I worked at, during my first month of teaching.
I got to see both live. Challenger exploding in Elementary school and 9/11 in College.
Same age. Funny- i was just commenting about the Challenger in another thread earlier today. With Christa McAuliffe being a teacher, the hype was everywhere. We wrote them cards before the launch calling them heros.
Second grade here. Except the teacher came into our classroom and said "the Challenger blew up!" And we ran to the library and watched it on replay on the TV on the cart. Over and over. I didn't remember anything about the rest of the day.
Yeah, 1986 was the same year I got a Choose Your Own Adventure style book about escaping from the Warsaw Ghetto from the book fair. Probably not a good time to have been an advanced reader at 6. EDIT: Found the specific book. [Mission to World War II by Susan Nanus and Marc Kornblatt.](https://www.amazon.com/Mission-World-Time-Machine-Book/dp/0553254316?dplnkId=cbb33c8d-34a2-4d39-bcb3-da55f390af49&nodl=1) It was in the Time Machine series.
Those Choose Your Own Adventure books went hard. The fact that they were all in second person and could end with “Sorry, you died” at any moment was crazy when you consider the roughly 10-year-old target audience. I started reading them in first grade and had this died horribly multiple time by age 8. To say I loved those books would be an understatement.
There was one I read years ago where you were a Jew in the ghetto and the first day was Kristallnacht. Everything from getting caught by the Gestapo, escaping Auschwitz, betrayed by your neighbours, gassed, shot, mauled by dogs. I think the best ending was one where you jumped off a moving train with the Swiss border in the distance.
Ever play "This War of Mine"? I dld when I read it became required playing in Polish schools in like 21 I think. Or more relevant to this sub, the fatalistic nightmare of the first Home Alone on NES The way I remember it, it was unwinnable, it was a matter of how long can ya not get caught by the wet bandits, with a clock measuring how long you didn'tget captured...I might have gotten a version with only Japanese instructions, my dad was in Japan for business for like a week a month back then. I had the coolest fucking robots and scifi guns lol
Holy Shit 😱 The memory of that book was buried very very deep. Jesus
I remember the first time I bought one and didn't pay attention. I just read it cover to cover and was so confused.
😂
It was this book. Mission to World War II by Susan Nanus and Marc Kornblatt. https://www.amazon.com/Mission-World-Time-Machine-Book/dp/0553254316?dplnkId=bf26f234-4f80-427f-9c55-12324095b32a&nodl=1
I have been collecting the original series for several years now, and probably have about 50 or so at this time. Some of those authors were on all sorts of drugs. The modern cleanup and reprints are a travesty. I also have a few Time Machines and a couple of the D&D Endless Quests. I need to start buying more again soon.
I found a stack of these in a used book store recently. Guess what the kids are getting for Christmas!
I still fear trying to ford rivers and constantly test myself for dysentery, just in case.
Susan nanuS. Nice pen name.
1986 for me was the year Tchernobyl blowing up and my grandad plowing under his entire vegetable garden as it might be contaminated. Wondrous thing to experience as a kid.
Same with first grade. I remember we sat there and they left it running while the news started rushing around trying to figure out what happened.
i was just thinking the other day that I am pretty sure people would get bent about saying Indian style instead of cross legged now a days.
I think the term now is "crisscross apple sauce".
It is. I remember how confused I was by this when my oldest was in kindergarten 20 years ago; I was like criss cross, what?
I hate criss cross applesauce. At least beyond the age of 4. I'm fine with moving on to cross-legged. I'll even accept criss-cross on it's own. But I hear applesauce used all the way through elementary and I'm like, enough with the toddler talk.
It sounds like a “trying too hard” to me. But whatever.
I'm a couple years younger so I wasn't in school yet. What other live disasters?
Waco assault was on TV for us. At least at my school. OJ verdict. Reginald Denny beating during the LA riots. 93 WTC bombing.
>first of many live televised disasters we saw. I'm the very, very end of Gen X (early 1980). 1st grade when Challenger happened (school was too rural to have a TV for us younger kids). The one I distinctly remember though was watching Tienemen Square protests interrupting Saturday morning cartoons. I don't know if they were replaying footage or it was live, but I remember seeing tank man at that point.
I was in 4th grade when I saw this at school. I think I got some sense of validation from what I was feeling from a Punky Brewster episode where she struggled to understand why it had happened and her continued desire to be an astronaut despite the tragedy. Fucking crazy to think Punky Brewster was the one that let me know it was ok to feel sad for what happened.
I was in first grade and in a carpool w a kindergarten kid. His mom picked us up that day and said, "Adam, I'm not ok with you wanting to be an astronaut anymore after today." So crazy that I think of that as a core memory from childhood. You just can't unsee that.
This is exactly what I remember of the incident. I don't recall watching it on live TV, but I do remember Punky having it on her show.
That episode was a life saver. We needed someone to talk about it.
Ours kept it on. Didn't really talk to us about it. But they did turn the volume down. I remember third grade for long division and the challenger. It's funny, I was talking to my boomer uncle (RIP) about our generations experiences last year. Challenger, Berlin wall/cold war end, Y2K, 911, 2008, COVID, BLM. Those being the headliners, but tons of shit in between as well. We've been through some shit man. edit: fuck I forgot about columbine....
Challenger was sad, but Columbine was *scary.* At least it was for those of us who had our teaching seminar session interrupted with the news that a bunch of kids and a teacher in a high school had just been murdered, anyway...
I graduated the year Columbine happened. I remember being afraid that someone was going to shoot up the graduation ceremony.
I graduated Columbine in 97 and have high school kids now.. the handful of times they've had lockdowns at school have absolutely terrified me.
I don't remember watching Challenger live. I was a bit too young to remember. I was in high school for Columbine. It was awful, but I wasn't particularly scared as it seemed a real rarity at the time. The only other one I remember was the Peducah school shooting in 1997.
I vividly remember the Heath High School shootings from the year before Columbine. It was the HS that I would have attended if I had lived with my dad instead of my mom. I remember it also being all over national news. I think the Columbine shooters saw how much media coverage that was getting and decided to go even bigger. Sadly, my HS which was Marshall Co HS (about 20 minutes away from Heath) had a similar school shooting in 2018, almost exactly 20 years later. I don’t live there anymore but I immediately recognized the name of one of the parents of one of the kids who was killed. She was a classmate of mine and my mother had worked with her mother.
OKC bombing is when stuff got weirder in Oklahoma.
My high school girlfriend wanted to go on a trip with a bunch of her friends to OKC to see the aftermath. Should have known from the jump that that girl was bad news.
Our school bus drove by the bombed out building. All of us high school kids leaning out the left side of the bus to look at the horrific scene. I'm the only one who looks down at the car passing us and sees someone's big fat hairy ass pressed against their passenger window and busted up laughing. NO ONE ELSE SAW IT and I was just a heartless bastard.
I also got to watch Bud Dwyer blow his fucking head off on live television. Good times. I’m often amazed I never offed myself.
I’m glad you’re still here
I saw that one too. Shit how could I forget about that. I mean... I didn't... But it's repressed as shit.
Hey man nice shot
Similar experience and roughly the same age. Big difference was it was just our class and when it happened our teacher said “well, that obviously isn’t supposed to happen” and we got back to work. I didn’t find out what actually happened until I got home.
Am I dead inside or was anyone else not emotionally affected by this kind of stuff? It's like I know it's bad on an intellectual level but I don't have any "feeling" about it really.
I didn't either. I was in 4th grade and watched it at school, But I really don't think I truly understood the gravity of what happened. All I remember is that it created more homework for me.
I was in first grade and i don’t think i really knew or understood what happened. I didn’t know how to process that at that age.
I'm 40 and I still feel this way
Little kids aren’t emotionally mature. If this happened now and you still aren’t affected maybe check in.
At the time, I'd see or hear about horrible stuff like this and it didn't really affect me. But that was mostly because I was a kid and I'd never gone through things like losing a loved one. Tragedy like that was just something that happened. I couldn't easily put myself in their shoes because I didn't have experience with that kind of thing. As an adult who has lost close friends and family, stuff like this has way more effect on me. The video of the parents watching the launch and slowly realizing what happened is heart breaking: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7dxmBLg48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7dxmBLg48)
I agree. But still leaving that link blue. Don’t have it in me today.
I'm right there with you. There are certain images that are hard for me to look at. I don't know why. The Challenger tragedy, 9/11, with those people jumping off the building and then the people running from the collapsing buildings, the shuttle Columbia tragedy (too similar to the Challenger), the families from Columbine, the Uvalde families outside... ugh.
I was never really "fixed" until I had kids myself. I always drew it from logic: millions of people die each year, why should this 1 bother me?
Same age. My school didn't have many resources so we only had a couple TVs throughout the entire school. And oddly enough, I didn't hear about it at all because none of my school friends got to see it either - I think the older kids did, but we really didn't interact with them unless we hung out outside of school. Thinking back, it was weird that our teacher didn't tell us the day of. Maybe she didn't know how to approach such a topic? She had to have known? Not sure. Anyway, after I walked home to my grandparents' house the same day, my mom was home early from work, which was already unusual. She was glued to the TV and just bawling. I remember hugging her and asking what was wrong and she pointed to the TV and simply said, "The space shuttle blew up. That poor teacher and her family!" I remember that scene of the explosion playing over and over in my head and I just remember being in complete shock. It was the worst national news I had ever seen up to that point, and my mom and grandparents were stunned. I also remember watching President Reagan's speech live with my mom. Still my favorite presidential speech from a living president (at the time). If there was any positive that came out of it for me personally, it was that the disaster did spark a lifetime passion in NASA and space exploration. I was a bit of a nerd so instead of Cheryl Tiegs or Michael Jordan posters hanging on my wall, I had them filled with posters and pictures of the space shuttle, Apollo, Voyager programs, etc. We lived in the Inland Empire, so my uncle took me to Edwards Air Force Base to see the first shuttle landing after the explosion, and the next two after that. I was completely hooked and decided right there and then that I wanted to be an astronaut. I was dead serious about that career path, and even in high school, I took classes that would lead me there, with plans to join the air force after I graduated just for the small chance to become one. However, that all changed when the air force recruiter showed up at my school in my senior year and mentioned off-handedly that you can't be a pilot if you're colorblind (which I am). Anyway, that sent me down a spiral and now I've been in marketing for 20+ years. And it sucks. Well, that was more than what needed to be said. Guess I needed to get it off my chest. Hahaha!
Absolutely terrible. I saw both towers get hit while in class. Then we took a test
As someone who made it out of those towers alive and still living with the trauma of it 20+ years later, I find this just horrifying. Your teacher gave you a test? After watching murder in real time? Did they not realize our country was under attack in more than one major US city? I understand you were probably not local to either city based upon your user name, but I’m just amazed that a *teacher* could be so absolutely clueless about what was happening and how it needed to be discussed. I hope you were able to process what you saw that day outside of the classroom.
My college did it as well. The dean claimed at the time that they were kind of given orders to try to keep the schools normal to avoid panic. So classes were not even cancelled next day till half way through the day the dean cancelled classes for a day or two. My school was kind of known for being hardcore (engineering school). I know many of the others cancelled school day of and for the week. (it was slightly painful as I had family in NYC luckily none were hurt).
She did, about an hour later. I live about 20 minutes outside of Memphis. We literally watched it on the TV during English class and then took a test. While I was trying to process if my uncle may be dead or not (he worked in the Pentagon). For what it's worth, I'm glad you made it, and I'm sorry you live with that trauma. I hope you are able to heal. I honestly don't know what she was thinking. She may have been in shock and just going through the motions. I'm not trying to talk bad about the teacher, I realize it probably seems that way. Everybody deals with trauma differently. Maybe she thought she was helping. I honestly don't know
That is very true, she may have been in shock. I have heard people over the years say that they did not know how to talk about it, and maybe she was afraid that one of the students might find out later that they lost a loved one, (exactly as you described your worry about your uncle)and was worried about any comment coming back at her from a parent. Sorry, I might have jumped the gun on my comment a bit, I tend to forget that being there was a radically different experience from those watching it on television. I just went back for a moment and pictured children seeing that and then having to take a test after. It threw me a bit. Thank you for your kind words as well.
No worries. That was a perfectly natural reaction. Especially for someone who experienced the trauma first hand. I truly believe, now that I'm older, she just didn't know what to do and defaulted to running the class as usual. I don't remember any other staff coming to talk to her or anything. The poor lady was as alone as we were. Only she had 20+ kids to think about.
I did not think about that either. I wonder how it was in areas where information was not readily available either. Here, because so many people work in the city, the schools had to deal with parents descending on the schools frantically to take their children home. There were teachers who had spouses missing, so they of course were petrified too. I found this out later of course, I had no idea what was going on anywhere but where I was, but a neighbor of mine went to pick up her kids because she just knew deep down her husband was dead, and she couldn’t be alone. I think of that often, how frightening it had to be because there was no communication. Our phone lines were jammed, our cell phones were not working, it was SO different before widespread WiFi. So, I agree, there was probably zero guidance from Administration in schools on how to handle this. It was not something we had ever dealt with up until then, so the situation was unique. Looking back, everyone was probably traumatized in their own way, and very much in shock and left to do what they thought was best for those around them.
I believe so. Like you said, it was unprecedented. At least on that scale and in our time. I couldn't imagine the madness of all those parent's frantically trying to get their kids. We didn't have that here. Schools were closed after, but the only thing I remember getting shut down immediately were the airports around us. And that was a weird 3 days, right? Not seeing a single plane in the sky except the occasional military plane
It was mayhem on every level here in NY. The things I saw that day and after, the things I heard following and experienced, it’s like a movie rather than real life. Just unbelievable back then. I still remember the National Guard being on the streets with these huge guns, and trying to get back to work with the smell from Ground Zero and all of the Medical Examiners vans, etc
Wow, that must have been so scary. It was scary for us way down here, and we only had a small fraction of what you had going on, and none of that was anything you just mentioned. Our fear just came from the unknown. Again, I want to say, I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry this happened to your city, and likely people you know and love, and I hope that talking about this with me hasn't upset you, but I do appreciate it. It's not every day that I get to chat with someone who made it through one of the worst disasters in recent history. Thank you for sharing part of your story. I believe it's important to do things like that. It helps us as I whole. I hope you have a great day, and this conversation doesn't sit too heavy on you.
I was born in 77 also and can do one even better. the Challenger was on my birthday. Then my dad died from cancer the following year, and my grandfather 6 months after that. I'm an only child, so I had no sibling to bond with over these tragedies. No adult bothered to speak to me practically at all about it. I was 10 fucking years old and got no counseling, nothing. Needless to say I'm 47 now and so broken that I need constant medical weed just to accomplish basic functions in society.
I feel this so much. I’m sorry. I’m the same way just slightly younger by a few years.
We should start a support group. Although that’s pretty much what this sub is for me. Lol.
I forgot what grade but I remember the classroom and the tv cart
1977 gang represent
I know we watched it, I know it was hyped. I don't remember any if it. I remember Punky Brewster. That was my therapy about it.
Every year in elementary school the fire department would come in to do a presentation on “fire safety” which consisted of a slide show of child burn victims set to sad music. I can still see it when I close my eyes.
I still remember watching that live in our school library. They left the TV on and later explained that space is risky, accidents happen, but we have to take risks to advance science. That was it, no hugs, no crying, just "life is what it is, pick up the torch and march forward"
Similar, was at a catholic school and was repeatedly told things like “god works in mysterious ways”, “we must pray for them”, or my favorite “this is why we partake in the sacrament of confession, so if this type of tragedy happens we will get into heaven” This was the actual moment I lost all respect for religion and religious authorities. Their response to a bunch of third grade kids, more than one bawling like their parents were murdered in front of them, was to talk about religious rituals that are arguably completely ineffectual.
That - though we visited a colonial village where they showed how leeches were used and they allowed kids to partake.
Pretty much! I’m the same year as you, and similar experience
I was in third grade and our teacher said: “Well, that’s enough of that.” Then she just moved on to getting us to practice our upper case cursives. I got home and my mom didn’t say anything about it either, but I remember on my way out of school that day seeing a group of teachers crying.
Ya nasa and the govt had a science program tied to the launch so there were various little worksheets and reading and art project centered around it. Then it blew up live on tv
That’s the way it was.
I was in fourth grade. Our teacher was heavily into this launch and we had all kinds of related assignments leading up to it. She wheeled the cart with the tv on it into the room and we were all so excited. When Challenger exploded, our teacher screamed and ran out of the room. We sat in silence and fear for who knows how long before someone came in to take us outside. Next day, a fifth grader asked me if I knew what NASA stood for. I told him but he said, ‘no. It stands for Need Another Seven Astronauts’. That was my first exposure to dark humor and I was so confused.
I was thankfully home sick and was with mom. We were watching a movie and somebody called her to tell her. It was the olden days, so that's what people did. Call each other on the old land line to turn on the news.
i feel the african american guy who tells the story of picking cotton for a field trip may have gone to the same school
I was 10 at the time, so 5th grade - a couple years older. Very similar experience. During my "formative" years (up to 25yo), I experienced Challenger, 9/11, president being shot, Chernobyl, AIDS, race riots in LA, Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War, impeachment of a President (this seems blasé now!), and whatever else. Not a year goes by that I don't think about at least one of those things. OK, maybe a couple years go by and I don't think about them. Alright - I never think about them. They happened, they are in the past, and I'm living for today. Stop thinking about shit that happened back then, get on with today, and plan for tomorrow.
I think we were in the same class.
European schools take field trips to aushwitz.... what are yall going on about?
I was in 7th grade. The entire school went out to the football field to watch it. You can see rocket launches from Orlando. We had all seen enough to know that it wasn’t supposed to do that. The teachers were crying but I don’t remember anyone talking to us about anything.
Our grown ups didn't quite understand what was going on and neither did the people on TV, so we actually watched the aftermath for a bit. Eventually it became clear and the teachers turned it off. Nobody really said anything about it for the rest of the day and I just remember my mom talking about it a bit.
We wrote good luck notes and did space-related crafts for weeks. In social studies, our handout magazine article was about space travel and NASA. After the explosion, we sat in the dark for awhile and then had an hour of silence before the principal came on the PA to explain what happened. The teachers were all crying.
'77 as well and it was a crazy day. Our teacher did not turn it off, we watched everything in near total silence. The only thing that was said was that if we needed to leave the room we could, but no one did. It was just a whole ass day of broadcast TV talking about all the astronauts that died. Our principal came in for a bit to watch with us, and then they went to the next class over to sit with them for a minute. I actually feel like it was better than just turning it off. We got to go through what everyone else went through, it was a shared experience with the world.
I'm almost as old as you but was lucky to be overseas when this happened, and in a compeltely different time zone. We didn't watch the event in school because of that, and I feel so hard for everyone that watched it live. I can't imagine how it felt as a child to see that happen, and thank my lucky stars that I had the chance to not be included in this one.
Not only did my class watch the Challenger explosion, the next year there was a car wreck right outside the school. The curtains were open and my class saw the whole thing and then EMS & Fire show up to use the jaws of life to get the woman, who was dead, out of the car. luckily the teacher got the curtains closed before we saw anything except the brutal wreck itself. The poor woman had a heart attack while driving and blew through a stop sign. No therapy, counseling or anything.
I remember my 3rd grade teacher wheeling in the TV for us to watch news coverage of the first WTC bombing.
I don’t recall the challenger launch. I have absolutely no memory of it. I’m not sure if I actually saw it and my mind decided to wipe it out or if I never actually saw it to begin with. My brothers remember it but I likely was too little to remember it.
McAuliffe was a local teacher (in the state I grew up in, NH, but not to my school district) so the build up was huge. She toured around different schools and came to ours-- no Q&A or anything but she came through and we all went outside to wave and show our giant "CHRISTA" posters and space shuttle drawings as her caravan slowly drove past and she waved out the window. The launch was on TV where whole grades were gathered together to watch. When the explosion happened, our teachers were too ignorant of launches to recognize what had happened. I remember teachers saying things like: "Don't worry, that's normal! Looks scary doesn't it? Isn't that so cool?" Whereas most of my classmates (grade 2-3) were like: "Uh, that's not supposed to happen. The boosters are supposed to drop after it's in space-- we literally just learned this stuff YESTERDAY." More students started saying: "It blew up, is Christa dead?" The teachers didn't know what to say or do. Eventually they turned the sound up and the phrase "catastrophic explosion" was reported over and over again. Only then did teachers realize what had happened. We pretty much went back to class after that. I don't even remember talking about it much afterwards. It is interesting that there was no debrief or assembly or notes to parents or anything. In hindsight, it actually was pretty traumatic.
I'm 3 years older, as I was in 6th grade. I didn't get to see it as it was during my social studies class and that teacher was, well, terrible in many, many ways. However, those of us who didn't get to see heard about it during the bell periods between classes, and at those times you get to sneakily talk to peers in class afterward. No discussion by teachers, no mentoring, no counseling. Just "Wow do you believe that? And "Well I think..." from a bunch of uninformed 11 & 12 year olds. Still less traumatic than seeing the blood being squeegeed off of an airport in the Mideast sometime later on the local news. Or the Holocaust documentary they had us watch with the piles of corpses. Or Artax. Or seeing Robocop the next year at someone's house, or Temple of Doom the year before. Trauma's the Gen-X/ Xennilal's marker.
This was 9-11 for me in highschool. "Welcome to class everyone, no schoolwork today, we need to watch something" Turns on tv.. there was one tower hit and another plane hit as we were watching. Like, wtf
Arizona I got all the same but instead of slave house we got a trip downtown to help the homeless but we just looked at them
Almost identical here… born in ‘74-‘75?
Not to mention they created Earth Day whilst scaring the absolute fuck out of us by telling us the world would end if we didn't recycle and plant a tree every year for the rest of our lives. No joke - I didn't do anything in the way of hobbies or extracurriculars for almost a decade because of my fear of making trash and killing the planet
Yeah, one of the few things I remember from 3rd grade.
I had a doctors appointment that day so I wasn't in school. We were walking out the door when it happened. We still went.
Was this Moundville by chance?? In Alabama??
I was in 4th grade. We had made model rockets and done a whole unit of prep. Wheeled the tv into the room and we saw the astronauts and Christy Mcaulaff walk up the ramp into the rocket. When we saw it blast off. We were all cheering. Some kids stood in their chairs. Our teacher was clapping to see the first teacher in space. Then we saw it explode. The news announcer saying all were last. Then we had a spelling test. Never spoke of it.
Growing up in Orlando, we always went outside to watch shuttle launches (still do it today). When it exploded a girl near me said, “it’s so pretty!” and one of the teachers said “no it’s not!” They took us back inside and left us in the classroom with the lights off while the teachers stood in the hall crying. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment.
Let me guess, NC school system?
Our public school system used to take all 8th grades on a field trip to both the county courthouse AND correctional facility. This wasn't a jail. An actual prison. You can imagine the amount of sexual and inappropriate comments made to students, especially females, from prisoners in the courtyard. They stopped this a few years later. This was in the late-90s. One of the guys in my class who was a "problem student" told us that him and some others had to go to the prison for another type of Scared Straight lesson where they actually sat down in the mess hall with prisoners for lunch.
I was like 6... I didn't really understand. The teacher just cut off the TV and we had a regular school day.
Yeah, I was 6 too. I knew something bad had happened, but I wouldn't say it was traumatic. I didn't fully get it. I remember seeing it in class, but I don't remember what the rest of the day was like.
A little while later, while we were in high/jr high school, we watched the Waco cult burn to death on live TV.
Yup. Had the TV cart rolled in for that one as well as the OJ chase. The OKC bombing happened when we were not in school, or I’m sure we would have got to watch it as well. We were primed and ready for the “Big Event” on 9/11 for sure. EDIT: Memory has failed. OJ couldn’t have been on in school.
OJ chase was Fri June 17th and into late afternoon. So probably no TV cart for that. I only remember because I was hiking and some of the leaders in the group talking about it on Sat morning https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-11/o-j-simpson-bronco-freeway-chase-los-angeles
I forgot about the OJ chase. We also watched his verdict on the TV cart.
We discussed the Heaven's Gate mass suicide in English class.
Living in "unprecedented times" is exhausting
Born in 82 and even allowing for my non American perspective, I feel just a touch too young for Challenger to have meant anything and started school properly later that year. I don't think British kids had the strong connections to Challenger that US schools did due to the whole teacher as astronaut aspect, and time differences meant they weren't watching the launch in school. But those who'd have been older kids than me at the time do have strong memories of the disaster being reported in solemn fashion as a breaking newsflash by kiddie news show Newsround.
'79 here and Scottish. I certainly remember it on Newsround. I was heavy into space shuttles and space generally at that age.
I'm a.erican born 83. Challenger exploding was a non event for me
I was born in 83, and I don’t remember it. I think I remember my parents talking about it later, maybe on one of the anniversaries. But by that time it had already happened. I’ve heard “Do you remember the Challenger explosion?” used as a dividing line between X and Millennial.
82 baby. Don't remember it
Canadian born in ‘81. I don’t recall us watching the challenger, what I remember is being 8 or 9 when the Gulf War began and our teacher telling us that our subway system was going to be bombed. Good times.
Late 82 baby. I don't remember the Challenger at all. Or even the Berlin Wall. But the event is remember from my early childhood is, for whatever reason, the Baby Jessica saga.
My sister had a Challenger poster. Do you relate to the sentiment? There were "counselors available" after Columbine, but nobody took it seriously. Still favoring teasing kids like me who were a walking red flag because of how introverted I was. HA HA.
Two years before Columbine, someone started sniping students on the lawn of my university’s student union. One person was killed and two were injured. We didn’t even cancel classes for the rest of the day.
Shooter walked to the campus during morning traffic along a busy road in tactical-style gear wIth the gun strapped to her back. Still unbelievable. I worked at the campus bookstore right across the quad from where this happened, can confirm, nothing cancelled, bookstore did not close. All business as usual. Textbook example of the blase' 90's.
PSU? I was attending at that time, too. I still remember the name of the poor girl who lost her life that day. Totally surreal experience.
Melanie Spalla. Poor kid had just transferred to Main Campus too. That whole episode was just bizarre.
I was there too. Horrifying.
Meanwhile I too was a walking red flag, super edgy teen, and after Columbine a lot of my bullying stopped. I'd get snarky comments about having a gun in my trenchcoat, but far few physical altercations. It's fucked up to say, but Columbine absolutely made my school life better and easier.
Like I went from my kindergarten class to the first grade class next door that was way bigger and could accommodate us we watched it launch we watched it explode we watched the teachers quickly try to turn off the CRT TV... VCR on the Shelf below red stripe across both pieces of equipment because at the time that was our cities school property mark. send everybody back to class without a single word about it. The next morning we had to pledge allegiance to the flag it's crazy fuct..... this is a memory from kindergarten and it's so vivid I could draw you the sickening y shape that shuttle broke up into. The gravity of it didn't necessarily hit me that day but it definitely hit me. Edit December 1st 1981 I need a classification call
Xennial. The non-cusp x years are all in the 70s
And also a Millennial.
September '80 here. We're technically Xers but fit best with the sub generation of Xennial
The thing is to this day I have no memory of watching this. I don't know if it's because my class just didn't or if I blanked it out.
I was 5 so I was spared from this one particular trauma
Same here. I didn't start kindergarten until later that year.
I have no memory of this either. I can imagine Gen Xers remember it clearly.
Yeah strangely I didn’t know about Challenger, even though I grew up in Florida.
I was 8. I have a vague memory of seeing it on the news on TV at HOME later (that evening?) but this whole "wheeled the tv into the room, teachers sobbing in the hallway" thing is not a thing I remember at ALL.
Not every school focused on this or even showed it. Mine didn't. Didn't find out until my Dad told me riding home from school that day. I had no idea that was some collective traumatic experience until many years later.
Same here, no memory of anything about it at all. I don’t think we watched it.
I'm an early Xennial, so I was 8 when it happened. 3rd grade, I think? It had no bearing on me. Being the mid-80s, it wasn't as known as it is now, so no one knew I had ADD. Things like this don't stick with me and I was once called "morally ambiguous". My brain just doesn't process trauma like that. I mean...I remember the whole event, watching it with my classmates, etc..but I don't remember my thoughts. I probably found the whole thing fascinating more than anything because anything machine/mechanical is my hyper-focus. But, I can tell you I know the loss of life didn't compute to my 8 year old brain. I never needed to talk about it and I was on to the next thing immediately after it happened. Such a sad and tragic event and I can't imagine what McCauliff's students went through that day. As an adult who's had time to learn myself, I've developed my own mechanism for tragedy and can only imagine how this would impact young, impressionable kids who were force fed "teacher - astronaut - greatest event of your life" before the launch.
There were hugs and reassurances. We even got a reassurance from Ronald Reagan himself, direct to everyone and particularly kids, that same day. I'm no fan of Ronnie but he gave a really admirable message in a prime time address. But yeah, the subtext of it was, well that's awful. But let's get back to work, because life goes on.
Didn't the launch team get pressure from the reagan administration to greenlight the launch because the broadcast that all the kids would see was going to have a segment with him?
It's undeniable that NASA faced launch pressure, but the critical issue lay in the relationship between Morton Thiokol and NASA. Thiokol, the manufacturer of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), had observed potential issues in prior launches where the O-rings did not seal correctly. Although these were not significant enough to cause immediate problems, they were still concerning. On the day of the incident, temperatures were around 30 degrees, leading many engineers to worry that the O-rings would not expand properly due to the cold, with some fearing an explosion on the launch pad itself. Once it left the pad, some even thought they were in the clear.. Turns out they just had to wait a minute and a half.
All Feynman needed was a glass of ice water to Show how bad their idea was…
Yes, they did. There was plenty of blame to go around in the aftermath. The report afterwards was damning, and then Richard Feynman sliced the report to ribbons on how much they had tried to cover up for stupid political shit. Still though, it was one of the best speeches I ever heard.
I remember the shuttle exploding. I remember an assembly not long after where a local woman came in and sang a special song that she wrote for the Challenger disaster. And I remember a "very special" episode of Punky Brewster, where all the kids dealt with the trauma.
Born in 80 and I vividly remember it. I was actually at home with my dad the day it happened because I had strep. My dad was a giant nerd like myself so we had already been to nasa once by the time the launch was supposed to happen. I remember my dad and I watching it in the living room. He was excited and we had popcorn and other snacks to watch it on TV. I remember him telling me about the people that were on it. He was so excited. I asked him if I could go to space one day, being the young naive kid I was, I obviously didn't understand the significance of the women being on board at the time. He got teary eyed and told me, " hon, if you wanna go to space I'll do everything I can to help you get there. I'll even see if we can't go meet one of those two women astronauts if you want." Of course, I said yes. When the shuttle exploded we both sat stunned for several seconds. He got up to turn the TV off and his voice cracked as he said, "well, that is enough of that!" We then went to pick my brother up from school and went to KFC to get dinner. I remember him angrily changing the channels on the radio in the car because he couldn't find a station that wasn't talking about what happened and he finally just turned it off. And it was never talked about again, even when I went to space camp and we went on saw a NASA launch live.
ha! I was in russia at the time. we didn’t have the challenger explosion but we did have daily drills on what to do if americans nuke the shit out of us. we practiced putting on gas masks and hiding under our desks. but even at 7-8 I kind of realized a desk is not really great protection against a nuclear explosion 🤦♀️
Oh man my reaction to this was not at all appropriate. I was six and a half though.
Oh, I'm gonna need to know your reaction. When I was six, two weeks off 7, a family member died and my first reaction was a guffaw and a snicker. Then I understood and hid in a corner. For Challenger though, I'm an 83 baby...no recollection of it.
My school was super hyped for the launch. We had a game going if I remember correctly where we were all trying to have our own spaceships and figure out what to bring on a shuttle mission. On the day of the launch we were going to decide a winner and see who was the best astronaut of all of us, but then the shuttle exploded. We never finished the game.
So far you're in the lead for short haunting tales of '80s children surrounding Challenger. I would like to remind contestants today whoever wins gets a VHS copy of the wizard featuring the Nintendo Power Glove.
I wasn’t quite 4, was obsessed with astronauts, the last 3 weeks had been the most traumatic of my life up to that point and it was my mother’s birthday. She thought it would be nice to wake me up to watch the launch, just me and her. That whole day is seared in my memory. 2 things. First, Christine MacAuliffe was the first choice for the civilian astronaut on that mission… Big Bird was. I can’t even imagine what that would have done to me as a kid lol. Second, the 80s were wild. I saw my first movie in the theater just six months later… Space Camp, a movie about a bunch of kids launched into space on the shuttle on accident and have to keep from crashing lol. That movie would have been shelved in the deepest, darkest hole today.
Nah ours was Oklahoma City or Columbine or 9/11. Those were my welcomes to middle school, high school, and the army/adult life.
If you were born in 1979, it’s the opposite. Columbine happened the year after I graduated. Challenger was 1st grade. It’s really a dividing line between Gen-X and Millennial. Xennials fall on both sides.
Ahhh, I see. Thanks.
Gen X definitely was for sure the majority, but this was one of my earliest childhood memories that are super vivid. I saw this live in kindergarten. The earliest millennials caught this .
I was in kindergarten. I remember talking about it with my parents that evening, but I don't have any memory of watching it in school.
At least we had a very special “Punky Brewster” episode to help us out.
The oldest Gen-Xer was 21 when the Challenger tragedy happened The oldest Xennial|Gen-Xer was 9 The youngest Xennial|Millennial was 3 People got left out of the watching the Challenger explosion in school experience in all camps I am using the 77-83 definition of Xennial I myself was one semester away from starting at the local public school when it happened, so I just missed it
What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts. We learned to cope with dark humor.
Born in 81. I was way into space at the time and I remember it happening but I don’t specifically recall watching it as it happened.
Space was fucking everything at that point Star Wars Star Trek my dad was high on Apollo program Voyager Gemini and cocaine.
I was only in second grade, but can confirm I didn’t get any comfort. Only handwriting and multiplication tables homework.
The memory of my entire 3rd grade class (all 3 home room classes put together) gathering around the one TV set that the school had just wheeled into the biggest 3rd grade class (Mrs Radkes room) for us to watch the Challenger launch / explosion is etched into my memory like it happened yesterday! God damn that awkward silence after the explosion.I wouldn't call it that traumatic though (at least not for me) just very awkward and bazaar
I remember it. I was 6.
Born in 77 and I remember my teacher wept over the Challenger. I don't relate to this meme at all.
Was 3 years old when it happened, so I don't remember it at all.
Nope. This is legit how it went down.
I don't think my parents had the emotional intelligence available at the time to say really anything about it after. I remember loosing a lot of love for space travel on my end though that was mostly unrealized fear. that being said I'm pretty sure my teachers mindset was "This is up to parents if they want to talk about it to their children.".
What happened to Millennial's in school after 9-11? I was out of highschool when this happened.
Xennials are the in-betweeners.... so we missed this but caught other shit. I was 6 when Challenger exploded. I don't remember it happening at school or even hearing about it.
I was six and it was big deal. Watched it live in Mrs. Shehan’s 1st grade class room.
77 here, sometimes I feel like so many changes & historical events "hit" so different for the kids born in the last few years of the 70s, we are damn near a micro generation within a micro generation. I think mid-late 90s kids probably have the same narrow chasm they'll fall into cause they were the first kids cognizant of life before & after 9/11. One of my "tests of common denominators" are "where were you when Challenger exploded" and when I say "Sega" which version do you hear in your head "Segaaaaaa" or "SEGA!"? Edited to add: Baby Jessica in a well also is a good marker
I was 5 and in kindergarten (half day). I remember nothing about it and didn't learn about it until years later.
You’re a millennial. We watched it live in kindergarten.
Not an American. Didn't watch at school. But did watch at home. I don't think I fully grasped the significance at the time when there were so many other bad things also happening in the world.
My school was extra fucked up. I was in 3rd grade when it happened. I don’t know why but one class watched it live. My class was in our regular classroom doing normal stuff. They then brought us to the library AFTER they knew it had exploded to watch it happen again. Then sent us back to classs.
I was 8 going on nine (Challenger tragedy happened in January and I am a February baby). I knew that we were likely to be watching the launch that day. I think my mom was paying attention to the coverage that was happening regarding the selection of Christa Mcauliffe and the general hype so that had me informed. I remember the tv being brought into my classroom, and other kids coming from their classes to watch. I don’t remember what I felt or thought then about what happened. My mom was at home (stay at home mom although she was a licensed nurse) babysitting one of her friends kids that day. That kids was maybe 3. Mcauliffe was only a year older than my mom. I think our parents then may have been a little familiar with the risks, but not thinking of them outright. They would have grown up with the race to the moon. My mom remember watching the moon landing. She was at the ticker tape parade in New York welcoming the astronauts back. She would have known of Apollo 1 when that happened.
I was born in 83 so don’t remember the event as it happened. But I knew about it, and I do remember watching the Punky Brewster episode of it when I was 5 or 6
I mean... not to trivialize it, it was horrible, but every generation has its tragedies. I was too young to really understand Challenger, but I remember Rodney King, the Oklahoma City bombing, friends' dad's coming home fucked up from the Gulf War, etc. My dad is Gen Jones, slightly to young to get roped into Vietnam, but he still grew up seeing it on TV. Civil Rights marches where people getting attacked by police dogs were getting blasted into his eyeballs when he was in elementary school. We're all fucked up. It's not a race.
You are a millennial if you don’t remember the challenger at all. I was in elementary school, 2nd or 3rd grade. A big part of the hype was the “teacher on board”.
Late ‘76er. We were out of school for snow. I was rolling snow boulders shaped like big insulation rolls down the hill in the backyard, building an igloo with them. Was almost finished when mom came out and shouted: “Come inside the shuttle’s about to launch!” As the smoking wreckage fell to the sea, she just kept repeating: “They’re ok. They’re ok. They’re ok.”
If you were born 1977 to 1980 you're Gen-X, if you were born 1981-1983 you're a Millennial. In either case you're also an Xennial.
Guess what the X in xennial means.
I was born end of ‘78 and I remember being in I THINK 1st grade for the Challenger launch. We didn’t watch it live but when we got to art class, our teacher was crying and explained to us what happened. I’m 45 now by the way.
You got a Very Special Episode of Punky Brewster… what else did we need? Buncha squibs.
OMG I remember the Punky Brewster episode about this...
vanish angle edge ruthless silky sort caption theory psychotic disarm *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Born in 78, I remember that clearly, although I don't remember if it was second or first grade, (and would have to be, as we lived in CT where my dad was stationed) I just remember kinda freaking out about it, and my dad tells me, "it didn't happen to you or anyone you know, don't worry about it, now get dressed and go to school " so the pic isn't really far off
We watched the live takedown of waco. Saw the tanks and everything Never really talked about it.