I remember it all very clearly: watching the Challenger explosion during school. I can see all the kids gathered together on the library steps at my elementary school to watch the teacher going into space. The excitement of watching the Space Shuttle launching; how quickly the television was turned off when it all went so wrong.
As near as I can tell, everything I’ve described above did happen. We did gather on the library steps to watch historic events happening live on TV. I did see television coverage of the explosion, and it happened during a school day. Here’s the problem: the Challenger explosion happened in 1986. I was 13, and in junior high. There is no way that I watched exactly what I thought I watched. It just could not have happened the way I remember.
What’s going on here? As near as I can tell, I have compressed every memory of Space Shuttle launches (including the one that ended in tragedy) into one memory. I’ve somehow taken the beginning of successful launches I saw in elementary school and tacked on the bad ending and made the whole thing one memory.
And, even knowing all this, I cannot recall the ending of any of the successful launches even though I had to have seen them. I cannot place the Challenger launch into any context in junior high even though that it when it must have happened. And this makes me wonder… how many of my other very clear memories are several incidents squashed together into one event?
Femme Fatale over 50 