Remembering the Challenger Accident

I remember vividly where I was when I heard about the Challenger Accident. I was in the medical records department where I worked and the maintenance man came in to tell me. It was unbelievable. I didn’t even know that the shuttle was going up that day- that’s how commonplace the shuttle program had become to me I guess.

I remember rushing home to watch the coverage on the new CNN where we could watch all the news all the time and being so grateful that there was an all-news channel!

At that time I was taking ballet classes at a local regional ballet company compromised mostly of high school students. I was the old lady in my 20s. The girls were not upset or sad or even very emotional about it. One girl told me she was sick to death of hearing about it! The self-centeredness of these teenagers angered me. Had I been that focused in on my own little world when I was their age? I couldn’t believe that they weren’t as traumatized by the whole thing as I was.

Judy Resnik was the Ohio native on the flight. Christa McAuliff got most of the national attention, but around here it was all things Reznik. Memorials and images of her were all over the city. The day of her memorial service, the air force had the missing man formation fly over the city. It had been higly publicized and my co-workers and I were waiting for it so that we could watch when they flew by. While we were waiting there was a low rumbling sound and I thought to myself that they ahd been flying rather low! Turns out it was not the planes at all, but a very rare Northeast Ohio earth quake. I think Ms. Resnik, the scientist, would have enjoyed having a rather notable scientific phenomenon occurring on a day that honored her. I never did get to see those flying planes.

I remember crying in my car when President Regan came on the radio to give a speech about the accident. I wasn’t very fond of President Regan then simply because he was a Republican and I was a Democrat. But his speech that day touched my heart and have been rather fond of Mr. Regan ever since.

Minivan Mom had Regan’s entire speech on her blog today. This is my favorite part:

“On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, “He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.” Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”

May they rest in peace.