Where Were You...

In my life, so far there have been three major events that at one time or another will come up in conversations starting with "Where were you and what were you doing when..."

The first was the Assassination of President John F Kennedy who's funeral I witnessed, seeing the flag-draped coffin going down Pennsylvania Boulevard.

One of the most life changing was, of course, Elvis' death while I was on the air on what was then WRNC and the absolute barrage of phone calls as if a family member had died that I received that night.

Today, we recall the day that seven brave Americans tragically died in the Challenger Shuttle Disaster. I was driving in a potato chip route and saw video tape in a convenient store in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was quite comforted by what was SUPPOSED to have been the State of the Union Speech of President Ronald Reagan. He forwent addressing both houses of Congress quite appropriately and came to us via the then, big three broadcast television networks from the Oval Office.

I recall, having heard first on the radio and then hearing someone say as I entered the convenient store, "Have you heard what happened?" A TV was set up and we watched the first video tape of it, which included the class of a young teacher at Cape Canaveral there to celebrate their teacher's great accomplishment of being the first civilian in space.

There has been and continues to be a lot of superstition with regard to NASA and specifically the Shuttle program. There are those people groups who comment, "You know, every time that thing goes up there, there's a tornado, a hurricane or an earth quake. It just ain't right. God's trying to tell us something!" And there are those who believe that somehow, the Shuttle is involved in the way those who rule us are tampering with weather. I doubt it, but then again, I wouldn't rule it completely out.

May the Lord continue the comfort those who lost loved ones on this day twenty-five years ago, and may He bless America!