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Your First Big News Story

metirish Dec 08 2010 10:50 AM

I was eight when Lennon was murdered , I remember it but it wasn't my first big news story that I remember.....that would have been Pope John Paul coming to Ireland in 1979 " young people of Ireland I love you", it was a huge event and in many ways with defined the country in that era. I can still see him kissing the tarmac at Dublin Airport and watching the events unfold over three unforgettable days, the country really did come to a standstill for him.......how times have changed.... Lord Mountbatten of Burma getting murdered by the IRA in Sligo a month before the Papal visit was big news too but had the wrong kind of impact on me. The hunger strikes came the following year and all but shattered any good feelings I had leftover after the Papal visit. It was an odd time indeed.

sharpie Dec 08 2010 10:53 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

JFK assassination. First grade. Lining up for schoolbus home a second grade girl told me.

Edgy DC Dec 08 2010 10:56 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

We have a bunch of people hunger striking to push for passage of the DREAM Act. I wonder if it's as resounding for young Latino Americans in the US as the Northern Ireland hunger strikers was for young Irish folk.

batmagadanleadoff Dec 08 2010 11:03 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

My first big new story was watching the Apollo 11 moon walk on TV. I specifically remember playing with my Topps Planet of the Apes cards while I was watching. I hadn't discovered baseball, yet. My next big news story was the Mets winning the 1969 WS.

TransMonk Dec 08 2010 11:05 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

I remember the big news coverage of Regan getting shot. I was 6 or so at the time. Other children and I crowded around the TV at my after school babysitter's house. The news coverage pre-empted Sesame Street or some other popular children's show we watched every afternoon. The Challenger explosion of 1986 was big too. I remember my fifth grade class was covering space travel and was following Christa McAuliffe pretty closely.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Dec 08 2010 11:06 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

I remember hearing the word "Saigon" on the radio a lot and wondering what that was all about. Then, "Watergate."

themetfairy Dec 08 2010 11:23 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination is the first major news event I can recall.

Benjamin Grimm Dec 08 2010 11:29 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

The moon landing. I was just a couple of months past my sixth birthday. I wasn't aware at the time that the moon was lifeless; it was my understanding that this was the moment when that question would be answered. Would a moon creature be there to greet the astronauts? Or would there be no greeting, which, to my young mind, would prove that there was no life on the moon. If I remember right, I was watching with my father. I don't think my mom was watching. The older of my two sisters was 2 and a half, and the younger one was five months old, so I know that they weren't interested. I wouldn't be surprised if my mother wasn't that interested either. (Either that, or she was busy with my sisters.) What time was it on the East Coast when Armstrong stepped onto the moon? I'll have to look that up.

Ceetar Dec 08 2010 11:35 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

Not even sure. I always hated the news, and still hate it. I ignore it then and trying to think back to the big stories, I can't even come up with one. hmm..OJ, but I was in middle school then I think. The Berlin wall fell when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, but I don't remember much about that. Mets win the World Series? Certainly a big local story, but I was 4 and don't remember much outside of my house.

Fman99 Dec 08 2010 12:27 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

I guess Lennon being shot was the first big news story I recall. I was 7.

Valadius Dec 08 2010 12:43 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

I only hazily recall the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War. I definitely remember the 1992 election. I was in kindergarten.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Dec 08 2010 12:51 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

Does the Adam Walsh abduction/murder count? I remember my mom and aunts talking a lot about that, and I'm told I started reading with NY Post headlines, so... yeah, that one sticks out amidst a lot of fuzzy memories. A whole lot of Etan Patz-- LES kid who went missing, never to be found, in 1979-- stuff, too, although that must have been a couple of years. I grew up on the UWS, raised and surrounded by paranoid Filpinas. So, basically, whenever I'd start running and get more than ten feet away from my mom/tita/cousin, I'd get a lecture about missing, presumably dead children. Also, the Charles-Di wedding-- mostly, I remember pictures-- and the Natalie Wood drowning. (My folks were VERY into tabloids.)

John Cougar Lunchbucket Dec 08 2010 01:04 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

Valadius wrote: I only hazily recall the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War. I definitely remember the 1992 election. I was in kindergarten. That's insane. I remember the 1972 election, when I was in first grade. For some reason the teachers (it was a "double" classroom) thought it would be a good idea to have an election in the classroom and asked all the children who wanted Nixon to win assemble in one corner, and all the kids who wanted McGovern to go in the other corner. And every single kid went to the "Nixon" side except for one -- the only black girl in class. We all cheered. Yay! We win 49 to 1!!! Brave little girl, that LaShaun.

themetfairy Dec 08 2010 01:08 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Valadius wrote: I only hazily recall the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War. I definitely remember the 1992 election. I was in kindergarten. That's insane. I remember the 1972 election, when I was in first grade. For some reason the teachers (it was a "double" classroom) thought it would be a good idea to have an election in the classroom and asked all the children who wanted Nixon to win assemble in one corner, and all the kids who wanted McGovern to go in the other corner. And every single kid went to the "Nixon" side except for one -- the only black girl in class. We all cheered. Yay! We win 49 to 1!!! Brave little girl, that LaShaun. OMG - I remember a very close Nixon/Humphrey class vote in 1968 (but I can't remember who won).

Ceetar Dec 08 2010 01:20 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Valadius wrote: I only hazily recall the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War. I definitely remember the 1992 election. I was in kindergarten. That's insane. I remember the 1972 election, when I was in first grade. For some reason the teachers (it was a "double" classroom) thought it would be a good idea to have an election in the classroom and asked all the children who wanted Nixon to win assemble in one corner, and all the kids who wanted McGovern to go in the other corner. And every single kid went to the "Nixon" side except for one -- the only black girl in class. We all cheered. Yay! We win 49 to 1!!! Brave little girl, that LaShaun. The first election I 'remember' was '88. I guess I was in first grade and we filled out mock ballots. Obviously, I voted for Dukakis cause he had the same first name as me.

Edgy DC Dec 08 2010 01:29 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Valadius wrote: I only hazily recall the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War. I definitely remember the 1992 election. I was in kindergarten. That's insane. I remember the 1972 election, when I was in first grade. For some reason the teachers (it was a "double" classroom) thought it would be a good idea to have an election in the classroom and asked all the children who wanted Nixon to win assemble in one corner, and all the kids who wanted McGovern to go in the other corner. And every single kid went to the "Nixon" side except for one -- the only black girl in class. We all cheered. Yay! We win 49 to 1!!! Brave little girl, that LaShaun. That's a great story. I remember the 1972 election, and the energy crisis. I remember my older sisters being crazy about the 1971 re-release of Pinocchio, but that may be a 1972 memory as well. If there was still a war going on in my childhood, I sure didn't realize it. I wonder how much kids today understand that we're still at war.

sharpie Dec 08 2010 02:04 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

I was in second grade for the 1964 election. The teacher had everyone identify if they were for Johnson or Goldwater. My best friend in the class was one of the only (maybe the only) Goldwater supporter. I was kind of shocked since he was the antichrist in my house. In any event he changed schools after that. Probably surrounded himself with more Goldwater enthusiasts.

RealityChuck Dec 08 2010 02:07 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

Probably hearing that Alaska was now a state. I asked, "What was it before?"

TransMonk Dec 08 2010 02:08 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

sharpie wrote: I was in second grade for the 1964 election. The teacher had everyone identify if they were for Johnson or Goldwater. 8-year-olds being asked to choose sides in a presidential election? Crazy. I wouldn't have been able to choose between blue and red for the best color in second grade.

Benjamin Grimm Dec 08 2010 02:09 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

I remember the 1972 election. I was in the fourth grade, and my school did the kind of thing where the teachers and students would all say who they wanted. Just about everyone was for Nixon, with the exception of one teacher who was perhaps somewhat of a "hippie." She was very vocal for McGovern, and all the kids thought she was nuts. They don't do that kind of stuff anymore. At least not in my school district. If a teacher let it be known that he or she was for either McCain or Obama in 2008, they would have risked the wrath of parents who don't agree with their viewpoint. Things were very different 38 years ago.

Frayed Knot Dec 08 2010 02:22 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

Not a first memory necessarily but while I had heard the name Martin Luther King often on the news I didn't have any real idea as to who he was. So when they interrupted a show I was watching to say that he had been killed I went in the other room to ask my father what country he was king of.

G-Fafif Dec 08 2010 02:28 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

It wasn't so much as a news story but as a giddy adventure that I can recall shreds of the great northeast blackout of November 9, 1965. I was a little shy of three years old, and there was much excitement among me, my sister (then not quite nine), my mother and the babysitter (mom had been shopping when the lights went out) that we had to light crayons as candles (or so goes the family legacy). My father was stuck in the city in his office and played cards with his colleagues by candlelight. There was a night when I was five that my mother burned her arm while boiling water (in a pot; no kettle) for tea and I remember a great deal of commotion in the kitchen. The portable TV, which usually wasn't set up in the kitchen, was on in the background. It wasn't until years later I learned that was the night Bobby Kennedy was shot, the early hours of June 5, 1968. Five months later, same TV, same spot for the Nixon-Humphrey duel into the night -- first specific big news story to which I was a cognizant witness. Lots of "Yea Nixon, Boo Humphrey" between my sister and me, apparently set on fitting in with my parents. Next morning I woke up and asked who won. When told it was Nixon, I approved. That would change quickly enough.

G-Fafif Dec 08 2010 02:33 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I remember the 1972 election. I was in the fourth grade, and my school did the kind of thing where the teachers and students would all say who they wanted. Just about everyone was for Nixon, with the exception of one teacher who was perhaps somewhat of a "hippie." She was very vocal for McGovern, and all the kids thought she was nuts. Having caught the political junkie bug in advance of the '72 election, a friend and I in third grade set out to poll all the teachers in our school during the primary season. George McGovern was an overwhelming favorite. One rather stick-in-the-mud lady said "President Nixon" as if there were no question about it and the hard-ass music teacher who made learning the recorder more frustrating than it should have been said "Mr. X." Couldn't just say, as a couple of the grown-ups did, that's a personal matter. Man, I still hate that guy. Despite the liberal Democratic nature of my hometown (a beacon of blue in a sea of Nassau County red, to use 21st century terminology), there were only three in my fourth grade class that fall who were for McGovern when it came up: me, another kid and the teacher.

TheOldMole Dec 08 2010 06:45 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

1952 Democratic convention.

Kong76 Dec 08 2010 07:13 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

The moon walk for sure, my Mom woke me up to watch it. I was a space cadet even at 6-7 ... I remember the '69 Mets very little, but remember it was a really big deal. I've posted this before, I think we even watch parts of games at school on the B&W closed circuit TV's in the classroom. John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: That's insane. I remember the 1972 election, when I was in first grade. For some reason the teachers (it was a "double" classroom) thought it would be a good idea to have an election in the classroom and asked all the children who wanted Nixon to win assemble in one corner, and all the kids who wanted McGovern to go in the other corner. And every single kid went to the "Nixon" side except for one -- the only black girl in class. We all cheered. Yay! We win 49 to 1!!! Brave little girl, that LaShaun. I was with LaShaun in school, couple kids and I took McGovern in a silly 10 year old debate in front of the whole school 'cause he was the underdog. Me rooting for the underdog ... go figure.

Willets Point Dec 08 2010 07:30 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

I wanted to vote for John Anderson in 1980 because I liked the underdog. I seem to remember a number of news stories ca. 1980-81: the election, Lennon's assassination, the shooting of Reagan, the first Space Shuttle launch, so that's around the time I started paying attention although not one of those events stands out as something big at the time. I'm always surprised by the things I was not aware of at the time, like the Three Mile Island accident. There was a time when I thought it had happened before I was born, but apparently my parents were seriously considering evacuation plans. Also, sad to say, when I first became aware of Tom Seaver, he was a Red who played on the Mets "a long time ago."

MFS62 Dec 08 2010 09:32 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

The first "big" news story I remember was when North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. (No, I didn't hear from the town crier.) Later

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Dec 08 2010 10:39 PM Re: Your First Big News Story

Willets Point wrote: Also, sad to say, when I first became aware of Tom Seaver, he was a Red who played on the Mets "a long time ago." Dude... he was White Sox when I first met him.

The Second Spitter Dec 09 2010 03:31 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

Probably the Reagan assassination attempt, or maybe the Falklands War. My earliest sporting memory is Trevor Brooking scoring with his head* to win in the 1980 FA Cup Final. *In baseball terms, this is analogous to Bengie Molina hitting a stand-up triple to win the World Series

HahnSolo Dec 09 2010 07:07 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

Not sure if it qualifies as a news story, but I heard that it was on TV so much that I thought "Watergate" was regularly scheduled programming.

metirish Dec 09 2010 07:19 AM Re: Your First Big News Story Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Dec 09 2010 07:44 AM

J.R. getting shot would have been another big story for me in that same 1980 time frame. If the whole of this country watched to see who did it the same can be said for Ireland, it's funny to think back to the days long before the internet how they drummed up advertising and momentum with catch phrases and such. I distinctly remember J.R. ice cream bars, J.R. stickers, people walking around with the Texas oilman hats.....fun times.

Willets Point Dec 09 2010 07:35 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

I actually thought Who Shot J.R? was the name of the tv show. I remember having a birthday party the day after the episode aired and everyone was making jokes about my neighbor who was also named J.R. and his sister Kristen because it was a character named Kristen who actually shot the tv show's J.R.

soupcan Dec 09 2010 09:03 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

Moon landing. I was just about 5 and have fuzzy memories of it. My parents took my sister and I to a drive-in theater in Whitestone Queens to watch it on the big screen. If you are driving on the Hutch now, you can see the 'Whitestone Cinemas' in the spot where the drive-in was.. Clearer memories of Watergate and Rich Little's 'I am not a crook' - dual-victory-signs-Nixon-impersonation.

seawolf17 Dec 09 2010 09:13 AM Re: Your First Big News Story

My first thought was the Challenger too, although I do vaguely remember supporting Mondale in our fourth-grade "election."