What do you remember?

Hockeyman asks this question on his blog.

Like him, although more like age 2 than 4, I recall JFK being shot. For years I've wondered about this memory, was it a real one? Or one that I'd 'acquired' through the repeated rehashes of this assassination by the press and media through the years. It's taken me a while to be certain, but I believe I really remember watching JohnJohn saluting the coffin as it passed. We had a black and white tv of the old circle in a square variety up till 1965 and that's what I recall seeing it on. I vividly remember my mom crying and believe that's why the incident is so set in my mind. At 2 your world is you. Your mom provides for your needs and makes you feel safe; seeing her cry so has stuck in my mind all these years. I don't honestly recall her crying at anything else, although I'm sure she did at some point or another.

I do not recall Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination at all but I have a vague memory of RFK's. Neither evoked the emotion that JFK's did in my home.

I do, however, remember where I was when I heard about Elvis' death. I was traveling through the mountains of eastern BC with my then fiance and my mom and dad. I recall staring at the Three Sisters for as long as the twisting #1 highway through there allowed, listening to song after song of his. A certain quiet had entered the car and when the radio reception failed no one urged for another station. I am an Elvis fan. Have always been. Of his music, of his movies (laugh all you want, read some of the accounts by respected actors who worked with him, of his abilities and how they were under utilized. There was a lot of lost potential there, sadly) and later as I grew up and read many many versions of his life, of the man. One's life is what one makes of it, or allows to be made of it. (I think maybe that's a topic for another post.)

Another 'moment' in time that I recall is John Lennon's death. The poignancy of his re-entry into the mainstream music scene (so to speak) with Double Fantasy, made even more so by "(Just like)Starting Over" and ended so abruptly is not lost on me, even though I've never been more than a casual fan of the Beatles and a very uninformed one about John Lennon in particular. In fact, my favourite Beatle has always and remains, Ringo Starr. I was working as a security guard on the midnight shift, and recall sitting at the desk, greeting the workers as they arrived for work. Many of them wore sad expressions, nodding to the small radio I was listening to his songs on.

There are other, more...well, personal... incidences in time that I recall. Moments that a picture or a sound, sometimes even a smell can take me back to the emotions thereof in a heartbeat.

We have, in the past forty or so years, as the Chinese? curse is said to say, "...lived in interesting times" I'm sure many will never view the world the same after some of the more momentous moments of our time. I know I certainly don't. I don't really know if I regret that as much as I'd like to wish that I did. I'm not sure that having an eyeopening moment in your life is as bad a thing as one would normally assume. I know a lot of parents try very hard to shield their children from such moments as do I, myself. But there also comes a time when letting them see and feel and understand said feelings is more important that preserving their innocence.