One of my very favorite classes in high school was Current Events with Mr. McLean. My parents didn't get a computer until I went off to college, so in 11th grade, TV was pretty much my only source of media.
This is one paper I wrote in Current Events class. The first sentence tells me we were to write about the news happenings we best remembered while growing up. Of course, this was pre-9-11 which, I'm sure, makes the top of the list on all of McLean's present students' papers.
I love reading through old pieces of writing. You can hear my blogging voice even then!
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Many historical events have taken place during my lifetime, though a lot of them had little impact on me, the ones that happened when I was really little.
I do remember in 1990 and 1991, I was in fourth grade and Desert Storm was in full swing. We'd sit there in class and have group discussions about the Gulf War specifically, but also just about war in general. We hadn't experienced or heard much about it, maybe a few stories of exaggerated heroism by our grandfathers in WWII, but that's all they were to us - stories. Something we might read in a book or in movies we would watch. But while sitting in that fourth grade classroom, writing letters of encouragement to soldiers we didn't know, and collecting packets of Kool-Aid to improve the taste of the water there, it suddenly became clear to us students what war meant.
I know I must have watched actual live coverage on the whole thing quite a bit, but the only day I remember watching actual fighting was a cloudy Sunday afternoon in January. I keep thinking it was right around New Years, maybe New Years Day or the day after, I'm not sure. I remember sitting in front of the TV with my family and seeing these people with the funny looking gas masks on. The newscaster would interview random soldiers, and though it seemed to be in the middle of the night there, you could see the sky light up tremendously in the background. It would look plain as day for two seconds, get dark for a brief moment, and then be replaced once again with streaks of light. The people had to yell when they spoke, and at certain points they seemed to almost be in a state of panic. I'll never forget that picture.
The reason I remember that specific day so well is because of what I was doing when I was watching it. I was lying on my stomach with a pencil and several pieces of paper. I drew a picture of four children, two girls and two boys - one African American, one Native American, one Asian, and one American. I drew them all playing together, and I even wrote a short story about each one to go along with the picture. Even at ten years old, the difference between war and peace were obviously becoming real to me. And only now has it made me realize the significance of me drawing and writing what I did. I never could figure out why that day stuck out in my mind before.
Of course, Desert storm didn't have as much an impact on me as it would if the fighting were over here - we also knew that we would win the war. But, like you said, unlike previous wars, we had total television coverage of it from start to finish, and we could transport ourselves to the Middle East with a click of the remote.
Well, now that I've written my required number of pages, I think I'll end now - just kidding. I'll try to briefly tell about the other events that stick out in my mind.
(Add: The above is so classic me! I actually wrote that in my paper!)
Just a year before Desert Storm the Berlin Wall came down. Now, this was one event that I had more background on then the Gulf War. That's because in 1985 my mom, grandma, and uncles all took a trip to Germany to visit some relatives in East Berlin. Of course they went into the city to snap pictures of the dividing Wall. When they returned I remember my mom telling me why they'd put it up in the first place. I thought it was cool to see all the German writing and painting on the wall! So of course we were watching the news when they tore it down a couple years later.
Thinking about it now surprises me that I understood the tragedy the Wall brought the city. I even remember seeing everyone crying as they were finally reunited with their families, some men who had never before seen their small children.
Then one day in third grade one of our relatives from Norway, who had been to Germany, came to visit the US for a few weeks. My parents thought it would be a good idea if Guro came to Aquila [Primary] School to talk to my class about what it's like to live in Norway. She also talked about the Berlin Wall, since she had just been to Germany. She even brought a real piece of the Wall for us to look at and touch. The piece was about the size of a fist and there was definite signs of graffiti on it. I remember feeling lucky that my class and I got a chance to hold a piece of history in our hands, one we had only seen on television. It made the whole event even more real to us.
Another event I recall is the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling. It happened during the same year as the fall of the Berlin Wall, but I think it impacted me even more. At school, everyone was making a big deal about it. We had many, many discussions about the event, and teachers were pushing the whole safety issue. They let us know that it very well could have been any one of us - Jacob was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also everyone was concerned because Jacob was only two years older than us. We talked about what we can do to make sure that never happens to one of us. We discussed the mistakes Jacob made that caused him to be vulnerable to the harmful situation. I don't think I need to say that I learned a lot that year!
(Add: Over the couple of years that followed Jacob's kidnapping, I'd be at Target or somewhere with my parents and imagine that Jacob was hiding from his kidnapper in the store. I'd find him and he would be returned to his parents. Today, Jacob would be 30 years old, and although his parents rightly keep up hope of his survival, it's probably pretty unlikely. Some say his kidnapper took him to Mexico where he became part of a child trafficking operation. yet who knows what actually happened?)
You're probably wondering about how the Challenger explosion impacted me. For some reason, I really don't remember watching anything about it or hearing about it at school, although I do recall an old Punky Brewster episode that focused on the Challenger in detail.
I thought I'd leave the more recent events alone, except that I will comment on one thing from last summer. I found myself getting to watch the news quite a bit then, and I really got into and followed the whole Andrew Cunanan murders. In July it probably caught my eye since it started out here in Minnesota. It really surprised me when I heard that he ended up in Florida. After the Versacci murder I was into the story again. I wanted to see what would happen next, like so many when they watched the O.J. trial and now with the Clinton allegations. of course, i didn't want Cunanan to kill anyone else, but I wanted to know if he killed the fashion designer as well as the others here in Minnesota. I couldn't wait to find out if he would be caught and, if so, what would he say about it all? Like so many others I asked why?
I was kind of disappointed when it ended like it did, though I was glad he wouldn't get a chance to kill anymore. I was just fascinated with the story of it, and I wanted to know how someone could be as cunning and aggressive as that. It was certainly the murder mystery of the year!
(Add: Still creeps me out to think about it!)
I spoke briefly to my parents about significant events in their lives, and my mom mentioned the Kennedy assassination. She was getting ready for school that day and heard the bulletin on the news. I don't think she ended up making it to school. They must have canceled it for the rest of the week or so.
My dad talked about the years between 1964 and 1966. The sudden attitude changes during that time impacted him, in that he couldn't believe how fast so many things took place.
He said that the breakdown of the home was one of the things that triggered these changes. Rock and Roll was popular by then, Kennedy had just been killed, and the First Amendment of the Constitution concerning education had been altered. Kids were beginning to rebel and family morals no longer worth talking about. The Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam intensified this new attitude, which just caused even more protesting, demonstration, and draft card burning. These events were happening so suddenly that all anyone knew to do was avoid everything and try to get their own way.
Take, for example, those who were born in 1947. In 1964, when they turned seventeen, everything war was very new to them. Up until that point they had never lived to see anything but peace. This caused many rebellious feelings once they received draft cards. It was like that with many people at that time.
Along with all these other new ideas like Rock and Roll and the Civil Rights Movement, one was bound to have different opinions. They expressed them forcefully and violently, which seemed to happen out of the blue. My dad feels that these three years showed the quickest and most significant changes in his lifetime.
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