Today is the 39th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s explosion upon takeoff, on January 28, 1986. We lost seven astronauts that day — the first time we had ever lost any in-flight, and the first in my lifetime. I have never forgotten the moment, even though I was only five years old; it was the first true national trauma I lived through. (It would not be the last.) I suppose I could have waited until the 40th anniversary next year to write this reminiscence, as my editor suggested this morning, but, then again, you never know when you might errantly stumble down a manhole or in front of an El train, so I might as well get this down on paper quickly while these fingers still function.
There is more than mere insouciance to my words. I’ll never forget where I was that day or how it affected me; the Challenger catastrophe was no minor incident in my young life. As a child of late 1980, I’m too young to have any solid recollection of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection, or anything whatsoever of political or international importance until this exact moment. My first real memory of things outside my family routine, of the “real world,” came with this. And how could it not have? For this was the moment when I was first forced to confront the reality of death.
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