Christa McAuliffe

Concord High School is right across from where I used to work. I had gone over to buy gas at the Cumberland Farms between us, which has the school gym looming over it. As I started pumping, there was lots of student noise, coming from the gym.  Happy noise. I remembered that this was the day of their teacher Christa McAuliffe's launch and rightly concluded they had everyone in the gym to watch it together. The noise crescendoed while I was out there, then suddenly went silent. A creepy silence.  

I went inside to pay and the clerk and a few other people were looking at a small television screen. "It looks like the rocket just blew up, we're not sure." "We think she's dead." We all stared at the screen, the announcers speaking hesitantly, irregularly. "...trying to find out...no word yet from..."

It was one of those dissociative moments where you wonder if you have stepped into some alternate, unreal world.  But there's nothing to do but just head back to work. My son was in first grade, and they had all the children watching the launch. I remembered that myself from school.  All 9 grades at Straw School were brought out to watch the launches of astronaut Alan Shepherd, who was from just a few miles away in Derry. It was considered amazing to be able to watch history as it was happening, and I suppose it was. No one thought of the possible downside then.