Events in your lifetime that you recall like yesterday

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by Kilabyte

I hit a poor doggo on the highway in my 300ZX when I was a kid, couldn't get the sound out of my head for months, worst feeling ever

I did that once. Was a German Shepherd. Had gotten out of someone's yard and ran across the street at just the wrong time. Didn't see it until it was too late. Poor dog died.

Even worse, I hit a kid on a bike who went through a stop sign. I skidded through the whole intersection trying to stop and hit the rear wheel on his bike. Was before anti-lock brakes were standard equipment. He was okay, a few scrapes, but both of us were scared to death. He apologized and was crying, saying it was his fault. I felt so bad for him.

I put his bike in my car and he ran home (just around the corner) and I talked with his parents. They were both very upset. I offered to pay for his bike but they declined the offer. They were new to the neighborhood and the kid didn't notice the stop sign.

I saw him many times after that and we both would say hi to each other. It could've turned out bad but lucky it didn't.

[billnchristy]

Challenger- We watched it live in school in Maine. It was a pretty wild day, saw my first attempt at mass grief counseling and the school did a great job not trying to stop us from seeing it. I imagine some places might have tried to censor it.

9/11- was in the Atlantic for 2 days supposed to be running reactor drills prior to an ORSE or MTT (can't remember). We were down in the plant about to start drills when they announced the first plane hit. We all thought, "Damn, they're going all out on this one, getting real detailed on calling General Quarters" When they recalled us back to reactor training and saw the events live, we realized it was all real. They actually tried to make us run the drills anyway and everyone in the plant refused. Eventually they decided cancelling was the right thing to do and we all sat glued to the TV watching the rest unfold. Later that night we were in NY Harbor and I remember being out on the smoke deck watching the smoke from the towers cover the skyline and thinking that NYC looked just like every other port now with those two monster buildings not being there anymore.

Cuba 1978- I was 2 years old and had a "sheet ghost" come out of my closet and scare the absolute hell out of me. I still remember it 45 years later, I don't think it was a dream.

Another one from Maine- the morning school announcements went over new rules. They were absolutely insane and restrictive. Things like you could no longer bring lunches, strict dress codes, permission to do anything like even play at recess. They let us stew in our disbelief and discontent for what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes and then declared "This is what life is like living in a communist country" and explained that it was all a lesson.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by billnchristy

Challenger- We watched it live in school in Maine. It was a pretty wild day, saw my first attempt at mass grief counseling and the school did a great job not trying to stop us from seeing it. I imagine some places might have tried to censor it.

Remember that this was NASA's huge "teacher in space" mission, where a real-life school teacher (Christa McAuliffe) was flying to teach live school lessons from space. NASA hyped up the whole mission in K-12 schools, and many classroom TV's around the country were tuned into the launch and subsequent "major malfunction" when they normally would be doing normal classroom stuff.....

[UncleWede]

At swimming lessons, on Devonshire, and the TV was pulled so mom and the teacher could watch Tricky Dick resign.

My cat got ran over. A marble was smashed into his back foot, between his toes. Once I got it out, he passed.

David dies. My parents were gone, everyone was at my house. Went into my parents' room with Sandra and Pam. I was face up, they each laid on a shoulder. AND NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED

[RobotDoctor]

So many memories to mention here. Here are a few:

- Typhoon Cora - Okinawa 1969
- a day in Tokyo during the 1970 World's Fair and arguing with my cousin because she was playing with my new toy
- experiencing my first snow in southeast Iowa in 1970
- President Nixon resigning the office of the POTUS
- first MLB game 4/26/75 (St. Louis Cardinals vs Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field)
- first little league tryout (ended up being the first pick)
- America's Bicentennial
- Senior league tryout (and ended up being the first pick ... again )
- 1978 family vacation from Illinois to The Grand Canyon (and back)
- first time seeing Pikes Peak (moving from Illinois to Colorado Springs in 1980)
- injuring my right eye in 1982
- Space shuttle Challenger disaster
- buying my first new car (1986)
- teeing up in my first big college golf tournament and how nervous I was
- birth of my oldest daughter
- day my youngest daughter arrived home (adoption)
- Columbine High School shooting
- September 11, 2001 attacks
- the day each of my parents passing away and how I felt in those moments

so many more events that define my life.

[ArthurMorgan]

9/11. I was in 8th grade in my first period class. One of the other teachers came in the room and told us to turn on the TV because something was going on in New York. We watched it the whole rest of that period, and then a lot of us huddled up in the old Home Ec room and watched the news coverage. I saw the second plane hit live on TV. One of my teachers told us things were about to change for everyone, and about 30 minutes later they made us shut it off and sent us back to class.

My first time driving on my own. I was entirely terrified and just kept feeling like I was doing something illegal. Fortunately that passed quickly

The day I realized my father was about to die. I was 15. He had cancer and I knew he was close to the end, but this was not long after the doctors told us there wasn't anything more they could do for him. He had been under at-home hospice care for a couple of weeks by this point. I won't go into the exact details, but it became extremely apparent that he was very close to dying. Every second of that situation is permanently etched into my brain.

Moving out of my mother's house when I was 18. We had a very tumultuous relationship after my father's passing, and I left home about as soon as I was able to. I had a friend from PA (900 miles away) who moved me up there and the part I remember 100% clearly was walking into the very small bedroom in the shitty duplex they had just rented and wondering just what the fuck I did. I had never been to Pennsylvania, I knew nothing about the state or the north or snow. I didn't know the other roommate at all. Fortunately, that ended up being probably the greatest choice of my life and set me up for my future.

Flying in my first small plane. This was actually a discovery flight when I randomly decided one day that I wanted to get my PPL. I had tons of commercial flights before that, but I remember looking out the window while turning onto the runway and thinking it felt like being in a go-kart since we were so low to the ground.

I'm sure there are probably more of these moments in my life, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind.

[billnchristy]

GRUESOME ALERT:

I guess I need to add my industrial accident. Feb 16, 2006. I did not feel good and told my boss I was going home. He asked if I could get the fab shop band saw running first so I went over to work on it.

It had a massive chip auger in it that had clogged up with metal dust and coolant so the entire coolant system wasn't working because it went through this system as well.

I had fashioned a blow gun with a plastic tube on the end and was blowing out the junk and got a little coolant flow to get through. I had the nozzle probably 6-8" inside the auger chamber so when a bunch of dust had built up at the little inspection/blow out hole I stuck my finger in there to get it out.

POP. Ripped that SOB off right at the second knuckle. My wife said she heard me scream from her office, I feel bad about that. It didn't hurt per se but the shock was intense. I was now "that guy", anyone in mechanical or machining knows "that guy" and I was now him, that was all that was going through my head. It bled like a horror movie. The finger was still attached by skin and just dangling so the guys in the fab shop got some rags and we wrapped it up and waited for the ambulance.

It took about 20m even though the hospital is like 5 miles away tops. It was a long wait and felt like days. When I got in the van they gave me morphine but it really didn't do anything.

The ER just wrapped it up, folding the finger piece back on the remaining part and took x-rays, no cleaning, no nothing. I then sat in a hospital room for 12hr and around midnight they put me under and removed it. Anesthesia gave me a lung infection so I ended up having to stay in the hospital for a couple days. They kept me pumped up on dilodid the whole time.

The doctor sucked and was a jerk, I switched hand surgeons for the follow up and he said if it was a day before he would have been on duty and would have probably removed the whole finger and sewed my thumb in a new position, he had done that several times and while you end up with a Simpson's hand, you have full use and don't worry about hitting the stump on anything. Every nerve from the missing part is now wrapped around what remains and it is so sensitive, I've gotten used to it, but if I hit it on something accidentally it can still put me on my knees.

The absolute worst part of the experience was coming home and off the dilodid, that shit gave me the worst withdrawals you can imagine. I had to sleep with the lights on the first night back because I was hallucinating so hard. It was raining in my room and I kept seeing my wife roll over and start gnawing on my finger in my head. Bugs and spiders were crawling all over the walls and the room was just rundown and scary. I basically cried myself to sleep in fear and it was over after that.

I then more or less got addicted to pain meds because they screwed up my prescription and I had 3 refills of 30 hydro and I'm the kind of guy who will take them. It wasn't so bad once they were all gone but starting at 10s then 7.5s then 5s for 3 months is a lot of opioids and wasn't good for me.

I used to get kind of PTSD'y around the anniversary but now its just another day. If I think about it I can still see when I pulled it out of the machine and both my wife and I really hate seeing people lose fingers on movies and such but other than that, I'm good.

0/10 stars, would not recommend.

[ArthurMorgan]

Jesus Christ, man. That's awful. Every part of it, from the actual accident to how the hospital treated you. I was very close to being a member of the "that guy" club, although mine wasn't an industrial accident. I don't know how I didn't remember this story from when I wrote my post.

I was 12, or however old you are the summer before 6th grade. I was riding bikes with my friend, and my bike had a tendency to have the chain pop loose. I had stopped on the side of the road to reach down and feel the tension on my chain when my buddy just messing around came up and bumped me from behind with his bike. My foot was on the pedal, so I ended up pedalling forward, and with my finger right by the chainwheel, it sucked it in and crushed it. The tip of my middle finger was 95% amputated, and like yours, it was hanging on by a little bit of flesh.

I jumped off my bike, holding my finger and ran across the road to my house and kicked on the door. My mom came to the door, but I told her to get my dad because I knew she wouldn't have been able to handle it. When my dad came to the door, I opened my hand and blood went all over the deck, all down my arm. I don't know how he managed to deal with it (because I couldn't if I had a kid), but he took me inside and we rinsed it as good we could in the sink while my mother called 911.

About 10 minutes later an ambulance and fire truck rolls up and 2 of the guys with the EMT and fire crew had "stubbys" on one of their hands. That didn't make me feel as good as they thought it would, but I think I was too in shock to really react to it. Anyway, they loaded me up in the ambulance and took me off to the hospital.

I don't remember much after we got there, but I do remember them giving me anesthesia and then waking up in the OR just as they were finishing the stitches on my finger. I did end up keeping the tip of my finger, but the nail is weird looking, the fingerprints are barely there, and it's shorter than the finger on my other hand. Oh, and there's obviously a huge scar. It is still EXTREMELY sensitive to getting banged against stuff, but I can't imagine what yours must feel like.

[billnchristy]

It's funny how adept our dads were at trauma. Mine was never in war though he was in the Navy during Vietnam, he joined so he wouldn't get drafted so he had a choice. I got my head opened up pretty bad one night, my sister was having a pillow fight with one of her friends in her room and I walked in and she clocked me so hard I fell and hit my head right on the edge of her bed rail. I was wearing one of those yellow Izod shirts and when I stood up it was soaked red. Dad brought me to the living room, gave me a towel and a popsicle and told me not to go to sleep. We never went to the hospital, I think him being Navy and knowing how good the medical system was kind of made him just take care of things himself. I am pretty sure I was concussed, and I think I've had many and never even officially played sports.

One time, everyone was out and I was riding my bike. I don't really recall how the wreck occurred but when I fell I rang my bell HARD. I wasn't far from the house so I eventually picked up my bike and walked it home. I remember literally seeing stars and almost whited out twice. I just sat on the couch with my head ringing until it was quiet enough and I could move without wanting to throw up.

Good times!

They seem to be good at saving tips, even if they always end up looking funny! Glad you didn't lose it but it'd probably be cooler to lose one as a kid than an adult. I'm sure people notice it occasionally and bring it up, people just can't seem to help themselves about mine, if I don't feel like talking I just tell them it fell off and I'm waiting for it to grow back.

[Kilabyte]

Originally Posted by billnchristy

It's funny how adept our dads were at trauma. Mine was never in war though he was in the Navy during Vietnam, he joined so he wouldn't get drafted so he had a choice. I got my head opened up pretty bad one night, my sister was having a pillow fight with one of her friends in her room and I walked in and she clocked me so hard I fell and hit my head right on the edge of her bed rail. I was wearing one of those yellow Izod shirts and when I stood up it was soaked red. Dad brought me to the living room, gave me a towel and a popsicle and told me not to go to sleep. We never went to the hospital, I think him being Navy and knowing how good the medical system was kind of made him just take care of things himself. I am pretty sure I was concussed, and I think I've had many and never even officially played sports.

One time, everyone was out and I was riding my bike. I don't really recall how the wreck occurred but when I fell I rang my bell HARD. I wasn't far from the house so I eventually picked up my bike and walked it home. I remember literally seeing stars and almost whited out twice. I just sat on the couch with my head ringing until it was quiet enough and I could move without wanting to throw up.

Good times!

They seem to be good at saving tips, even if they always end up looking funny! Glad you didn't lose it but it'd probably be cooler to lose one as a kid than an adult. I'm sure people notice it occasionally and bring it up, people just can't seem to help themselves about mine, if I don't feel like talking I just tell them it fell off and I'm waiting for it to grow back.

You just brought back a lot of lost memories, holy facking chiet. I almost forgot how many times I got hurt on my bike

[billnchristy]

Bikes are evil! I remember taking off the "sissy pads" and almost immediately racking my nuts on the handlebar stem.

I'm shocked I could have kids later.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by billnchristy

Bikes are evil! I remember taking off the "sissy pads" and almost immediately racking my nuts on the handlebar stem.

I'm shocked I could have kids later.

Oh man, I’ve done that. So many trips to the ER getting stitches. Can’t believe the only bone I’ve broken in my life was my baby toe hitting it on the leg of a chair. lol

[UncleWede]

I thought I had suppressed those memories of freewheel sprockets and rat trap pedals on my shins.

THANKS!

[JAI///M3]

Originally Posted by 2000cs

my disappointment when my parents told me pirates had boarded the ship and stolen my orange dump truck. I was about 5, we had just returned to the states from Germany. Same pirates also broke the outside mirrors on both cars. I do not recall being aware of the building of the Berlin Wall although it happened during our time there.

Recall being in the basement watching black-and-white TV all night, weather bulletins in Wichita, KS. Tornado did a lot of damage one or two blocks away that night. Parents were really obviously concerned/tense.

Vague memory of assassination of JFK (we lived in Dallas at the time)

Definitely recall assassinations of MLK Jr (we lived in Memphis at the time) and RFK (we did NOT live in Los Angeles, whew!)

Moon landing and other Apollo missions. Also the Gemini splashdowns and recoveries were great tv when I was a kid. Had a “Wide World of Sports” feel.

End of Vietnam war, evacuation from Hanoi. War protests in the USA.

Nixon resignation (watergate hearings, Agnew resignation, lots happened at that time).

Space Shuttle explosion (worked at a component manufacturer, external tanks, not o-rings).

And many more modern events.

I think you just described the movie “Forrest Gump” 😂

[3.0L]

1. When I punched off a deuce next to the retaining wall and behind a bush when I was 8 years old. Green flies appeared within minutes. I watched the job go away over a period of weeks.

2. When I heard about Sputnik as I was picking up the evening newspapers for my corner market sales pitch. I was 10 years old.

3. When I heard that JFK had been shot. I was a junior in high school and 16 years old.

4. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. I was in Vietnam and 22 years old. I was soaking wet and I could see the moon.

5. The day I returned home from Vietnam and separated from the Army.

6. The day my brother-in-law called and told me my dad died in his car. Dad was 55. I was 33 and suddenly the general manager of our mom & pop store.

7. The day I put the maiden flight (solo) on my rag-wing Piper after a 10 year rebuild. I was 40 years old.

8. My 1st day of retirement. I was 64 and spent the first 3 days in bed with the flu. That was 11 years ago.

Can't remember shit after that.

[2000cs]

Originally Posted by JAI///M3

I think you just described the movie “Forrest Gump” 😂

Well, my ex was named Jenny (Jennifer) and she was/is a bitch. So,…

[JMcLellan]

Staying away from the main things already listed like 9/11 and such. And some of these things were not that long ago but will be long lasting and vivid memories.

I was about 5 years old sitting on the front step of our house eating a popsicle. Drunk driver ran into a large tree in our front yard, then got out and ran. I remember looking at the car when the cops were there and there were several beer cans in it.

In 4th grade, I stepped on a nail walking through the woods. The nail didn't go all the way through because a bone stopped it. Bone got chipped and was very painful.

Got to attend both game 7's of the 1987 and 1991 World Series with my dad and see the Twins win 2 championships.

In 7th grade a few 9th graders skipped school and went to one guys' house. At the house they found their parents hand gun, playing with it one guy got shot in the head and died.

I was a senior in high school when the Columbine shooting happened. I was scared the last few weeks of school thinking something like that would happen in my school.


Met my wife in January of 2009. Realized she was the younger sister of a guy I graduated high school with and the family lived a couple blocks away from my childhood home. I trick or treated at her house, and we rode the same bus as kids in the 80's and 90's, but we didn't meet until 2009.

Got married in July of 2011.

First son was born in November 2012

2nd son was born in June 2015.

My parents sold my childhood home and property to a developer and the land and house were excavated in 2020-- I can't drive past there anymore as the land is not recognizable.

Had to put our 14 month old pooch down August of 2022.

Got our current puppy this February.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by JMcLellan

Staying away from the main things already listed like 9/11 and such. And some of these things were not that long ago but will be long lasting and vivid memories.

To make everyone feel old, remember that there is a whole generation that is old enough to drink and vote, yet does not recall 9/11 because they weren't born until after 2001.....

[Donatello.]

9/11
Some personal life events that I'm not going into

[billnchristy]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

To make everyone feel old, remember that there is a whole generation that is old enough to drink and vote, yet does not recall 9/11 because they weren't born until after 2001.....

My daughter is one of those people, well technically she's not 21 until November, but yeah, it's crazy.

[Sara]

Katrina

[antgenn]

9/11
Passing of my mother in law at 57. I was at her bed when it happened...
First grandkid birth
Witnessed 2 unmanned rocket launches at Baikonur (Kazakhstan) in 1986. One was terminated at 100 seconds due to the first stage booster failure.