Post: #1

I heard on the radio yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the OJ Simpson case. As soon as I heard it I literally flashed back and remembered it like it was yesterday. I remember summer, I was home alone pops was out of town my mom was at a bbq next door and remember was watching a baseball game or something and OJ took over the TV.

Not sure why this story sticks out in my mind so vividly but it really does. Not only the chase but the trial and all the news coverage after the fact. Not taht OJ was a huge historical news story but I do think it was kind of big in that it was kind of the start of the 24/7 tabloid style coverage of n ews stories and the 24/7 media.

The same way you hear your parents or grandparents talk about how they remember exactly where they were when kennedy was shot I can think of a handful of news stories that really stick out in my mind where I can remember every detail.

I would say these are the three.


1. OJ Simpson, was home alone watching baseball and tv got taken over.

2. Waco Texas David Kuresh massacre. I remember I was on a ski trip in Duluth Minnesota, sitting in a hotel room with my parents watching tv in the morning when all that stuff happenned.

3. 911 obviously probably one for everyone. I remember I was in my freshmen year of college, was at Bowlling class at about 8 am, they had the tv's on CNN as they normally did in the morning in the bowling alley and it happenned. Remember walking back from class going back to my dorm, smoking a bowl and watching the tv.

It's strange how you have these certain memories that really stick out above all others. It's not even that they affected you personally that much just particular days or events. With things like these I can remember exactly the temperature, feeling in the air, how the sun was shining, etc. Wierd how certain events really stick out.

Anyhow, the OJ thing just reminded me of and made me think of this. Was wondreing what some stories or incidents that stick out in yoru mind from yyour childhood or years ago.

Post: #2

There's only one that stands out for me, and not for any particular reason.

The Challenger disaster.

That moment is frozen in my memory. At boarding school, walking across the quad, sunny day, slight breeze, I glanced at the flag slightly waving on the pole. I felt the world shifting at that moment.

Post: #3

9/11 obviouly. 9 years old. No grasp of what happened, as me and my friend were joking about it. Then it sunk in that nothing would actually be the same after this day.

One of my friend (semi-friend)'s dad died later in the day. That shit was sobering.

Post: #4

12.03.2003. The day when Serbia's Prime Minister Dr. Zoran Đinđić was assasinated. Remember the urgent news n the TV, who informed us, the look on my mom's face, my thoughts at the time, everything.

Post: #5

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Post: #6

(06-13-2014 08:59 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  I would say these are the three.

1. OJ Simpson, was home alone watching baseball and tv got taken over.

I was out on the town in Dallas the night the story broke. I got into work the next day and it was all people were talking about, and I'm completely in the dark: "what's this about OJ Simpson?". I do remember when the verdict came in a buddy and I were on are way back into work from lunch break and sat in the car and listened as the verdict came in, then talked about it.

Quote:2. Waco Texas David Kuresh massacre. I remember I was on a ski trip in Duluth Minnesota, sitting in a hotel room with my parents watching tv in the morning when all that stuff happenned.

I was in college at the time, I had the flu when that went down - spent the whole week on the couch watching all that shit. At the time I thought the gov't was completely in the right, these days, no. Koresh was a nut, but that didn't justify the police response.

Quote:3. 911 obviously probably one for everyone. I remember I was in my freshmen year of college, was at Bowlling class at about 8 am, they had the tv's on CNN as they normally did in the morning in the bowling alley and it happenned. Remember walking back from class going back to my dorm, smoking a bowl and watching the tv.

9/11 I remember very well. I'd just got up and got on the computer to look at stocks on thestreet.com. The front page had some mentions of a plane crashing into the WTC (they had a little chat box kind of like the latest tweets boxes you see these days) but nothing else. I tried to go to CNN.com and the site was not responding. I went up to the TV and turned it on and there were the towers burning like a candle. By then they knew it was a hijack and my first thought was "that changes the rules. Now if you get hijacked, don't cooperate".

Challenger I was just out of high school, I remember being at work in this warehouse and someone coming up and telling me that it had happened. A couple hours later I heard the first joke. "Did you know Christina McAuliffe's eyes were blue? Yeah, one eye blew this way, the other one blew that way."

The LA riots I remember really well. I was chatting with my brother online (using the unix talk program, like a text-only IM), he was telling me about all the damage around LA. I'd lived there before and my brother was living there right now. That was really surreal.

Tienanmen Square was really big. My roommate and I were sitting there watching that go down. I got really fired up about that. It's amazing that China was able to keep a lid on things. 1989 was a pretty incredible year. Tieanmen and then 6 month later the Berlin Wall came down. I nearly dropped out of college and moved to Germany because I thought the opportunities would be so tremendous over there. There were also these clear tensions that would lead up to the LA riots.

Post: #7

Now that you mention it, there have been a lot of these "big moments" over the years. Some of these moments most forum members won't be able to relate to, as being too distant in the past. But I want to remind the readership here that history didn't begin in 1995.

The Iran hostage crisis. I was only 11 in 1979, but the the Iranian Revolution was a big, big deal. Now THAT was a revolution in the classic, old-school sense. A major state has its entire system swept away and replaced by something totally different, with a charismatic leader at the helm. And more than this: it was truly militant, making no compromises.

No one had ever seen anything remotely like this since, maybe, 1917. When the American hostages were taken, it was on the news every day, with Walter Cronkite reminding us how long they'd been in custody. The whole thing dragged on and on for months. I remember the headlines in my local newspaper in 1980: "Today: Reagan In, Hostages Out"

The Marine Barracks Bombing in Beirut (1983). This was the biggest conventional explosion ever initiated from the ground. The entire complex of buildings went up, and then down, like a house of cards, killing hundreds. In one stroke, US policy in the region was undone and the political goals frustrated.

Post: #8

Ah yeah, I forgot the L.A. Riots. I was in 10th grade. Even though I lived in a suburb of L.A. there were some kids(guys and girls) that walked down to a department store and were going to try and start a riot and loot. Even though I had no intention of participating, I followed them there just to see if they were really going to do it. They started fucking with customers walking into the store and one Hispanic girl started taking swings at this white lady. They got rowdy and the cops got called and the Hispanic girl was arrested and started crying as she was put in the back seat of the cop car. That was all I really saw and never saw any of the real action going on in Koreatown and south central in real life, only on TV.

That was a crazy time in L.A., the early 90s. It was gangsta, violent, crazy. There was a lot of racism, the LAPD was out of control. It seemed like the city was coming apart at the seams. Downtown was terrifying at night. It's changed so much in the last two decades. Anyone that wasn't there from the 88-95 has no idea...

Post: #9

9/11 and the War on Terror
I was 6 at the time and remember how the political and economic environment turned stormy. Everyone was always on the lookout for some mythical terrorists. First they militarized the airports, then the Feds, then the police. 9/11 stands out in my mind because that's when it all started. Even my teachers warned us about terrorists. That's when society started becoming paranoid about everything.

Can't think of anything else. Pretty sure there will be something memorable in the next 5 years though.

Post: #10

If you're a sports fan ESPN has a good 30 for 30 series of sports documentaries. The OJ one is probably the best one, it looks at the car chase as it was reported on TV that day. There were multiple events going on, the US Open golf tournament, the opening of the World Cup, the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup finals etc (just like today), but all of those events were dominated by the OJ thing. The documentary is cool in that it is essentially just a compilation of the actual TV footage of those events, with no commentary. Found it on youtube, it's a good watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4A1ayt3Jwc

Post: #11

I'm surprised noone has mentioned the Oklahoma city bombing. It was unprecedented for its time. In a way the events at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and all of that set off a string of fringe violence.

9/11 was unbelievable when it happened. I remember thinking how the administration was going to use it as an excuse for some kind of prolonged mass military conflict. Unfortunately, I was right.

Post: #12

I was just a kid when the Berlin Wall came down. Everybody around me was talking about it and I didnt fully understood what was happening but knew that it was a big deal.

I remember the first time I listened to Nirvana´s Smells Like Teen Spirit.

It was my aunts wedding in some shitty border town in Texas, and my family was holed up in a motel. I had a room all for myself, and was channel surfing since I couldnt sleep. I was switching back and forth from one 80s action movie to some music video chanel (not MTV, MTV was fucking great in the 90s, one of those knockoff local cable ones) and suddenly I stumble upon that guitar riff.

I just didnt knew what to think about it. It struck something in my young mind.

9/11 - The day before rain poured in my city so much that some streets flooded. 2 girls drowned in an underpass that led into my university, so they cancelled classes on the 11th.

I remember waking up a little later than usual, and turning on the tv to the news of a plane "accidentally" crashing into the WTC. Then as I was having some cereal, a second plane crashed into the other building.

"THAT was not accidental..." was my first thought. And I instantly knew that the world had changed forever from then on.

Post: #13

I remember that ridiculous car chase like it was yesterday. It was on TV all day.

Post: #14

Johnnie Cochran is the embodiment of a real-life supervillain.

Post: #15

I don't remember the car chase. I do remember the trial, however. We were all talking about it, even though I was only in 2nd grade at the time. I didn't really understand why we were talking about it (for reasons that might be obvious), but we were talking about it.

9/11, obviously. I was 13, in 8th grade. I was standing out in my school's yard during PE class with some friends, talking. We then saw a plane flying very low. We were uptown, but the plane was indeed flying in that direction. A few minutes later, we got called inside and got informed about the attack. My mom and uncle (who was down there and saw the thing happen live, and needed to walk up to our place) came to pick me up.

Was the plane I saw one of the planes that hit the towers? Don't know. Never will. But I do recall it well.

Post: #16

(06-14-2014 12:57 PM)Player_1337 Wrote:  Johnnie Cochran is the embodiment of a real-life supervillain.

Post: #17

(06-14-2014 01:14 PM)Dusty Wrote:  

(06-14-2014 12:57 PM)Player_1337 Wrote:  Johnnie Cochran is the embodiment of a real-life supervillain.

Jackie Chiles is incredible.

Post: #18

Principal announcing "Turn on the TV, the president's been shot." Teacher goes out in hall and talks to other teachers, turns on TV to Cronkite:





Then school is dismissed early.

Post: #19

Surprised no one is mentioning that Oj is out of jail.

Post: #20

Post: #21

The Bataclan attack and Lemmy's death.

Post: #22

(10-02-2017 04:31 AM)Chris Brown Wrote:  Surprised no one is mentioning that Oj is out of jail.

I am pretty sure the Aloha! dude has mentioned this somewhere.

Post: #23

They put him away for armed robbery/kidnapping? It pays to have money and a good lawyer in the US.

Post: #24

Its just a matter of time before OJ gets in some kind of trouble again. There are going to be a lot of people that are going to try to possibly provoke him into some sort of confrontation or his ego will get the best of him and he'll end up doing something stupid. He's made a lot of enemies and he's going to be watched very closely.