CBHS Alumni Message Board: Where were you when...

[ Post a Response | CBHS Alumni Message Board ]

Where were you when...

Posted by Colgan on 12/20/2007, 11:03 pm
66.229.8.122

As weird luck would have it, my family arrived for a week vacation the day before the tragic event of 9/11. My childhood friend, Steve Hunter called me that morning to tell me what happened and we switched on the TV after that.

During the coverage someone mentioned that this is going to be one of those days where you will always remember where you were and what you were doing when you got the news like the JFK and RFK assassinations or Pearl Harbor.

It made me think how strange that I would happen to be back in the same town where I watched so many memorable, historic events unfold on TV; mankind's triumphant steps on the moon, the assassinations that I mentioned before, Jack Ruby shooting Oswald, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, The Who being introduced on the Today Show.

I also remember where I was when I heard the new on the radio about the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and the breakup of the Beatles and Cream. (Pearl Harbor...way, way, way before my time)

But being from Cocoa Beach, we had an amazing gift; we didn't need the TV or the radio to witness some histories biggest accomplishments. We just walked outside of our houses, maybe walked to the beach or took a little drive north to watch the manned an unmanned flights, many of which never even made it to the newspaper. This was world history taking shape right outside our homes. People traveled the world to come see what we had every day. Are we lucky or what?

I remember the unmanned shots that didn't make it too. I remember a night time launch that blew up a short distance above the pad. I think that it was a Minuteman. My dad was working that night at the Cape and my 4 year old imagination made an incorrect assumption that scared the **** out of me.

I moved away kicking and screaming the August following Apollo 17, the night launch that kept getting delayed over and over. I was at least thankful that I could witness all of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo launches before moving away.

Does anyone remember the parade for John Glen's Mercury shot? I could swear that I remember watching it go by Cocoa Isles Blvd with him waving to everyone.

Another Cocoa Beach treat was Patric's air shows with the Thunderbird gymnastics over the Banana River.

I really thought that I appreciated Cocoa Beach so much when I lived there but I was wrong. My appreciation only grew with time. i am so glad that I have been able to take my kids there to witness a shuttle take off or land and it makes me really appreciate my parents raising me up in Cocoa Beach that much more.

On 9/11 it got to be too much to keep watching the almost surreal events and knowing that the world had just changed right in front of us. It was so strange to see everything closing up from A1A in front of Patric AFB to Merritt Square.

However, I can't help but feel that if I had been in Cocoa Beach during the Shuttle disasters I would have been affected a lot more. Not to diminish the 9/11 tragedy in any way. It really got to me just witnessing it from California so i can only imagine how difficult it would have been to watch that unfold out side of their homes.

While Cocoa Beach was only the first 15 years of my life, it is still home and the space program was a big part of our home. It seemed like every year I was saying goodbye to someone that had only lived there a year or two because of PAFB and the Cape but even if you only lived there for a year, you were very very lucky.