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This is in response to a teacher friend's e-mail asking for the Top 10 Most Memorable Public events of my lifetime. In other words, anything important enough to make the news locally, nationally, or internationally. With the emphasis on how memorable it was to me; whether it shocked, delighted, horrified, or impressed me. They can be events of a day or of long standing, whatever.

In no particular order:

*Mount St. Helens erupting. I was on the East coast, but we watched it on TV the way some people watched the OJ trial.
*First Space Shuttle Launch. I always wanted to go into space.
*Challenger Explosion. Screaming and crying middle schoolers pouring out into the hall. Me imagining what this meant for the dream of space and for the families of the dead.
*Cambodian Boat People arriving. Some of them stayed in our living room. This brought home the events in Asia to me in a personal way.
*Gulf War. My friends and I waiting to see if they'd reinstate the draft. We watched this one the way I'd watched Mount St. Helen's as a child.
*When they caught the white guy who was torturing retarded black prostitutes, keeping them in his basement, eating them, and feeding them to each other. This made a big impression on me as a teenager. The daring escape by his "pet" as she jumped out of his convertible at a stop light, her leash trailing as she went for help. The gruesome contents of his refrigerator, oven, and back yard. Her interviews on TV. "Don't go prostitutin' with people you don't know!" His suicide attempt. The State keeping him alive on ventilators. They debated it at work for a whole year.
*The AIDs epidemic. The horrible news from a community I identified with as a child. Talented people dying as the right wing ranted about "God's vengeance." I was so angry at Reagan, Buckly, and my Father for their lack of compassion.
*The Berlin Wall falls. I was part of the last generation to wait for the Russian nukes to rain down. The joy on the faces of the Berliners. Immigrants I knew who thought they'd never see their homelands again making tearful pilgrimages to their childhood homes.
* Apartheid ends. What can I say about justice.
*9/11 of course. I knew it was coming since the first Trade Center bombing. It was clear to me that people wouldn't stop 'til it fell, but I didn't expect the second attempt to be so thorough. My first thought on hearing, "Those poor children. What will they do with all the orphans?" My second thought was fear of our own government and people. Would they respond with a move toward fascism and creepy patriotism? I think you know the answer.