{"id":273,"date":"2017-01-29T07:20:30","date_gmt":"2017-01-29T07:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/?p=273"},"modified":"2017-01-29T07:20:30","modified_gmt":"2017-01-29T07:20:30","slug":"too-soon-i-told-the-first-challenger-explosion-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/29\/too-soon-i-told-the-first-challenger-explosion-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Soon! I Told the First Challenger Explosion Joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a lot of Americans, we share a bond of \u201cWhere were you when\u2026?\u201d and fill in the blank for some nation-altering event. Where were you when you heard Pearl Harbor was bombed? When you heard JFK was shot? When Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar lander? When you first heard 9\/11 was happening?<\/p>\n

\"space<\/p>\n

Depending on your age, maybe you weren\u2019t born yet, or not yet cognizant of certain national tragedies and triumphs. At some point in college, I decided I should not date anyone born before the JFK assassination or after the first moon landing, the rationale being: I debuted about halfway between those events, and if we never have anything else in common, at least we both were around (or not around) for those events.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

If you are of a certain age, the question is, \u201cWhere were you when you heard the Space Shuttle Challenger<\/em> exploded?\u201d I was a sophomore\u00a0at the University of Tennessee. Specifically, I was in the entrance lobby of Clement Hall, my dorm, standing near the Ms. Pac-Man game (it was the sit-down version where two players sat opposite each other waiting for their turn.) I ran into my\u00a0friend Mary, someone I had known since grade school. She asked me if there were any current events that were worthy of mentioning in her journalism class that she was running late for. Someone nearby offered, \u201cHey, isn\u2019t there a shuttle launch today?\u201d<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s where it gets surreal. I, completely unaware of what had actually just happened, jokingly said, \u201cYeah\u2026 and it crashed and blew up!\u201d Mary didn\u2019t believe me, so I urged her to walk\u00a0around the corner to the TV lounge where a group\u00a0of students were watching the launch\u2026 or rather, they were watching the horrifying aftermath. And my jaw dropped further than it ever had before. Some joke.<\/p>\n

I felt a pang of guilt for several hours after, wondering if I had caused the disaster\u00a0with my flippant remark. I decided that it was way too egotistical of me to assume I had that kind of power, and got over the guilt. In retrospect, it may have been the first joke ever told about the Challenger<\/em> explosion.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where I was 31 years ago today. Funny how you remember stuff like that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a lot of Americans, we share a bond of \u201cWhere were you when\u2026?\u201d and fill in the blank for some nation-altering event. Where were you when you heard Pearl Harbor was bombed? When you heard JFK was shot? When Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar lander? When you first heard 9\/11 was happening? … Continue reading “Too Soon! I Told the First Challenger Explosion Joke”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,31],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-musings","tag-too-soon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ronruelle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}