Historical events is kind of a strange topic in that the reference are so age specific. Not just that, but the sheer number of events remembered are going to vary widely. As well as the significance. Some may think the assassination of a senator who was running for president would be limited to the time that it happened. But the death of Bobby Kennedy changed the trajectory of US policy and subsequently, our history.

My first historical event in memory is the death of President John Kennedy. I was 4 years old. The realization of that memory only came through years of understanding how the murder was the one topic on tv. I remember clearly watching the funeral on a black and white tv because that’s all working class people had in 1963. The horse drawn hearse and the riderless horse were frightening images to my young eyes. I only know I remember the actual killing because of my mother’s adverse reaction at hearing the news on the radio. She and I were in a car waiting for my father to finish with his doctors appointment when it was announced. Her scream is something I will never forget.

I have already remarked on the passing of Bobby Kennedy. As the 9 year old daughter of a woman enamored of the Kennedy family, we watch his speech from the Ambassador Hotel live. The immediacy of the violence thrust upon the American households is indelibly imprinted on my memory.

I remember the fear I felt when the news of the murder of Martin Luther King came across the airwaves. I was just shy of my 10th birthday. Old enough to be aware and understand what to be afraid of, but not old enough to know I didn’t really have anything to be afraid of. I was a mixed breed girl. Absolutely no one was focused on me or my little girl ways.

The moon landing later that year was a full turn toward the sun for the society I lived in. It was a fantasy come to life, a chance to refocus the energy toward the heavens. The riots that erupted in response to the loss of a great man, a great leader who held the promise of tomorrow. We turned our faces upward and saw life beyond the rubble.

There are so many other, less abrupt, less violent events that had their share of force in the direction our lives have taken. The resignation of Nixon, end of Vietnam war in part, brought about by the shooting at Kent State.

The attack on the World Trade Center brought us back to violence and terror as a way of life. The various wars fought in our name, supported by our money, and paid for by the lives of our youth are more current, easier to remember historical events. The more recent the easier they are to recall but can’t yet grasp their full meaning.

It will be generations before we realize all the damage wrought by September 11 and the ill advised American response. And in the interim, there will be more historic events that will shape the view in the rear view mirror.