Cold as Ice

Twenty-two years ago today, Challenger exploded in air.

The Texas Space Grant Consortium has a report of the chin of events leading up to the tragedy. I found this interesting mostly because there's not a lot I remember. I was in first grade and didn't have the internet to harvest for information.

What I do remember is my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Rickstrew, standing at the front of the class in her purple and white striped dress. She twisted her strand of pearls and announced she had something to tell us.

I can't even remember what she said. I don't even remember feeling anything. I was more concerned with the fact that Mrs. Rickstrew was going to break her strand of pearls with the way she was wringing them.

I wasn't even concerned with how difficult it must have been for her to break bad news to her students. It's not like she was saying "No recess today!" In fact, we carried on our day and played at recess, too absorbed with "who likes who" to be concerned with something that happened so far away. To people we didn't know. To people who weren't us.

This weekend, I saw Cloverfield. It wasn't until after I watched the movie that I noticed outcry over it being "too soon" so see such imagery onscreen.

I don't think I'm going to spoil the movie for anyone here. What I'm talking about has been online for at least nine months. This YouTube clip has, anyway:

It's not that I didn't notice. As I watched the movie and saw New York on fire, papers and ashes flying through the air, a collapsing building and the resulting dust cloud, I naturally associated it with the events of September 11, 2001. But it didn't affect me enough to keep me from enjoying the movie. I didn't even contemplate it much, either, until I saw discussions like these.

I'm not even sure what I'm getting at. I guess I'm feeling like
1. I don't have the empathy I sometimes fancy I do. I have a icy cold heart.
And 2. Do I remember the weirdest details or what?