[Growler]

I was out shoveling snow from an unexpected snow day when a neighbor pulled up across the street and yelled across to me, "Hey, did you hear the shuttle blew up?"

Now, this guy had a reputation for, shall we say, "General posterior haberdashery," so I just kind of laughed it off as him being his usual jerk self: "Yeah, OK, whatever." He persisted: "No, really, I'm serious." And then I understood the look on his face.

I remember going in side, turning on the TV, and there it was, being replayed on network news special reports.

Not that I remember that day clearly at all.

I remember in the days following, how people who were alive when Kennedy was killed were comparing Challenger's loss to that, and how that day would enter itself into our national memory. I never expected to lose two spacecraft in flight in my lifetime.

On a purely interesting note: Challenger was lost the day after my sister's birthday. NASA resumed flight operations with Discovery on my birthday.