Earth Shattering Events
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<p>Wahine disaster.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Moon landing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Munich Olympics.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Norm Kirk dying - "The Press" headline was "Death of a Statesman".</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Christchurch Commonwealth Games - after Dick Taylor's run I went down to the local rugby ground and ran laps until I'd done 10,000 meters - or an approximation of - started my running "career" .</p>
<p> </p>
<p>French nuclear testing at Mururoa.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Springbok tour.</p> -
<p>I remember the 81 tour only because the old man and my granddad wouldn't take me to the Maori v Boks game in Napier, and then my Dad came home with a massive scratch on his head where some dude through a tomato can at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Snap election, remember at the time but likely my memory has been augmented by reading about it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rainbow Warrior was a biggy too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Edinburgh Commonwealth Games as we split into teams for school and I got Jersey. I was hoping for Canada, or Jamaica, or even Wales and I got frikkin Jersey.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Halley's Comet was huge, I think my whole school year in 1986 was devoted to Halley's Comet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>1987 WC, yeah we won, where'd that Jones fella come from, that guy Zinny has a cool name, Gingas play rugby, same as Jegga - first of many, yay MJ and that skinny white fellow with the paedo mo brought the WC to school.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Princess Di was actually one of those remember when moments - in a car driving down Peachgrove Rd heading towards Chartwell to go to the food court. It was announced she was in an accident, all the tane said yep she's dead, all the wahine said nah she's fine.</p> -
<p>There are big moments I clearly recall, but I was so far removed from them that despite an element of shock I let the moment pass; big three being Challenger disaster, Berlin Wall coming down and the death of the Princess of Wales.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But 9/11 was the earth shattering moment. I was living in the mess and someone said a plane had crashed into the WTC so I went down to the TV room to have a look. There was a bunch of us in the room and after a while I was about to go outside to have a smoke when the second plane hit and the realisation of it all hit me like a 10 foot wave. I turned to everyone else in the room who had various expressions of shock and simply said; "the world has changed men, we're going to be busy from now on". Nothing else has had such an impact.</p> -
<p>Faoir call M4L. The event that probably defined who I am more than any other was when I was at Uni and the Engineers got smacked around by black power for their "harmless fun" hakas during orientation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It mobilised the campus like nothing else in my years there mainly because the President of the Student Union whilst not supporting the violence, said she could understand why after 30 years of asking the engineering guys not to do it some people had taken matters into their own hands.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fucking hell. The debate raged in the quad for days. Mainly because of shameless politicking by the person who had finished second in the presidential vote.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>6,000 students voted that the pres be thrown out of office coz the engineering students were only having a bit of fun dressing up in grass skirts and painting penises and obscenities on their bodies. Bloody horis can't take a joke eh.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>50 voted that she should stay.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Really opened my eyes to the unthinking racism of the day. I was already planning to take off overseas. That made me confident I was making the right decision.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Chris can't believe I forgot the wahine and mururoa</p> -
<p>As someone said earlier, Mount St. Helens was just remarkable. At the time we were living in Calgary and Washing State isn’t that far away plus some of the ash made its way to Calgary. And a couple of years previously we had been holidaying in that very area as my family would travel and go camping every school holidays into the Pacific North West of the US.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Like many, the Challenger disaster as we were watching it live at Uni. The big deal pre-flight was all about Christa McAuliffe, being a woman and first school teacher in space. Watching that blow up and slowly break apart and then watching all those bits falling back to earth still resonates with me to this day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Princess Diana, I don’t know why hearing of her death shocked me so much but I can imagine it is similar for those who say that they remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard JKF was shot. I have the clearest memory of that very day and that very moment when I heard the news on the radio and I the shock that followed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But the two most powerful moments have been:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>9/11 – I was watching SBS news that night when the very first reports of the first plane crashing into the tower were just hitting the airwaves. The SBS news then took the feed from one of the American broadcasters of the smoking tower only to show a few minutes later the second plane hitting tower two live on TV.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I didn’t go into work that day and I was glued to the TV for hours and watched both towers come down live on TV. To say this was shocking is simply a huge understatement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Boxing Day Tsunami – Getting up hung over on Boxing Day morning at the in-laws place and turning on the TV to see the first reports of the tsunami. Again, just as with 9/11 we all spent the day just glued to the TV as the extent of the absolute horror and loss of life unfolded.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Honourable mention goes to the Japan Tsunami which had some of the most amazing footage of a disaster occurring live that I’ve ever witnessed.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="booboo" data-cid="596727" data-time="1468556643">
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<p>What is sobering is that Nice this morning is not really registering on the shock and awe scale.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>Compassion fatigue. Much like car bombings in Iraq or mass shootings in the USA, you're starting to expect it.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Chris B." data-cid="596636" data-time="1468539988">
<div>
<p><strong>Wahine disaster</strong>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Moon landing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Munich Olympics.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Norm Kirk dying - "The Press" headline was "Death of a Statesman".</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Christchurch Commonwealth Games - after Dick Taylor's run I went down to the local rugby ground and ran laps until I'd done 10,000 meters - or an approximation of - started my running "career" .</p>
<p> </p>
<p>French nuclear testing at Mururoa.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Springbok tour.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>While not earth shattering for me because it happened five years before I was born my father was on it when it sank and understandably I don't think he ever got over it .</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="dogmeat" data-cid="596714" data-time="1468553803">
<div>
<p> </p>
<p>Chris can't believe I forgot the wahine and mururoa</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>Wahine is the first news item I can remember seeing on TV.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not surprised Jegga - I've watched some of those big storms in Wellington and imagined jumping into the harbour.</p> -
<p>Freddie Mercury's death, vividly recall coming back after hunting for a piston wristed gibbon that smashed into my mates mums car and took off and seeing it on the news.</p>
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<br><br><blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="antipodean" data-cid="596663" data-time="1468544504"><p>.<br><br>
But 9/11 was the earth shattering moment. I was living in the mess and someone said a plane had crashed into the WTC so I went down to the TV room to have a look. There was a bunch of us in the room and after a while I was about to go outside to have a smoke when the second plane hit and the realisation of it all hit me like a 10 foot wave. I turned to everyone else in the room who had various expressions of shock and simply said; "the world has changed men, we're going to be busy from now on". Nothing else has had such an impact.</p></blockquote>
<br><br>
At home on the couch, watching Sandra Sully deliver the late night news. Had just turned the TV on and she was there looking very concerned with a smoking building in the background.<br><br>
Called out to the fiancée (future Mrs TA) "hey look at this!" <br><br>
As she walked into the room, the second plane hit. Fucking surreal. We just sat there and held each other for the next hour, wondering what the hell was going on, and how the world was going to change in the next year leaving up to our wedding.<br><br>
Flew out to NZ on 7 September 2002, nervously wondering if there would be anniversary follow up attacks while we were overseas. <br><br>
And we had the time of our lives over there, including a stack of honeymoon sex, so I forgot about it. <br><br>
Who's laughing now, Usama? -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="taniwharugby" data-cid="596763" data-time="1468566768">
<div>
<p>Freddie Mercury's death, vividly recall coming back after hunting for a Willis that smashed into my mates mums car and took off and seeing it on the news.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Freddy was great on the piano but he really sucked on the organ</p> -
<p>you'd know!</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="NTA" data-cid="596892" data-time="1468574487">
<div>
<p><br>
At home on the couch, watching Sandra Sully deliver the late night news. Had just turned the TV on and she was there looking very concerned with a smoking building in the background.<br><br>
Called out to the fiancée (future Mrs TA) "hey look at this!"<br><br>
As she walked into the room, the second plane hit. Fucking surreal. We just sat there and held each other for the next hour, wondering what the hell was going on, and how the world was going to change in the next year leaving up to our wedding.<br><br>
Flew out to NZ on 7 September 2002, nervously wondering if there would be anniversary follow up attacks while we were overseas.<br><br>
And we had the time of our lives over there, including a stack of honeymoon sex, so I forgot about it.<br><br>
Who's laughing now, Usama?</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>My brother rang me from UK and woke me with the news which he was watching live. My end of the conversation was "No fucking way! Fucking Hell! Fuck off! " Watched it all right through night until I had to go to work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I had to catch the red eye to Sydney the next day. There were about 20 passengers on what was usually a full flight. Quite eerie - only about 5 ppl in the Koru lounge</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Cookie" data-cid="597716" data-time="1468792847">
<div>
<p>I seem to remember that Daisy Duke from Dukes of Hazzard and Wilma Deering from Buck Rogers in 25th Century had a pretty earth shattering effect on my psyche as I was growing up.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>I always preferred Wonder Woman for some reason....</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi7jKXp5PvNAhUBmZQKHfQTBEcQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lazygirls.info%2FLynda_Carter%2FWonder_Woman_gxrFl14T&bvm=bv.127178174,d.dGo&psig=AFQjCNG28ZLU3rYrjd2fut36LFkpnz9umA&ust=1468889163687587'><img height="393" src="http://img004.lazygirls.info/people/lynda_carter/lynda_carter_wonder_woman_gxrFl14T.sized.jpg" width="260" alt="lynda_carter_wonder_woman_gxrFl14T.sized"></a></p>
