I remember that day. It was ridiculously cold, much as it is today (it’s currently 0°).
CC
I was a young Marine radio operator sitting on a mountaintop retrans site in 29 Palms, California when this happened. I didn’t even know until someone told us on the radio. My response was “yeah right.” A few days later we came down off the mountain and saw the newspaper.
We were skiing as a family out west. Came down to the lift after a long set of runs from the summit.
Lifts were running but there were no lines.
We asked the kid running the lift where everyone was.
We got the news, and then like everyone else watched the same moments over and over on the TV, praying for at least one to have survived.
It was hard.
It was a bitterly cold day in Western PA, and school was cancelled. I made plans with a friend to go out to a frozen lake, part of which was cleared for skating, and smack a hockey puck around. My dad was off that day, and before I went to meet my friend, he asked if I could drive him to his workplace to pick up his paycheck. I waited in the car while my dad went inside and when he came back out, he said, "did you hear the space shuttle blew up?"
My dad was always a joker/prankster, and while that was a little darker than he normally was I thought he was BS'ing and drove him home. I drove out to the lake and met my friend, and it was so bitterly cold we only stayed there about 15-20 minutes and decided we had enough. When I got in the car to leave, I turned on the radio, and of course it was all over the news at that point.
I had just started my first full time job, three days after my last college Final exam. I was at my desk, writing, when one of the office admin staff appeared in my doorway, silent. She said simply “Challenger has exploded”, and then quickly turned and started crying. A horrible, horrible day that I will never forget. Not unlike 9/11, when while driving to work I heard on the radio that the second tower had collapsed. Had to pull to shoulder of the highway to scream and cry in anger and grief for a few seconds.