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.
I’d made it to my college classes only to discover they’d been canceled because of weather (it was -20° that morning) so I stopped into my mom’s real estate office. Everyone was huddled around a TV and quietly chatting. I’d missed it live, but caught the first replay. It was the only thing on TV for the rest of the day.
CC
One of my coworkers had a radio at his work station and came and told me about it. At first I thought he was joking- I think I told him so. He assured me that he wasn’t. Then my wife called me at work and told me about it. I remember being shocked. It was truly a sad day.