Remember

Mrs. Wright’s 6th grade classroom. I don’t remember what we were doing. I don’t remember what subject we were learning at the moment. I remember a knock on the door. A knock on the door wasn’t unheard of, but it was unusual. It was a quick loud knock.

Mrs. Wright started toward the classroom door. After only a few steps the door jerked open from the outside. I think it startled most of the class. Mrs. Wright stopped her approach.

A large gray-haired head poked into the room. A large hairy hand and forearm followed. Our principal, Mr. Floyd R. Parker (I lovingly referred to him as Ferp) beckoned our teacher into the hall with a quick flick of his index finger.

The murmur caused by the knock and subsequent opening door slowly built to a soft roar of curiosity. Someone noticed that the other teachers on our hall had joined Mr. Parker and Mrs. Wright. There were very few things important enough to bring Ferp from his office to the basement of Forest Hills School. We, the students of Mrs. Wright’s 6th grade class, began to speculate. What could he possibly need to tell her? Why was it so important that he did not use the classroom intercom?

My mind began to race. Almost immediately I remembered back to 5 years earlier watching the TV in my grandparents’ living room as the national news showed exterior views of a hospital emergency room amidst the continuous replays of our President walking and waving before being violently pushed into the backseat of a car. We watched the video again and again as the newsmen talked of our President and a gun and a bullet and Jody Foster.

Back inside my 6th grade brain, I assumed the president had been shot again. I could think of nothing else so important that our beloved Ferp would interrupt class. Not one class, but all of them.

Mrs. Wright re-entered the room. The class fell silent. If she told us anything, I don’t remember it now. My only memory is of Mrs. Wright turning on the television in our classroom.

We watched, for what seemed like hours, as the national news showed continuous replays of a small thin contrail grow into a raging fireball. We watched the video again and again as the newsmen talked of freezing temperatures and o-rings and teachers and booster rockets and Challenger.

I didn’t realize until a moment ago that today marked the 25th Anniversary of the Challenger explosion. January 28, 1986: an unforgettable day.