Challenger will always be “the big where-were-you event” that sticks in my mind, mainly because I was asleep when the WTC attacks occurred. I was a freshman in high school, in band class, rehearsing on the stage in the auditorium. A girl burst onto the stage and screamed, “The space shuttle exploded!” Everyone got up and wandered into the main band hall — I don’t being officially “dismissed” to do so — and watched the news reports on the TV there. Everyone kind of hung out for an hour or so then drifted away. I don’t remember if I went home or on to class. I do remember one guy with a clarinet. He sat in a plastic chair placed directly in front of the television and stared at it silently, his clarinet in his lap the whole time. He had excellent posture.