Miscellaneous Forum

Yes, on two occasions that instantly spring to mind. As a very small child, in Cork when JFK came to town and as an adult with one of my sons, when Bill Clinton came to Dublin.

I was in Berlin a few days after the wall came down, still have a small piece somewhere!

One of three that are truly historic was that I was in attendance of the very first Space Shuttle launch, April 1981. In fact, my computer class at Auburn University actually helped program the first computers for that launch...how I got to attend in the first place. Second, I participated in the 1983 March on Washington commemorating the original 1963 march and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Over 200,000 attended and I personally got to meet the entire King family, including Correta Scott King. Third and probably the most historic was I was living in the Washington DC area for the inauguration of Barak Obama as the first African-American President of the United States. So, I was witness to and participated in some very historic events. There are many others, but those are the most vivid.

We were in a large department store in London and Duran Duran were there too..didnt see them We were in Brussels a few years back trying to import our car and a President from another country was messing up the roads and the security so badly we turned around and drove home I was once lifted up by Geoff Capes its not much but its all I've got

I wonder if Geoff Capes would mention lifting you among his historic events!

I was working on West Street(West Side Highway) and Houston in lower Manattan on 9/11. Was standing outside looking downtown when the first tower collapsed. They used(my company set it up) our facility as a relief center for the army/NYPD/FDNY/etc for appr 2 weeks after 9/11.

I was caught in the recent hailstorm which dropped the largest-ever-recorded hailstones in the UK (tennis and golfball size). My car has the broken windscreen and dents to prove it. Does that count?

I like that leics. It certainly counts in my book.

Nice to know something good came out of it. I'm not too badly off really, lots of cars have been written off. But the damage to loft windows and roofs is horrendous: not just slates/tiles smashed but holes actually bashed through the roof. Tennis-ball-size lumps of ice dropped from x thousand feet will do that. :-(

@ Leics, Northants escaped lightly!

Almost everywhere did. It only happened in a very small area of Leicestershire.

I was in Algiers when the islamist party won the elections (82% of votes) but have been ruled out by a military coup (jan, 11th 1992); then the civil war began. . . I drove home from the office in Jakarta, 13th of may 1998, in the middle of the riots which eventually led to the deposition of dictator Suharto. I danced fandango in Basque land when the first Spanish astronaut (Carrero Blanco, Franco’s probable successor to be) was propelled in the air by Basque activists in December 1973. I had a chat with Kenyan president Arap Moi at the inauguration of the first gas well of Kenya, 1987. Lots of celebrities pass by in Paris, but they don’t notice me. . :-(

I was at home in Tahoe when an avalanche came down. We (and our neighbors) literally ran town the street thinking the whole mountain was coming. We were evacuated for 11 days due to threat of another. As a back country skier, I've narrowly escaped a few smaller ones, but this one was big. The accumulated snow took over 5 years to melt. Its the largest in the area on record.

I was present when Bill Clinton met and shot the bull with old hund. Wait a minute, I am old hund. On a more serious note, I was in Ljubljana on May 1, 2004, the day that Slovenia and some 12 other countries entered the EU. I was about 1 mile from ground zero during at the moment of the April, 1994, Oklahoma City bombing. The horrible details of that senseless mass murder live vividly in my memory. Side note: There was never a trial for 162 of the murder victims. The powers that be were more concerned about the destruction of government property than the lives of innocent children.

Al, you have participated in some great history.

I suppose much of this depends on your definition of historic. I was in central London on the days of both sets of relatively recent bombings. Historic I suppose insofar as it was the first two times international Islamic terrorism had struck UK. That is what sticks out in my mind now.

Oh speaking of bombings... I was in Jakarta when the Australian embassy was hit in 2004 I was in Istanbul when the British embassy and HSBC were hit in 2003

I saw Bobby Kennedy's funeral train pass by in Maryland. I was at the infamous Altamont Music Festival. newsinhistory.com/blog/altam... I walked in the roadway on the Golden Gate Bridge during its 50th anniversary celebration in 1987, when the bridge was closed to traffic and opened to pedestrians.

I was in Dublin on business the Friday after Scotland won the Grand Slam (rugby) against England in 1990. Wales were set to play Ireland in a meaningless game the next day, so the city was full of Welsh fans who's bought tickets long in advance. I had 2 hours after my meeting & before going back to the airport, so went walkabout - it was my 1st visit to the city. Last stop - a typical Dublin pub. It was stuffed with Welsh fans. As soon as I opened my mouth to order, they were all over me with offers to pay - because we'd beaten the Auld Enemy on the Saturday. I could have stayed all night & not paid.