Earliest Memories of the World Outside (was Forcing Kids To Watch History Made)

[naamagatus <naama_gat@hotmail.com>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Amy Z <lupinesque at y...>" 
<lupinesque at y...> wrote:
> 
> The earliest memory I have of the world of news was Watergate.  
> Nothing whatsoever about Vietnam, and how could I have watched 
> Watergate reports without seeing anything about the war?  Maybe my 
> parents had the good sense to send me out of the room (do they give 
> warnings anymore for gruesome news stories?  I remember the 
> newscasters warning parents before showing pictures of Jonestown).
> 
> Mind you, I didn't understand what Watergate *was.*  I thought it 
> sounded quite exciting--I pictured a great seawall with the ocean 
> lashing it--but I asked my mom what it was and she said "a hotel."  
> Yawn.  I do recall thinking that John Chancellor was Nixon.  After 
> all, his was the face I saw every night, and Nixon Nixon Nixon was 
> the name I heard.  I regret to this day that I didn't write to 
> Chancellor telling him this before he died.  He'd probably have 
been 
> amused.

Living in a stressful country, I have several early news memories. 
I remember being 7 years old - we were living in England at the time -
 and everyone around being all worried and upset about something that 
was happening in Israel. I found it very boring and inexplicable and 
only years later realized that time was when Israel was closest to 
annihilation - the Yom Kippur war. 
A few years later I was outraged at waking up early on a *saturday* 
morning. I went grumpily to the kitchen-dining room where the noise 
was coming from - the radio loudly on and my parents again being very 
excited about something. They told me that the hostages at Antebe had 
been freed. I was so sleepy and grumpy that I just turned around and 
went back to sleep. It took a while before I realized what an amazing 
operation that had been. 
Still, in 1977, when Anwar Sadat came down the airplane - the first 
Arab leader to make peace with Israel - I had tears in my eyes just 
like everyone else. 

Naama