Getting Caught in World Events by E. B. Davis

 Susan Van Kirk recently published a blog about the historical research she’d completed for one of her book series. The year she researched was 1981. The events she mentioned brought back several memories, but one in particular I thought I’d share.

 

I was in graduate school at George Washington University (GWU) that year. GWU is located a few blocks away from the White House in Washington, D. C. Every day, I’d drive in from Bethesda, MD, where my apartment was located, and park in the school’s elevated garage, which was about five stories tall. On this particular day, I had trouble finding a parking spot. Around in circles I drove up to the top floor. Weirdly, I’d never had to do so before. I got out of my car. The top floor was open to the sky with concrete barrier-walls keeping people safe from the five-story drop. Annoyed at having to park that high up, I took the stairs all the way down to the bottom. I was late getting to my job at the graduate school office.

 

* Source named below

We often had the TV on in the office where I worked doing odd jobs, everything from making copies to answering the phones, which sometimes included reporters, mainly from The Washington Post, who wanted the director of our program’s opinions. He was a physicist by training and an expert on NASA policies. (If he wasn’t in to take the call, reporters would try to get you to agree with their statements so they could publish them as, “According to his staff….” They were difficult and tedious to deal with.) In the midst of office life, this day, March 30, 1981, we watched coverage of a conference at the D. C. Hilton. President Reagan and his entourage were targets of a shooting outside the hotel, resulting in Press Secretary James Brady becoming permanently disabled.

 

We watched most of the afternoon, and I finished my office stint. Dismayed by the attempted assassination, I attended my classes. Because GWU caters to professionals, most of our graduate school classes were held at night. The first night classes started at 6 pm, the second, ended around 9:30—10 pm. I had back-to-back classes that night so it was late and dark by the time I found myself climbing those stairs in the parking garage to the top. When I finally attained the top floor, I opened the steel door to get to my car and found—automatic weapons from every direction pointed at me.

 

I know my jaw dropped. My forward motion stopped. Lights illuminated the concrete barrier-wall perimeters where men in black suits were lined up aiming at me. In the blink of an eye, they reversed their position to cover the GWU Medical Center across the street where the wounded President and his staff had been brought for medical treatment. When I thought about it afterward, I was almost insulted by their instantaneous conclusion, labeling me “fluffy” and turning their backs. After all, I can be “bad!” But, evidently, not that bad.

 

Having grown up in southern Pennsylvania, I was used to watching world events from afar. Perhaps I was conditioned by those outside events being “out there,” not next door. Nothing on TV had actually impacted me. Until that day.

 

Have you ever been caught in a national or world event that may have impacted your life?

 

Later that year, on October 6, in the same office, on the same TV, we watched the successful assassination of Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt. It was another day of dismay and sadness.    

 

*https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/permanent-exhibits/assassination-attempt