Challanger Explosion & S.K. Universe

"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

-- Ronald Reagan.

.

25 years ago today my friend Ryan -- who was usually full of nutty stories -- arrived late to school. "You won't believe what happened today," he said. Well, when he told me he was watching TV and that the space shuttle just blew up, he was right -- I didn't believe him!

.

Hard to think that was 25 years ago. If feels like yesterday.

.

King mentions the Challenger explosion in Rose Madder. The novel is about battered women. Anna Stevenson explains to Rose that when the Challenger exploded, there was a woman who experienced intense guilt because she had written letters encouraging manned space flights. Her point is simply that battered women are able to feel personal guilt about things that have nothing to do with them.

.

The disaster is cited again in Dreamcatcher, as a metaphor. "To say that Beavers marriage didn't work would be like saying that the launch of challenger space shuttle went a little bit wrong."

.

Stirring Truth Into Fiction

King's ability to reference and draw from our common story as Americans is part of what makes him such a great story teller. His novels wind through our bigger history, citing things and events that deeply touch us. Our memories are jarred at some of these events, and King doesn't overplay his hand at this point. But like a master, King uses our shared past to add depth and familiarity to his stories. King's world becomes a little more real when his characters remember events I too remember.

.

By the way, 1986 is also the year Stand By Me came out in theaters. Nothing to do with challenger, except that they shared the same year.

.

Twisted Memories:

Now I want to point out something strange. I have read two writers already today who mention how memory of the challenger disaster is distorted. They remember things happening that day that didn't actually happen until later. Time is messed up in their head in relation to that event. Know what -- it's that way for me, too. I remember being 9 or 10. But I was 12. that's crazy! I remember seeing it all from a child's point of view; but I remember being 12 and being confident I was no longer thinking like a child. I found myself thinking, "I couldn't have been that old!" Anyone else out there finding mysterious mental vertigo when it comes to the challenger disaster?

.

For more on memory distortion related to the Challenger Disaster and Stephen King, see this article published a couple of years ago titled "Twisted Memories." http://iwanticewater.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/twisted-memories/