I've always felt bad that I missed a lot of what was going on at the time.
I was in college, and I was in class when it happened. And for awhile after it, I guess, since all I saw were the replays. And those in the TV room with a couple of other dorm folks sitting around. And I wasn't glued to the TV like everyone else was for hours/days afterward.
I had never been a big space fan or anything, and just didn't get how important it was, other than the deaths of some high-profile people. It's only been in the last ten years or so that I've heard some of the stories about some of the astronauts, and such.
They had a great story on the news this morning about Ron McNair. He was a kid in a town outside Charleston, SC during segregation, and even then, they said he was a genius (he ended up going to MIT). He always went to the library and read books on science, physics, history, etc. And one day, he went to the library and wanted to check out books (which wasn't allowed by blacks). He raised a holy stink, so the librarians called his parents, the police, etc. And he was finally allowed to take his books home. They have now renamed that library in his honor, and his son (who was only about 3 when he died) speaks about his father quite often in front of groups.
This is the kind of stuff I need to know about.
In a different vein, my husband and I were getting ready to go out on the February morning the Columbia exploded. We heard a strange sonic boom sort of noise and wondered what it was. When we got in the car and headed out shopping, we turned on NPR and they said the Columbia had just exploded. We were in Rowlett (east of Dallas), near the long swath from East Texas to near Fort Worth where it broke up, so we knew that's what it was. That one seems much more real to me, I guess. For obvious reasons.