Tom Brokaw stepped down from the NBC Nightly News last night. The one of the earliest memory that I have of sitting down and watching the news involved Tom Brokaw. I believe it was April 25th, 1986. It was the Chernobyl disaster.

I sat on the floor in my grandmother's living room while my mother was in the kitchen trying to make corndogs and hushpuppies. It was her first attempt and her last. I remember waiting on the food to get done and watching Tom Brokaw explain what had happened at Chernobyl. I sat there waiting, worrying that the cloud of radiation was going to circle the globe and kill a bunch of people here in the US, including me.

Eventually, after Mr. Brokaw explained as much as he could, I became convinced that I was not going to die from radiation.

This all happened in 1986, which included another news watching event, the Challenger accident. We watched that live at school. Sometimes, I've said 1986 was my best year, but looking back, there were a lot of horrible things that happened in the world.


  ¶ 1:49 PM