Thirty
years ago today I flew into the San Diego
airport around 4:30 in the morning. I don't remember the airline - I'd flown
all night to get there from Kentucky on a
cheap one way ticket to begin my adult life, and to begin it in California. My friends
Jim and Todd picked me up at the airport to take me to my new home in OrangeCounty.
It was still dark.
We drove to
Todd's sister's house in Mission Viejo, and
stopped there to rest from being up all night. Not long after, we all fell
asleep in the living room - some on the floor and one on the couch. The day was
beginning to heat up. I remember the temperature that day got up to 108ยบ, a
record at the time. It was a beautiful clear day.
Somewhere
around 11 in the morning I called my parents to let them know I got to California. No big deal.
Mom answered the phone in hysterics. Honestly, I couldn't make out much of what
she was saying, but I got that she was upset and very angry. Finally, the story
came out. Two planes had collided mid-air over San Diego that morning around 9 a.m. Pacific
time. A little more than four hours after I landed at the same airport. A PSA Boeing 727-214 commercial jet and a private Cessna 172 with two pilots aboard. In all,
144 people died: 137 in the planes and seven on the ground from the falling
wreckage and fire. Mom thought I was one of them.
This
anniversary means a lot to me. I started my new life that day. Others perished.
How could I take that in? What did it mean? It seemed so close, and at the same time so distant.
In my next four months in California, there
were assassinations in San Francisco, a large
earthquake, and the Jonestown suicides/massacre (with many ties to California). It seemed California was in the news every day.
I was 23
and full of hope. I just knew this was where I was supposed to be - and I was.
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