Where were you when Nixon resigned?

[timo2]

I was preparing to attend my junior year in college. By the time it happened, the actual resignation seemed anti-climactic. After I was muttering bad words as Nixon waved at the helicopter one last time, the thing I was impressed with was the seemingly finality of the helicopter leaving. I'm in the minority then and now, in that I wanted a prosecution, as unwieldy as that would have been. I think it would have helped heal the cultural divide that has lasted to this day since the Vietnam war.

 

[jjquantz]

I was probably headed home from high school two-a-day football practice.

 

[Walt34]

I remember sitting on the couch polishing my shoes getting ready for work (must have been a midnight shift) at my roommate's house (his house, I rented a room for a year). He, a staunch Nixon supporter, was shall we say irritated that I held a contrary view.

 

[mpeirce]

No idea, though I can vaguely remember watching some of the hearings on our B&W TV back when I was 12.

The only two "seared into my memory" events I recall are 9/11 and the Challenger disaster.

 

[splitwdw]

I was probably at the babysitter; mom was a nurse at local hospital.

 

[sengsational]

I remember Kennedy (amazingly as I was 5), Moon, Challenger, 9/11, but not Nixon.

That summer I was either working as a dock boy at a fishing resort (accessable only by boat) that had one TV that got one super snowy station (it was almost never turned on). Or I could have been paddling Superior Quetico national park (zero access to news). Either way, I think it was just an "oh", when someone told me, and I went on ignoring politics.

 

[scrabbler1]

I remember watching the news on the morning he left the WH for the last time. I was only 11 at the time. I also remember my grandpa watching the Watergate hearing the summer before when I was on vacation in Florida.

 

[Payin-the-Toll]

Can't remember where I was, but I had to be laughing. Sorry, but I hated that guy back when he ran for POTUS in 1960, and always told everyone he was a crook. Was nice to be right for once. Was so devoted to the cause, drove home from college in 1968 to vote for Humphrey.

 

[Meadbh]

That summer I finished secondary school, turned 17, and worked at my first summer job, which was 9 to 5 in an office. As I was in a different time zone (GMT), I would have been fast asleep at the time of Nixon's speech, but of course the Watergate investigation and its aftermath were all over the media and I purchased Woodward and Bernstein's book "All the President's men" as soon as it was published later that year.

 

[MichaelB]

I was in grad school full time, and also working full time at night. August 8, 1974 would have been a Thursday so I was at work and probably didn't even hear about it until later.

Honestly, that whole year was a blur.

Senior year of college for me, 6 PM on a thursday so I was working in the kitchen. The biggest thing on my mind would have been making sure I got dinner.

Oh, and +1 about the year being a blur.

 

[springnr]

Enjoying life @ sunset pier

 

[brewer12345]

Probably dropping a load in my pants.

 

[latexman]

Let's see. I was 17. It was summer, so school was out. I was working two jobs that summer. My regular job was 4-10 p.m. as a cook in a restaurant for at least 30 hours/week (no OT). My summer job was 6 a.m.-noon at an ice cream plant for at least 30 hours/week. 8/8/74 was a Thursday, so I was home with my parents watching it on the TV because Thursday was one of my nights off at the restaurant.

 

[urn2bfree]

I can' be sure, but I seem to recall wanting to watch a movie on TV that night which was pre-empted. I believe they were going to broadcast The Michael York as D'artagnan, Raquel Welch version of The Three Musketeers on CBS that night and I was really disappointed to not get to see it again recalling that I liked it in the theater a lot.

I was fine with Nixon going, never was a fan and what little I had heard and read seemed to indicate he was pretty crooked.


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[Ronstar]

I was 18, probably had gone out with friends after work. I don't remember much about it, but I wasn't surprised that he resigned.

 

[Derslickmeister]

Probably out riding my bicycle behind the mosquito sprayer

 

[SumDay]

Sitting at a city baseball field, watching a summer league game with my then husband of two weeks. We took a transistor radio to the game with us because the news was brewing and we didn't want to miss it. I remember everyone crowding around the radio - the game went on but no one watched. I'd watched as much of the Watergate hearings as possible, so I was pretty interested in the culmination of the story. What a summer that was....

 

[martyp]

I was in the backwoods of North Carolina at a month long Outward Bound course. It was my part of my summer vacation between graduating from high school and entering college. My mother saved me the New York Times paper with the resignation headlines. I still have it in a box in the garage.

 

[PandaBear]

I was 12 years old and at Girl Scout camp. It was announced while we were in the dining hall.


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[ChainsBeGone]

I was in the 4th grade, and probably watching All in the Family, or M.A.S.H., which were my Dad's two favorite shows.

 

[gauss]

I was in the 4th grade, and probably watching All in the Family, or M.A.S.H., which were my Dad's two favorite shows.

+1

Also Summer before 4th grade for me. Don't forget your Barney Miller and Dragnet - Hogan's Heroes reruns. Favorites in my Dad's house.

 

[Htown Harry]

I was 14. I spent most of the summer quarantined in the house with a case of mononuclousis. All three networks provided daily coverage of the Watergate hearings, which I watched every day. It worked out pretty well. Ervin, Baker, Dean et al provided much more drama than a soap opera ever could.

I especially remember being mesmerized by Barbara Jordan's speech during the impeachment deliberations.
Barbara Jordan Speech On Impeachment

Today, I am an inquisitor; I believe hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. …The subject of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men. That is what we are talking about.

It's funny though, I don't have a clear memory of the resignation speech.

 

[harley]

I was 18, so I can state categorically that I was either stoned, trying to get into some girl's pants, or most likely both. But, like W2R,

Honestly, that whole year was a blur.

 

[Lancelot]

In the service at (West) Germany.

I remember thinking "Who cares? I'm still in, just a new CIC..."

 

[scrinch]

I was 15 and backpacking in King's Canyon Park in the Sierras. We heard about the resignation several days later from other backpackers as we were hiking out and getting close to the trailhead.