Stuff I Learned Yesterday

Today’s story begins on an ordinary Wednesday, in an ordinary dorm room in 1995.  I was nearly finished with my first year of college, and as the semester was drawing to a close, I had a few assignment deadlines approaching.  One of the assignments was for a paper I had to write.  I have no idea which class it was or what the paper was about.   What I do remember is that on this particular day I was up early trying to finish the paper before I headed off to work.  It was shortly before 9am.  I fired up the computer and turned on the local radio station.  I sat there typing away for several minutes and didn’t think much of it when I heard a rumbling sound above me.  I thought the guys in the room upstairs must have dragged something heavy across the floor. A few minutes later there was an interruption on the radio.  The morning DJ announced that a major explosion had just occurred in downtown Oklahoma City.  It was now just a few minutes after 9am and 168 lives, 19 of them children, had just been lost as a Ryd