When I was little a girl in my class had an asthma attack.  This terrified me because I couldn't see these Asthmas... but sure enough they were assaulting her right before my eyes.  The teacher took the Asthmas' victim to the nurse and I turned inward and imagined the nasty little brown spores with teeth and red eyes that flew down from the sky unannounced and attacked unsuspecting grade schoolers. 

When I was a little older we saw a plume of smoke in the sky.  Fire was such a distant concept to a group of nine year olds who lived in the suburbs.  We sent Dan, who was the oldest amongst us, to go and investigate.  His ten and a half years afforded him with an allowed distance farther than the the rest of us.  Away he peddled on his bike.  He returned some time later, the minutes are very abstract to me now,  and said that he got as far as Walt's Ice Cream.  "Walt's!" we all exclaimed impressed, that was almost nine blocks away... much farther than any of us had ever gone.  "Somebody at Walt's told me that the ice skating rink had burned down."  Generally my friends and I were relieved, we weren't big fans of ice skating. 

When I was six years old I rode the bus to my first day of school.  All the way across the river to Eisenhower Elementary.  It was a humid September day and very cloudy.  I don't remember what happened in school that day.  I think my teachers name might have been Mrs. Parks.  When I got home the sky was dark.  Off I went to a friends birthday party.  We were in the back yard playing with water guns under a strange sky.  All I remember is pink.  An adult told us to come inside.  In the basement the party continued, we were playing double dragon two when the lights went out.  The lights didn't come back on and an hour or so later my mother told me it was time to go.  A Tornado hit?  In Plainfield?  Oh.  Locations of cities were so inconsequential when you were little.  My mom had to go into the hospital and work all night.  My dad and sister and I slept in the living room with a flash light because the lights still hadn't come on.  At day light the next day my best friend Greg and I set out to play like we always did.  We were perplexed to find lots and lots of wet pink fluff strewn about every where, pink fluff of the sort you find in your unfinished basement...  Duly noted, children went about their lives.