Dec. 7, 1941, was a typical day for John Ragland, grandfather of junior Sasha. He was “playing like kids do” in his front yard with a friend in Beaver Dam, Ky.

“It was a cold day,” he said. “We were wearing overalls.”

Then his mother called him inside from the porch and explained that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. World War II had come to the United States.

On that same Sunday 69 years ago, Patricia Fels (mother of teacher Patricia Fels) was scheduled to practice for a debate with a boy named Frank when he called her to say they had to postpone it.

“I asked why,” she said, “and he said, ‘You haven’t heard the radio? The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.’”

Then Fels walked into her father’s office and told him what she had heard.

“He just looked at me and said, ‘Oh, my god!’” she said.

What Ragland and Fels remember constitute “flashbulb memories.” In flashbulb memories, people remember the exact moments they learned of something significant in a high level of detail. They may recall where and with whom they were, how the news was conveyed and obscure details such as what they were wearing.

“In a situation where you’re exposed to exciting, frightening or even enraging events, it creates a sense of being frozen in time,” Claude Arnett, a psychiatrist with Vaya Mental Health Resources, said.

“Under conditions of highly intense emotions, all the senses are highly activated,” Arnett said. “That activation leaves deep impressions in the memory.”

Flashbulb memories aren’t constructed like other memories, Arnett said. Instead they are constructed based on sensory impressions and can’t usually be told as a narrative.

“If I asked you about your day, you would tell me what you did and your story would depend upon your intentions because the thread of your intentions is what makes things happen,” he said.

“But if I asked you about a flashbulb moment, you wouldn’t tell me a narrative like that. You would tell me your sensory impressions like what you heard and what you saw. You would have to work to turn it into a narrative."

Junior Lyria Beck remembers sitting in the back of her father’s car when she found out that American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001.

“We went to pick up the Evrigenises (with whom she carpooled) and their mom was asking my dad if there was going to be school that day,” she said.

Beck, who was in second grade then, did not fully comprehend what was going on, but she knew it was significant.

“I was worried about my aunt, who lived in New York, and I was worried that I was going to get gum on my shoes,” she said. “That was the first day I was going to wear my new blue sandals to school.”

Flashback to Nov. 22, 1963—the day of President John Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas.

That Friday, Ron Bell (now an English teacher at Country Day) was home sick.

“I was home alone because my mother went to run errands, and I was just bored and had nothing to do,” he said. “And I was wearing a striped robe.”

Late that morning Bell’s home phone rang.

“It was my aunt,” he said. “She asked me, ‘Is your mom there?’ I told her she wasn’t, and she said, ‘Turn on the TV. The president has been shot.’”

Bell remembers watching television for “as long as (he) could.” His mom came home a couple hours later, and a few minutes later it was announced that Kennedy had died.

“Everyone was upset,” he said. “My mom started crying and she wasn’t even a fan—she was a Republican.”

Ragland, Fels, Beck and Bell all recall events that were politically important. But a flashbulb memory doesn’t always involve an event with political significance.

According to Arnett, anything “that (has) a lot of powerful emotional impact and (comes) with surprise” has that potential.

Fifth grader Miles Edwards—who is too young to remember September 11—said he vividly remembers the day Michael Jackson died.

“Me and my dad were swimming in the pool,” he said. “Then my mom came out and said that Michael Jackson was in the hospital. She came back out about 20 minutes later and said that he was dead.”

Edwards couldn’t remember the date of Jackson’s death (June 25, 2009), but other details remain in his memory.

“I was wearing a black-and-blue swimsuit, and my dad was wearing a black swimsuit with a little bit of white on it,” he said. “And (my dog) Zoe was running around the pool, and she had just been groomed that day.”

Jackson’s death was culturally significant and surprising for people around the world, and there was a lot of emotional hype surrounding his death.

“And if things like that are on the news over and over again, it gets everyone upset,” Arnett said. “So then you get caught up in the moment and in the trauma.”

According to Arnett, age also plays a role in what and how much we remember.

Fels was 16, Ragland, Bell and Edwards were 10, and Beck was 7 when they experienced their flashbulb memories.

“Emotion inflames the senses, and the senses record things very deeply,” Arnett said. “When you’re younger, you tend to have more of an intense emotional reaction, and there is also more of a blank slate to make an impression on.”

“I remember when the (Space Shuttle) Challenger blew up,” he said. “I was in medical school, and I wasn’t really that interested in the Challenger program. But I remember it more vividly than I remember 9/11.”

Unlike normal memories, flashbulb moments can last long periods of time without deteriorating.

But once the people that remember those moments die, these memories die too. Soon Dec. 7 will no longer evoke vivid and traumatic memories. It will be a date remembered only because it will be taught in classrooms, but it will no longer be burned into memories of those who were alive to remember it.

How long before 9/11, too, remains only within the dusty pages of history books?