Comments
News that will mean nothing to anyone under 30:
CBS News — ‘Baby Jessica’ Graduates
She held the attention of the nation and the world as a toddler 17 years ago after she fell into an abandoned well.
Crews struggled for 58 hours to rescue 18-month-old Jessica McClure from the eight-inch-wide pipe.
On Friday night she became a high-school graduate.
The 18-year-old Midland-area girl joined 113 other seniors from Greenwood High School near Midland in receiving their diplomas.
Categories
Tags
Well, it depends on your parents and what one is exposed to.
My parents are news junkies like myself (I wonder where I got it from) and my earliest memories, no joke, are of the gas lines, the Iranian hostage crisis (I oh so remember Bill Beutel and Roger Grimsby on NY’s WABC-TV counting each day), Three Mile Island and the US-USSR Hockey game. Oh, and my parents really hated Carter. A lot.
So, I was 5 or 6 when those events were occurring.
I clearly remember the “Girl in the well” story as I was the father of a similar aged daughter graduating the weekend after next.
After sucessfully avoiding the story until the final day, as I was up to my ass in work alligators, I arrived home that Friday night and turned on the TV, just in time to watch the last 40 minutes of the rescue. I had been jaded to the story, but when I ended up watching her come up, I choked up thinking of my own daughter. By the time my wife got home, my eyes were all bloodshot, and my wife actually said, with the authority of a Highway patrolman, “Did you stop off for beers after work?” I had to quickly recover and bumbled on about “..That girl in the well just came up and shes OK, and she has bandages on her head…” My wife looked at me sideways for the rest of the evening.
To this day, I have always associated Jessica with my daughter’s peer group, so I am pleased to see that she graduated, in peace, without a mention of her 3 days of fame.
Good for her! I would have liked a picture too, but no problem…
Baby Jessica recently:
I was 10 years old when I read our then afternoon paper here in Ontario Canada. This was the first time I heard the name Jessica McClure. That evening my family and I gathered in my parents room and watched the live coverage of the rescue on an American chanel. I was near tears when she came out and this story is one that I have followed for nearly 17 years almoast. I still have the articles magazines and other stuff that I collected about Jessica. This story will be one that I will remember for years. Good luck in whatever Jessica does now. Jeff Hopkins Burlington Ontario Canada
I was 10 years old when I read our then afternoon paper here in Ontario Canada. This was the first time I heard the name Jessica McClure. That evening my family and I gathered in my parents room and watched the live coverage of the rescue on an American chanel. I was near tears when she came out and this story is one that I have followed for nearly 17 years almoast. I still have the articles magazines and other stuff that I collected about Jessica. This story will be one that I will remember for years. Good luck in whatever Jessica does now. Jeff Hopkins Burlington Ontario Canada
I was a firefighter involved in the rescue of Jessica, and would like to thank all the construction workers who gave of their time and risked their lives for the chance to help out a child they had never met. The human spirit to help others in a time of need is what makes certain people special. These guys dug a tunnel sideways through concrete type rock with jack hammers, 30 feet down. Risking cave-ins and working till they had no more strength left, they would come out of that dark hole, stay untill they could go back down again. Never leaving or sleeping until the job was done. I knew by the look on there faces, they had children too. My child was the exact age as Jessica, and we could all sympathize with Chip and Sissy. I am still a firefighter and love my job, and I work with very brave and caring men. But those few days working with untrained rescue workers who gave their all, they become our brothers. With all the media focused on the negative, I’m glad to say I have seen plenty of people helping other people without asking for anything in return. Look around. It happens all the time.
When baby jessica got hurt i was about 4 years old and my mamma was pregnant with my baby sister. I don’t remember much about it but i do remember some. When it first happened mamma saved newspaper clippings and taped the television shows about it and not to long after that we moved to a different house beause their was some kind of well kind of like the one that baby jessica fell into in our back yard. it scared my mamma because i always played around it.
I want to tell baby Jessica congratulations and i hope you have a wonderful future.
—
