40 Years Ago…
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
It’s been 40 years today since the Challenger blew up. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I owned a boat brokerage business, my first business at the time, and two college friends and I had sailed from Seattle to Victoria, BC, for a boat show just three days before, but it was time to come home.
We were crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca at night to take advantage of the incoming tide, and we’d arrive in Seattle sometime after it was light. There was about a ten-knot wind coming out of the southwest, making it a broad reach into Puget Sound and a hard tack once we were past Port Townsend. It was very cold. We had the diesel heater on full blast and took turns at the helm in the cold, clear weather. There was no autopilot. We used a compass, map, stopwatch, and plotter, and the sky was clear enough that we could see mid-channel markers the entire way, making it a low-stress sail.
We cleared customs by radio, and they knew me, so it was friendly chatter as we rounded Port Townsend. U.S. Customs was a whole different world back then.
We arrived just after light and got the boat cleaned up and put away. Back then, landlines were still in wide use, and cell phones were limited to car installations. I drove over to the boat brokerage and called my mother to let her know we’d arrived safely and to check in.
She had the launch of the Challenger on TV at home when it blew up while she was on the call with me. She stopped talking to me and just went silent before she got extremely upset. I didn’t have a TV at the office, so I raced home just about two miles up the road from the business. I sat with my housemate as they showed the explosion on TV over and over again. It rattled something deep inside me. That wasn’t ever supposed to happen.
Something hit me very hard that day, like I was slapped into next Tuesday, all because of the explosion. It was the reminder to get off my ass and do something meaningful. I didn’t know it until that very moment, but I was done with the boat business. I was done owning the business and wanted out. I went in later that day and told my two employees to take over because I quit. I still owned the business, and it took me a while to get it sold to a competitor, but I was done, and that was the moment it all happened. Next was the food business. That was 40 years ago today when I started Cravings, Inc.
I didn’t get my first round of VC money raised until December of that same year, but I was working on it full time. A few months later, I moved to the Eastside in Bellevue, WA, into my first apartment since college. I had one wonderful housemate there.
I often think about that day, and every time I hear about the Challenger explosion, the decision comes roaring back into my memory. Since then, there have been multiple events that led to abrupt decisions that made my life better. It was a series of events that led to my leaving Washington, and all of that led to better things. I still think about the Challenger crew and all that happened that day. It’s one of those things that stays with you forever, even if it did result in some good in my life. I’d still prefer it never happened.