A white Ford Bronco, with a Hertz spokesman hunkered down in back, followed by over a dozen police cars down a freeway for 45 minutes formed an unforgettable moment in U.S. history. Footage was thrust in our face in real time, as it was happening, in an era when that kind of live juicy entertainment was rare. Details surrounding the chase centered on a beloved athlete and entertainer suspected of a double murder. No one could get enough.

The white Ford Bronco in question actually belonged to Al Cowlings, O.J. Simpson’s friend and partner in crime, at least, the crime of fleeing the police. Aside from O.J. attempting one last break for the endzone, the wide world of sports had quite a day. There is even a documentary from 2010 called “June 17, 1994” that covers the major stories in sports that all took place in the same 24 hours, including Arnold Palmer’s final round of golf, the commencement of the FIFA World Cup, the New York Rangers celebration of the Stanley World Cup, Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and Ken Griffey Jr.’s home run that tied Babe Ruth’s midseason record. Oh, and O.J.’s thing.

I have some rather odd, highly specific memories from the day of the O.J. Simpson police chase. On June 17, 1994, my dad and I spent a good chunk of the day at the Exxon garage downtown to have our blue 1988 GMC Jimmy repaired. I don’t recall what was wrong with it, but I was told to stay out of the way, so I sat outside the building and baked on a bench that was completely unshaded for about two hours. I was bored as hell, pouring sweat, and skipping gravels across the parking lot to pass the time while country music blared loudly from inside the bay doors. I don’t know why we were there for so long. My dad didn’t work there but he hung around inside and even helped while the mechanics committed to a multi-hour repair of some kind. Nine-year-old me was excited for a day out with dad at first but this had clearly not gone the way I had envisioned. “If only something exciting would happen today,” I probably thought to myself.

I’m not sure why that inconsequential memory is tied so closely to the big event that occurred clear across the country later that evening. It is for perhaps the same strange reason my brain immediately associates the Oklahoma City Bombing and Columbine shootings with Wednesdays. To this day when I pass by that Exxon, I think about the time I did absolutely nothing of importance near it and I also think about O.J. Simpson. Maybe it’s because we had our SUV repaired the same day a different SUV became the most recognizable vehicle in America that wasn’t driven by Dale Earnhardt.

The GMC S-15 Jimmy was a sleek, aggressively sexly compact SUV that came with dents already in the doors much like denim jeans were sold with holes. It’s all about character.

The garage part of that Exxon was torn down at least 15 years ago but the same, oddly associated memories arise anytime I pass through the town where I grew up. Even more specific than the garage memory, I can remember walking out of our house and getting into that blue GMC Jimmy with my dad BEFORE we even drove it to the garage. I remember looking at my shadow on the ground in front of me as I walked through our yard on that exact and very bright, sunny day. Historical records show it was a cloudless 92 degrees in my quaint mountain town, but I would swear it was even hotter.

Dad and I returned home with an apparently better working GMC Jimmy and life went on as normal, for a while at least. That evening, the family commenced its usual nightly rituals. My dad was off in another part of the house humming the country music songs stuck in his head, my mom was watching CNN, and I was “hanging around.” I can never remember what I ever did when I wasn’t playing video games or playing outside as a kid, but there’s a good chance I was drawing mustaches on everyone that happened to be on the cover of the TV Guide that week while CNN was on in the background. We only had one television with cable in the home. Larry King was interviewing god-knows-who. We watched so much Larry King Live that I’ve retroactively embedded him in most of my childhood traumas.

I shouldn’t call this a trauma, at least not for me, because I had no idea who Orenthal James Simpson was despite being a young football fanatic. When I was nine, OJ had been retired from the NFL for 15 years and I had never seen a Naked Gun movie. Even if I had, I still would likely not have recognized his name. I knew about the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman because my parents had been talking about it, but who was O.J.? Why was he so important? Then all of a sudden, Larry is talking over footage of a white Ford Bronco barrelling down a Los Angeles freeway at a red hot 35mph. The infamous chase was on.

If you were watching the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets go at it in Game 5 of the NBA Finals that night, then you were rudely interrupted by the chase’s coverage. Though if you were like me and half paying attention to Larry King taking calls live on air during a boring interview, then you were less upset and probably pretty stoked.

I sat there as a young, blissful observer of history and can recall a significant moment between my parents. First, my mom phones my aunt to tell her to, “Change it over to 26, O.J. is on the run!” Channel 26 was our CNN cable station. After they hung up, my mom walked across the room and stood in front of the TV so she could better see and hear what was happening. She then called out for my dad who I suspect was in the kitchen starting or finishing a Miller Lite without a shirt on and repeating the chorus from Joe Diffie’s “Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox.” Once dad entered the room, my mom filled him in on what was happening. “He did it then,” said Dad. My five-foot-nothing mom then walked over to my giant (compared to my mom) six-foot-three dad, clutched her arms as high around him as she could and wept. “Why did you do it O.J.?! Why!?”

Meanwhile, over on the love seat, I’m staring in utter confusion at the most pathetic high-speed chase ever. Is this a parade? Are they saying ‘O. J.’? Did he invent orange juice? That can’t be right. That stuff has been around for a long time. I don’t know how long but I bet the guy who invented it is long dead by now. Why is my mom so upset? Did she know this guy? Work for him? Did they go to school together? I bet he was a famous actor. That’s it! It sure is weird I have never heard of him and he’s so beloved. Mom didn’t cry like this when John Candy died three months ago and we’re a John Candy family.

“Um. So. Who is O.J.?”

My dad, still with his arms around my mom, replied flatly, “Football player for Buffalo.”

Known for his jukes and sidesteps in professional football, he instead drove it right up the middle against the LAPD.

Ok. What the hell? My dad barely pays attention to football unless it’s the Super Bowl and my mom cares even less. I can’t wait until they invent Wikipedia. Am I hearing this right? My mom is upset about a football player that I’ve never even heard about?

To this day, I don’t think my mom cared as much about O.J. Simpson as it would have seemed that night. I think the whirlwind of excitement brought on by the live spectacle during a time before 24-hour news hammering you over the face with atrocity after atrocity had numbed us was just too much to handle at the time. Given the context of the chase, she more than likely feared that Simpson would never leave that white Ford Bronco alive and she wasn’t going to be able to look away.

Because my mom was a true crime buff, she watched the entire trial that started and eventually ended the following year. She was a homemaker and I had school to attend, but each day when I got home I would watch the last bits of the televised portions with her and we would recap the full day’s trial together. Thanks to my mom’s interest in the technical aspects brought forth in the case, I had a keen understanding of forensic science, DNA, and blood spatter evidence before the age of 11. I was such a cool kid, man. Thanks mom.

Those are my memories from the day the “juice got loose.” I wish my brain reserved vivid memories for personally positive events from 1994 but “the chase” was exciting for us cable watchers in the day and so it will remain solidified in my mind alongside the outer façade of an Exxon garage that no longer exists.

Day 7: Hey, O.J.! Where ya going?

Day 11: Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding

Day 2: Closer to Trent Reznor's tongue