November 22, 1963

[bobthedrummer]

It was a bright chilly day in Milwaukee. I had walked back to junior high school after eating lunch. A friend was crying, and he told me why. "They killed President Kennedy in Dallas."

To all those old enough to recall, where and how did you hear about President Kennedy's assassination?

Random comments and thoughts relating to November 22, 1963 would be appreciated too.

[mike_c]

1. I was in school-- my teacher was summoned from the room...

...by another teacher in the hall. She came back in looking shocked, and began to cry. She told us what had happened. Later, the school sent us all home early.

[misternormal]

2. November 22, 1963...

... I was in the lunch line in school when they announced it on the school paging system... My friends and I were too young then to understand the gravity of what occurred in Dallas that day.

My parents were old-school conservative republicans. My Dad, a 22 year AF Vet, was visibly shaken by the fact that John Kennedy was killed.

I remember sitting and watching the goings-on on TV... I was watching when Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, and I remember my Dad saying. "Now we'll never know the truth."

[volstork]

3. It would be

almost three years before I was born, but I am sure that the world changed irrevocably on that day.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. a day we'll all remember with great sadness

I was in the fourth grade in Texas. The principal came on to the PA system and played the radio when the announcer said that President Kennedy was dead. I saw fifth grade girls walking down the hall crying.

I was only 8 so I was too young to really go into shock but it was indeed a huge shock to us all. Little did we know how far and wide the forces of evil can go.

I was a third generation Democrat. My father had voted for Norman Thomas and my grandma had voted for FDR.

I still have my copy of the front section of the Dallas Morning News from that day.


:cry:

[Captain Hilts]

5. I was 4 and had to spend the day on my dad's submarine, USS Sea Robin.

I remember the confusion well.

[hedgehog]

6. Any idea why you were on the submarine?

[Captain Hilts]

84. Mom had to go to an event in honor of the Thresher families and I would have made trouble.

I think they were having a fund-raising sale to help support the families. Something like that. It was Thresher-related.

Boy, was it great being a kid on a sub. EVERYTHING at kid level! And cooks and stewards giving you all kinds of crap to eat.

[TahitiNut]

22. That looks like Groton ... the Thames River.

I remember it well.

[Captain Hilts]

85. Yep, Rotten Groton. I live in Chevy Chase, but I'm still a Grubby Groton Girl.

And proud of it!

[Octafish]

7. My dad was in the U.S. Navy...

He got drafted during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was six and we were driving home for Thanksgiving holiday. I remember we got the news over the radio. He stopped the car, walked up to a pay telephone in a little enclosure at the base of a pole, and called the base. We turned around and headed back.

At the time, or at least over the years I've believed, what I remember hearing is "The world will never be the same again."

It hasn't. All we've had since, with a few notable Democratic exceptions, has been non-stop war.

Bob, did you see what the New York Times ran today? A story about a team of U.S. Army snipers in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/22sniper.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1164171600&en=2b7d480d67b3cc28&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

They have no shame. And we live in Gangster Times, Mr. Drummer.

[bobthedrummer]

24. My friend was right when I asked him why he was crying.

"They killed President Kennedy in Dallas."

Yes, "they" did.

[Hardrada]

8. I was in the college newspaper room in college in Decorah IA

and looked out and wondered why so many people, even some rather overweight professors were running towards the student union. I went downstairs and saw the TV in the lunchroom and all the people gathered in front of it. Then someone told me he'd been shot but we didn't yet know he'd been fatally wounded. I never really enjoyed college as much after that (though there were some high points) because there was always something missing, a sense of almost effortless GLADNESS about life and learning which was NOT illusory.

[hedgehog]

9. I was home sick from school and my mother came upstairs to

tell me. I was in 4th grade that year.

From then on, our tv, a little black and white, stayed on for hours.

I remember escaping the house to go sledding at some point and remember the other kids speculating on who the assassin had been. The thing that strikes me now when I look back is how much snow there was on the ground that early in the winter.

I think as time has gone on and I've done some reading on that era, I've better come to appreciate what we lost.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. I was on leave after returning from overseas deployment.

Staying with my apolitical older sister who sobbed all day.

[Captain Hilts]

86. I think a lot of people just felt violated. Kind of like Sept. 11th.

And so, the Sixties officially began.

[htuttle]

11. I was 4 months old

All I remember is everybody crying.

It's my earliest memory.

[kedrys]

15. It was my second birthday

Similar memory - everyone upset/crying even though it was supposed to be a happy day...

[lumberjack_jeff]

113. I was 10 months old, I remember nothing.

[stevedeshazer]

12. I was home from school with a bug

Mom was ironing and watching "As The World Turns" when the news came through.

The live TV murder of Lee Harvey Oswald was even more shocking.

[hedgehog]

25. I think my mother was ironing , too

She never watched the soap operas, but she had the television on looking for coverage of the motorcade. That's how I remember so many of the events of the 1960's - my mother ironing and watching the Cuban Missile Crisis and the March on Washington.

[Lugnut]

43. I remember that

My dad was watching TV when Jack Ruby shot Oswald. He started yelling for us to come to see what just happened.

[shanti]

13. i was living in yokota, japan

dad was air force, and it was a weekend morning in japan, at home. dad and mom were crying. it was the first time i'd ever seen them cry. i was 8. it's something you just don't forget.

[datadiva]

14. I was at home with my 5 week old son

A neighbor was visiting. We lived and worked at a mountain resort in Washington. I was totally shocked at first then spent days crying and depressed. One of the saddest experiences of my life.

[Fovea]

16. I was in 3rd grade

and they gathered the 3 through 6th grades into a large room with a TV.
We watched the reports and the confusion.
It was a pivotal moment in my childhood.

[TahitiNut]

17. I was attending Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama ... went to the ROTC building

... and saw the NCOs and a couple were crying. "They killed President Kennedy in Dallas," I was told. "ROTC drill is canceled."

I went to my dad's barber shop which was less than a mile off campus.

"It's about time someone shot the son-of-a-bitch!" was the prevailing opinion of the fine, upstanding citizens of the area awaiting their haircuts that weekday afternoon.

I'll never forget it. A little more than a year before then, as a cadet at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, I'd been a side-boy for President Kennedy when he visited the USCG Eagle in DC. It was the closest I'd ever been to a President, and he was dead.

:cry:

[bobthedrummer]

36. "They killed President Kennedy in Dallas." the exact words

of my seventh grade friend repeated by ROTC students.

Many people of all different ages must have made that same statement.

The American "lone nut assassin" model just doesn't work when it comes to November 22, 1963.

There are lone nuts that kill, there are tailor-made "lone nuts" too.

Yet when it comes to a political assassination carried out by a Russian speaking guy that was in the USMC who "defected" to the USSR at the height of the Cold War comes back with a KGB officer's niece and gets involved with Cubans, White Russians, spooks and all the rest killed by a Mafia strip club owner in the basement of the central Dallas Police headquarters followed by the deaths of dozens of people that had information that contradicted The Warren Commission...well "They killed President Kennedy in Dallas" seems correct.

Of course I'm leaving a lot out, it's just a little venting.

Besides, Lee Harvey Oswald didn't leave a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" in the Texas School Book Depository so that eliminates him as a lone nut assassin.

"They killed President Kennedy in Dallas."

[EFerrari]

18. I was in second grade and at recess. The nuns started crying

in one corner of the playground and then they called us all back into our classrooms. We stood and prayed together until we heard that he was gone. Then, the whole school went to a Mass. It was a terrifying day.

My baby brother was less than three weeks old and my mom had to stop nursing him because her milk stopped, just stopped.

November 22 is also when I joined DU in 2004.

[yurbud]

19. I was born a few days before that. I remember seeing it on TV and thinking...

this can't be the work of one man.

[hlthe2b]

20. Kindergarten.... My teacher came in and told us...

not in detail, but enough for us to know our President was killed and that "a very bad man had done it." Making sense of that for children that young is difficult. I remember when one young child pointed to the new janitor, still a stranger to all of us, that we promptly decided that he "must be the one."

Ahh, the naivete' of childhood... We actually DID believe it to be just "one very bad man."

I remember seeing my parents quite shaken, though my father was, by NO means, a JFK fan... I remember seeing Oswald shot on tv and the funeral for JFK afterwards. I remember seeing grown men cry for the first time... I did too, though I surely didn't fully understand the reasons.....:shrug:

[queenbdem87]

21. Just to give you guys an idea of age variance at DU, my parents weren't even born yet.

But I talked to my grandma about it and she told me what she was doing at the time etc.

[karlrschneider]

23. Has it really been 43 years? Good lord. I was at my part time job

at Sound Unlimited in Tulsa (Junior year in college)...total shock.

[hedgehog]

26. It's so odd to realize how much time has passed and to

realize that all three of them, John, Martin and Bobby would all have probably died as old men by now. My God, I'm ten years older than any of them ever got to be. They are forever too young.

[SeattleGirl]

27. I was 8 years old, in the thrid grade in Washington state.

My teacher, Mrs. White, was wearing a white dress with a floral pattern. Her hair was brown, worn in the bouffant hairstyle of the day (it's like a photo in my mind). An older teacher came in and whispered something in Mrs. White's ear, and Mrs. White started crying. We kids all froze at seeing her cry. Then she told us the President had been shot, and we were all to go home. I remember walking down the hall past the main office, and the adults in there were all crying.

I remember those 4 days, Jack Ruby shooting Oswald, the funeral, the riderless horse. When I picture it, it is as if the world was cloaked in black, and feeling very, very sad. It was my acute and painful awakening to politics, government, and how wrong things can go.

[EFerrari]

28. I would turn 8 the next month. And you're right about those days.

It was as if the world had been looted of all goodness. My big Latino family came to our house and we huddled around the television, crying and otherwise, saying very little. That was odd for the family. I don't remember people going to school or to work but instead sitting there on the sectional and watching in disbelief. We were all in shock.

[SeattleGirl]

32. That's exactly how it was.

As if the world stopped for those four days.

[JDPriestly]

29. I was in college

and was visiting a classroom in the university school when someone made the announcement. Everyone cried.

It wasn't just Kennedy who died.

The world was never the same after that. Innocence was lost -- Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and others were also killed.

The Democratic Party and everything we stand for never recovered from that bloodbath. Kennedy's assassination was not coincidence or accident.

Johnson was a tool of Brown & Root and Halliburton the war profiteers. When Johnson contracted with them to pave Viet Nam, he made a deal with the devil. We have followed the devil's bidding from war to war around the world ever since.


When Kennedy died, we lost our country.

[SeattleGirl]

33. That's how I feel too, JD.

It was definitely a turning point, a very bad turning point.

[Bitwit1234]

30. Our Women's Traveling Bowling League

had just finished. But what makes this day so much more sad is my sister passed away on November 22, 2005 with breast cancer. AND my other poor sister it is her birthday. Two unpleasant memories.

[ancient_nomad]

31. I was in Philadelphia, PA....

and had just finished a morning exam before beginning Thanksgiving break. We had walked to a small restaurant, just down from the Penn Diner, where many of the students from University City had gathered to eat before heading home. As we entered, it came across the radio that President Kennedy had been shot. Everyone gasped. Then silence. We took a seat, ordered something to eat, and waited to hear further news reports. Shortly thereafter, the news reported President Kennedy was dead. Everyone was in tears, except for an older guy, sitting at the fountain bar. Speaking loudly, he said "Good, the SOB is dead. Someone finally killed him". Students started yelling to shut the F up. He continued on with his tirade, a tussle broke out, and in walked the police who picked him up by both his arms and escorted him out. I'll always remember that guy and the hatred that spewed from his mouth.

We picked up our luggage and took the trolley downtown. People were silent and weeping, even grown men. We walked into a Catholic Church to pray and lit candles. It was packed with people. Everyone had tears. The city moved in slow motion. No horns blew. Cars stopped to let people cross the street. We made our way to the bus station, and headed home. When I arrived, Air Force One had just landed and Jackie and Bobby were standing in the plane.

That day a cloud fell across our country. It has never lifted. I have tears in my eyes.

[ljm2002]

34. A beautiful, crisp autumn day...

...the sky was pure blue. I was in 10th grade geometry class, and an announcement came over the loudspeaker, telling us that the president had been shot. While many of us were shocked, some were jubilant -- it was eye opening to me, I had no idea that some people hated him like that.

Earlier that year, probably as part of the same tour, Kennedy had come to our town for a brief visit. I had seen in in the motorcade there, and marveled even then at his magnetism, and the color of his skin, which nearly matched his light auburn hair.

My family felt it pretty hard, since as Catholics we identified with Kennedy and were so proud that at last a Catholic could be elected President. My grandparents lit candles in their windows, and kept them burning from then until the funeral. I and my mom and my brother spent most of the time at their house for the next few days, watching all of the events, transfixed. Saw Oswald get shot on live TV.

Jackie Kennedy showed herself to be a woman of great poise and bearing. And the children, Carolyn, older and poised like her mom; John John, so young, so in the moment, was seared into the national consciousness. And now he, too, is gone.

Yes, that event changed everything. Before that, we still had the shadow government, but they stayed hidden; but now they had come partly out of the shadows. No surprise that it was followed by MLK and RFK. And no surprise that the shadow government has been ascendant ever since.

Here's hoping that will change.

[truedelphi]

44. When Caroline was interviewed just a few years after

the assasination, She told the reporter (using the same composure that her mother always displayed) "I only cried twice.'

Much more recently, when her mother died, she cried and cried.The media commented on how inconsolable she was.

I thought "Good for you. Finally you've been able to let go."

[Greybnk48]

35. I was a highschool freshman

home sick from school. I had the radio on in my room when a bulletin came on. I rushed into the livingroom where my parents were reading the

paper, and was crying so hard I couldn't talk at first. Then I blurted out what had happened and both of my parents began to cry--and my dad began

swearing and crying and yelling "The sons a bitches, the dirty sons a bitches." He never really explained that.

We were glued to the T.V. for days.

That day changed people. It was horrible.

[rwenos]

37. Fourth Grade Class

I was in Room 22, fourth grade.

My parents had taken me to see (Senator) Jack Kennedy at a whistle-stop campaign appearance in Richmond, California, in October 1960.

My first thought that day (at age 10): "This is the first person I actually saw, killed."

I've read anyone about my age or older can remember EXACTLY where they were and what they were doing, when they heard.

[kath]

136. everyone except GHWB, who says he can not remember where he was or what

he was doing that day.

Very, very, VERY strange, methinks...

[rsmith6621]

38. A Photo Memorial...

Taken during my first trip to DC.....I was 3 grocery shopping with my mom when I asked her why people in the store were crying.....

[bobthedrummer]

39. .

:cry:

[Lugnut]

40. I was 18 years old

I graduated from high school that June. It was Friday and I was attending cosmetology school. One of the instructors came running from the office to tell us that Pres. Kennedy had been shot. We later learned that he had died. Most of us had clients scheduled that afternoon so we had to stay until 5PM.

Once I got home the whole family was glued to the TV all weekend, as were most Americans. That was the first time I ever saw around-the-clock TV coverage for anything. My whole family was in mourning as if JFK had been a member of our own family.

[OneBlueSky]

41. I was a senior in high school, and was between classes . . .

as I took my seat in English class, the girl behind me asked "Can you imagine Johnson as president?" . . . I gave her this puzzled look and probably said something like "Huh?" . . . it was then that she told me that the president had been shot . . .

almost immediately, the PA system started broadcasting radio coverage throughout the school . . . everyone sat there for a full half-hour before hearing the news that JFK was dead . . . there was an audible gasp, and some people started crying . . . the principal came on the PA and announced that the rest of the school day was being canceled, and that the buses were on their way . . .

when I got home, the tv was on and my mother was sitting there transfixed . . . I joined her, and I didn't leave the television for the next week except to catch a few hours sleep . . . I saw live coverage of the return to Washington, the shooting of Oswald, the lying in state, and the entire funeral . . . to this day I still vividly remember the exact cadence of the muffled drums in the funeral procession . . .

dum dum dum, da-da-da dum dum dum, da-da-da dum dum dum, da-da-da dum dum da-dum . . .

[mykpart]

42. I was in high school in Dallas.

I had had my driver's license for a month, and considered skipping school that day to go downtown & watch the parade. But I went to school instead, was in class when another student ran in and started babbling about Governor Connally being killed and the President being shot. Before long, the radio was hooked up to the PA system, and we spent the rest of the day listening to news reports, going from class to class like zombies. Catholic school, and at first we wondered if it was some fanatical Protestants who had killed the President. Then we all talked about The Manchurian Candidate. What a sad, scary day.

[Beausoleil]

83. Unlike GHWB

I also remember being in Dallas that day. I was 8, in the third grade at a Catholic school in Garland. My parents took us to JC Penney in Casa View later that afternoon to buy school uniforms. I think they just wanted to get us away from the TV.

[jaysunb]

45. Nodding off during a dull lecture...

in World History at Ohio University. When I was awakened by gasps and sobs, I thought the sewage system had burst again and classes would be cancelled for a few days.

I drove home to Cleveland that night and spent the next week glued to the T V.

Time flies......

[FogerRox]

46. I heard my Mom yell, NOOOOOOOOOO

Those SONS of BITCHES...............

I was 5.

[texanwitch]

47. I had just turned 10 years old .

I was had home sick watching TV when I heard about President Kennedy's death.

[tritsofme]

48. My principal announced it over the loud speaker

We listened to the story on the radio the rest of the day.

My teacher cried, I was too young to fully grasp the entirety of the situation.

I liked Jack Kennedy, he looked to be about my dad's age (a big change from Ike) and seemed like a nice and friendly guy.

[T Town Jake]

49. Folks, Folks, Folks....

...I was only four, and don't remember the event itself.

But -

It always bothers me, this Messiah-grasping at the threads of renowned men's (or women's) done lives: men (or women) of greatness who would snicker at the retrospective pretensions surrounding their times, and what they did in them.

Yes, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a horrible moment in American presidential history. But it was not the equivalent of the Visigoths charging over the last of the Seven Hills.

He served two years, ten months, and four days in that office - and he was a good, though not by any means great, president during that limited time.
Perhaps had he lived he would've progressed to greatness - though his dedication to the Vietnam War (which his successor simply tried to emulate) would've no doubt made him radioactive around here in 2006 - had history turned out the same way, and again rendered "Vietnam" a defeat instead of a triumph in our memories.
Similarly, his well-documented reluctance to engage the premiere domestic challenge of his times, Civil Rights, had he lived to finish out his two terms would cause many at the DU of 2006 to spew venom in his direction for the mere "sin" of such historical pauses in that period of 1961-1963, even though the cultural time & place that make those "pauses" understandable in retrospect are often shrilly ignored: we always love to judge the past by the present, after all, and inevitably we find it lacking.

Especially the most flame-throwing historically-ignorant in our ranks, of which there seems to be a small yet steady supply on constant loan from the Angry-R-Us part of the Web that constantly afflict sites across this vast thing we call the internet.

But he, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, would be the first to tell you, no doubt, the following: quit trying to fill up the void you feel about life in your times by fantasizing about mine - or me. I'm not a lost savior to be worshiped: live your lives, meet the challenges of your era as best you can with what you've got, and above all enjoy the time you have in this world. And while you're at it, let me rest in peace.

Anyone who has studied that extraordinary life in depth, as I have, knows that, while I am extrapolating on what he might say, I'm hitting it pretty close to the mark.

"Sad stories of the death of Kings" on this day are, no doubt, appropriate: fictional paeans to a messiah who never was would infuriate that departed "King" (President) more than anyone else, realist and real life person that he was.

Want to celebrate the life of President Kennedy today? To paraphrase H.L. Mencken: Wink your eye at some sinner, and drink a Heineken (his favorite beer); he never took himself 1/1000th as seriously as some folks who write - and post - about him do.

Seriously.

[EFerrari]

52. I guess you had to be there. The entire faculty at my school

was reduced to weeping. Argue with that.

I lived through a second day like that day. That was the day Dan White murdered Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. I'd just left City Hall to run over to the Sherrif's jail at the Hall of Justice. Everyone was just stopped in their tracks. This city was like one big morgue and for weeks.

[ljm2002]

53. With all due respect...

...I think you are wrong that people are trying to make him Messiah-like. Rather, we are remembering an event that irrevocably changed the tenor of politics in this country.

Historians will certainly debate the real accomplishments of JFK, given the short time that he served, and whether they merit the pedestal that some have put him on. But those of us who remember the time before and after, also remember the difference between the high hopes during JFK's term, vs. the cynicism that came after. It is even more clear to me in retrospect how that singular event marked a change for the worse in our country.

Actually if I were going to idolize one of the Kennedys, it would be RFK, who I think was the real deal. But of course, he was killed too... as was MLK. More recently we have had the ubiquitous small plane crashes -- Carnahan, Wellstone and JFK Jr. Tinfoil hat? Maybe, but I have to ask: how many right wing leaders in the U.S. have been assassinated over the same span of years?

[JDPriestly]

134. Precisely.

How many right-wingers have been assassinated in that manner in the same length of time? And what about the South American leaders who mysteriously died in plane crashes, etc.? Yes, life is full of coincidences. But, events that form a clear pattern are not coincidences.

[Oeditpus Rex]

58. This is not canonizing a man

This is recalling what was probably the first "event" in the lives of most of us — our first moment in amber. The first time we were truly stunned, confused, whatever. Even if we were young and naive, as I was, it was still stunning. Presidents don't get killed and parents don't cry, and our favorite shows don't get taken off TV for anything, much less four days of deep sadness alternating with mass chaos.

More than anything else, I remember the dirge and drum beat accompanying the caisson. To this day, it's the most mournful sound I can imagine.

No, this isn't about a man at all, but about a nation and how its people felt about it. Prior to Nov. 22, 1963, America was "perfect." (Yes, we had the Cold War, but we also had a tacit assurance that we would, somehow, not only survive it, but rise above it — largely because JFK made us believe that.) But when someone can just kill the president — well, that tends to shake one's entire sense of security and belief. We weren't sad simply because a good president was dead. We were sad because we were scared.

Over the years we came to understand that it wasn't a "lone nut," but a conspiracy deeper than most of us could imagine. And again, our belief system was shaken. Eventually, an entire shoe store dropped, and we realized our government works not for us, but for itself.

And here. we. are.

[LeahD]

64. Yes, the remembrance about Nov. 22 goes beyond

the tragedy of the loss of a President, the loss of a man so young and vital, the personal recollections of thousands upon thousands of us. Nov. 22 symbolizes the loss of innocence, the loss of promise.

I was in 11th grade Chemistry class when the PA came on. We were dismissed from class, walked through hallways that just a few minutes earlier had been filled with laughter and chatter...now lockers were opening and closing, footsteps on terrazo. These were hard-edged, empty sounds echoing through the hallways. Glassy-eyed students,without words, were quietly leaving the building. The world seemed so very different in such a short amount of time. Later......tears, overwhelming sadness and mourning. The world seemed devoid of color, so very gray.

[greatauntoftriplets]

118. Well said.

:thumbsup:

[puebloknot]

59. You misunderstand.

We who look back with sadness on that day because we remember it so well are recalling a time that shook us out of our innocence and left a void in our national consciousness. It was not just the murder of a President that shocked us; it was the question in the air of whether our country had also been assassinated that day. Confusion and fear were the order of the day.

John Kennedy was a flawed human being. So was his brother RFK. So was Martin Luther King. However, when I hear our current Resident flounder around, attempting to utter one coherent sentence, I am taken back in somewhat "worshipful" appreciation of what we lost in JFK.

I have memories of driving down the freeway, returning to New Mexico from Florida that famous October, and seeing an endless flow of military trucks laden with missiles and supplies, headed for Florida. That event was real and it was serious. My personal remembering of JFK is more a harking back to a time when I was young, had grown up with a father who had experienced World War II, and had reason to fear a nuclear war. He is an icon for that time and all that it stirred in all of us who *were* old enough to remember it, rather than a "Messiah."

Many have said that JFK is honored more in death than he would have been had he lived. That may be true, but he and his brother, and Martin Luther King made the greatest effort I've seen in my not inconsiderable lifetime to try to bring social justice to this country. Perhaps you can understand that we wipe our tears, metaphorically, on the garments of these historical figures because we have nothing, nothing today which inspires hope in us to the degree that they did. A slight pause in our lives, to remember an emotional time in our history, is hardly hero worship.

If we carefully follow the threads through time of events which followed the JFK assassination, many thoughtful and informed people see that occurrence as part of a tapestry which, carefully examined, is still being woven today, and to our detriment as a free nation.

I do not trust, Sir, that you are qualified to tell us what John F. Kennedy would have to say to us today. You were only four, and you don't remember the event. Your assessment of what that day meant to all of us is rather a head trip, I think!

[hlthe2b]

68. You say you study history... but it appears you fail to learn from it...

in my humble opinion.

The tremendous reaction that comes-- even so many years later as those who were alive and have some memory think back on that sad day in November--does not have to do with the myths that have come to surround JFK or the iconization of the man. That was a very different time and the assasination of a US President laid bare the huge vulnerabilities of this country, during a very insecure time. This was also the first time that such a huge domestic story literally played out on tv right before our eyes (Cronkites' and others' emotional reporting of the shooting and death, Oswald's shooting by Jack Ruby, the funeral and family reactions, the American public's shock and shared grief).

JFK was a flawed human being, like most. His potential was snuffed and I find it troubling that you would pre-judge that potential with your own detailed, yet highly disappointing picture of what that future would be--even to the point of filling in the words that JFK would have voiced...:shrug:

My friend you may have read history, but you haven't allowed yourself to learn from that study. I was but a mere year older than you and my memories are from a child's perspective. Yet it is clear what a difference that year must make-- or, at least my more open embrace of that history, as I too have gone back to study. :shrug:

[livetohike]

82. Wow

You were too young to actually be aware of what the assassination of a President meant to the nation

Go back and listen to JFK's inaugural address and get some historical sense of the times and the hope he gave to those of us who were old enough to understand his vision.

BTW, I have no void in my life that needs filled by hero worship. However, the possibilites that his presidency presented to us and his idealism will stay with me until I die.

[bobthedrummer]

96. Here's a thread from a year ago started by another DUer

that you might like to review today. It also does not elevate President Kennedy to the levels you suggest nor ascribe motives that just aren't there.

"JFK: 42 Years Gone, But the Facts Are Still Coming In" started by democraticinsurgent
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5432794#top

edited for spelling

[T Town Jake]

102. Thanks, all, for your replies - I appreciate each of you taking the time...

...to express your feelings about President Kennedy. Though I stand by the tenor of my post, I do understand a little bit better the emotion involved with his memory for those of you who were there and remember the events as I do not.

Thanks again - your replies have given me something to think about it.

[thingfisher]

127. what makes this date so resonant

is the fact that the government became a malevolent force in our lives afterward and it still is today. Two more assasinations confirmed that things were different now and such high crimes and misdemeanors could be covered up and the perpetrators continue on their way. America morphed into a rogue state.

[Name removed]

106. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[T Town Jake]

107. Nice ad hominem to start off that cornucopia of logical fallacies...

...flying strawmen, and other inanities.

I stand by my post: in fact, a reply such as yours simply serves to validate my larger point. The reaction is similar to one I'd expect upon telling a frothing fundamentalist that, as good a man as Jesus no doubt was, perhaps the assertion that he actually walked on water was a matter open to some debate....

Good day to you, sir: please come back when you feel you can discuss the matter in a civil fashion.

[Name removed]

108. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DemonFighterLives]

109. I don't know what you studied, but you got a lot wrong

Vietnam especially!
I think you need to go back again.


I was 4 and remember it well. I heard in on NBC and ran to tell mom who was in the basement washing clothes. I told her Mrs. Kennedy was shot,so got to hear about that for many years after. All of my Aunts and Uncles and everyone around me was crying and sad for days. I saw Oswald shot on TV. Nixon and the republicans lost my support for ever and including Johnson. It took me until a few years ago to find out about Poppy and the boys.
The country half died that day.
:dem:

[Name removed]

112. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[boolean]

115. I am SO with you

I hate when people reminisce on the death of a person, no matter who that person was. I don't even think about close family members who died long ago. There's a period of mourning after someone you love dies, and then you have to MOVE ON. Especially when it happened over 40 years ago. Sheesh.

That people still feel emotional about this is laughable to me. It's a very odd obsession with death in this society of ours. The same thing occurs with princess Diana, Mother Teresa, The Pope, Steve Irwin, any other celebrity, any other "great" person....It's just obsessive compulsive if you ask me. These people were just that - people. They may have been great, they may have been entertaining, they may have "changed things", whatever. They're dead now. Why not focus on the people who are doing great things NOW who are still living?

I don't get the whole moment of silence or "what were YOU doing when you heard" stuff. Why should I even care where I was or what I was doing when someone else died? Talk about narcissistic. Nobody really has these emotional feelings for Abraham Lincoln, who was also arguably a great man in his time. Why not? Because none of us were around when it happened. All this remembrance stuff is all about *US*, not about the dead. *I* remember and *I* felt sad and *I* loved him and where was *I* when I heard, etc etc etc. IMHO it's self serving bullshit.

[JVS]

116. good idea

[JDPriestly]

133. It wasn't the man. It was the assassination and the fact that

the explanation for the assassination and the information we were given about it made not sense. It was at that time that we became aware at some visceral level that we were being lied to. It isn't about the man, John F. Kennedy.

[T Town Jake]

135. Well, I've been validated, proven right, & etc. ...

...over and over and over and over AGAIN, in every bit of what I originally posted on so many levels in this thread. It has been interesting encounter - and experience.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy: 1917-1963

Rest In Peace

[dweller]

143. T.T.J.

I enjoy a bit of the Irish draught occasionally, and travel to a local underground pub to imbibe a Harp or two, and when i go there next, will have one and toast to you:toast: and addendum to Mencken in your honor - "he never took himself 1/1000th as seriously as some folks who write - and post - about him do"

and that's about 1000 times more credence that i'll give to any post from you.

to mud in your eye.
dp

[LearnedHand]

50. In the library at my elementary school

I was in the third grade in Houston, and my class had gone to the library. I was browsing the stacks. A student or someone came in and said the school was sending us all home -- closing down the school. "Why," I said. "President Kennedy's been shot in Dallas."

I remember the sick thud in my stomach. I spent the next few days glued to the TeeVee. I saw it when Ruby was shot. I saw the funeral procession and I saw John John (as we all called him) salute the passing casket, and I also remember the drums another poster so incredibly vividly illustrated.

[Stinky The Clown]

51. I saw it on a television screen in a TV store on my way home from school

I was in high school at the time and had to change busses in downtown Bridgeport, CT. There was a televsion store there and we normally watched the television while we waited for the busses.

[Gwerlain]

54. I wasn't old enough to remember it. I remember Bobby.

[puebloknot]

55. I was working at White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico.

A co-worker came in from lunch and stuck her head in the door of my office and said, "The President has been shot."

She was a very serious woman, and I had the crazy thought that she'd just come back from a "how to tell a joke" class. It just didn't register that it was real. I think I recall laughing at her.

And then she said that a prayer service was being held at the base chapel, and I knew she was being truthful.

On the day of the funeral, I sat in front of my '60s black and white television set, alone, and cried my eyes out as John John saluted his father for the last time, on his third birthday. I can never forget Jackie and Robert Kennedy walking together behind the cortege as the President's body was rolled down the street behind the riderless horse.

I worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence soon after that for a couple of years, and read the Warren Report and other material coming through the office that was classified. I heard a lot of opinions expressed by people "on the inside." Today, I wonder if anybody is "on the inside" and if we will ever know who killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy. For me, the official story did not ring true, just as the official story about 9/11 leaves me unsatisfied.

The John F. Kennedy assassination is a tragedy that has me by the throat, still. RFK's assassination too soon afterward was almost the coup de grace for the country, it seemed for a long while. Now, I think many of us are turning backward in our memories for spiritual sustenance as we remember these men and the promise that died with them.

We must keep faith with them and their vision for our country!

[pacalo]

56. I was in my sixth grade class...

An announcement was made on the intercom & students were told to file out to the covered patio outside (it was raining that day) for recess. I'll never forget how ashen & sad my teacher's face was as we were told the news.

It was our last day of school before Thanksgiving holidays & I spent the next few days riveted by the tv coverage. While watching President Kennedy's coffin laying in the rotunda of the Capitol Building, I wished so much that he would "wake up" & everything would be back the way it was.

He was the first president of whom I first became aware. I was 8 years old when Kennedy debated Nixon; I knew even then that I wanted Kennedy to win. I was struck by his family, particularly the kids. My mom subscribed to "Life" magazine & I loved the picture of John-John under his father's desk in the oval office. I recall so many wonderful pictures of the Kennedys in "Life" back then, including the one of John-John saluting his dad's coffin as it passed him during the funeral procession.

As in "It's a Wonderful Life", I can only wonder what life would have been like if certain people had never been born & President Kennedy would have been able to continue to be our president for five more years.

[solara]

57. I was in 8th grade in Oklahoma

I heard it in the hall at school and there was a TV hooked up in my class room for some reason and we watched a few minutes of it. I don't recall seeing anyone cry. I heard one kid cheering. I don't recall discussing it with anyone. My Mother sure didn't speak about it, a TV was on when Oswald was shot...but I saw that in the laundromat.

People who were not born yet should try to understand the time frame. Kennedy was not a god to us.. but the office of the President was almost sacrosanct and he -was- President. The President was a true symbol of America back then.. not just an office...remember this was before Johnson and Nixon and Iran Contra and Watergate.. most people still believed in their government back then.

America was just coming out of the fifties... everything was supposed to be Ward and June Cleaver safe and normal... in the middle class anyway..Sure we had some scares.. but with each scare like the Bay of Pigs or with each nuclear drill at school.. people just looked to their President for their security.. that was the way it had always been.....so, our world held on just a bit tighter to what had passed for normalcy for so long.

There were no real "scandals' that I remember either. There was no cable, no internet. We had newspapers and for most of us only B&W TV. The only thing I heard on the radio back then was music and during that week it was all ponderously sad. I know -now- that there were civil rights marches and violence, but it wasn't televised then like it was later, or maybe I just wasn't allowed to see it.. but I don't recall people even talking about civil rights and they barely spoke about Kennedy.

But somehow I sensed that the nation was connected through this event, and -that- is what I remember. Strangers whom I didn't know were reacting in the same way as the people around me.
For the first time I felt that I was part of something much bigger than my little neighborhood in Oklahoma City.

I don't even think I really understood what it meant politically, only that the nation was in mourning and EVERYONE I saw was in black...everything was dark. Dark umbrellas, dark clothes, dark horses, dark cars; Dirges played on the TV for several days...and everywhere there was darkness. That really effected me. The newscasters were sad, which made it somehow -real- and important to me. When I saw Oswald killed I was amazed that I saw something that violent on TV. ...televised violence was then a rarity, at least in my house .. but I don't think I really connected to what Oswald's murder meant either. But It was because of JFK that I became a Democrat.. and RFK and MLK too.

My life, like so many other lives still to this day, was shielded from the realities of the world..I had to go out and seek the truth about pretty much everything. Sadly, that world still exists as witness our government for the last six years.

[WritersBlock]

60. I'm told that I ran out of the house screaming "They killed President Kennedy!!"

I don't remember it, though.

I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I don't remember the murder. Maybe it was just all too horrible to remember for a little kid who was absolutely nuts about JFK.

[Hardrada]

61. I forgot to mention above that it was my birthday that Friday

and I had a little party planned. We had it anyway since we were mostly to stunned to come up with alternatives. I remember, curiously enough, a few weeks later an African student from what was then Southern Rhodesia mocking some of us for being so grief stricken. I wondered then if Africans had a really different slant on things or if this guy was just some kind of jerk.

[Hekate]

62. I was 16 and hurrying to morning Chemistry class; overheard someone say JFK was shot

I didn't believe it could be real, but during class our teacher confirmed the rumor was true. It must have been about 9:30 am Hawaii time. We were stunned.

I'm not sure when we heard that President Kennedy was dead -- perhaps during the assembly that was held an hour or so later. The whole school gathered in the area around the flagpole because even the cafeteria wasn't big enough to hold all of us at once. One of my friends from the band played Taps, I remember that. Some wept. JFK was the president of civil rights and racial tolerance; he was "our" president, he stood for things Hawaii stood for.

Because so many of my classmates were military dependents, there was an extra dimension of their own anxiety about their fathers going on alert.

At home, my father sat in his armchair quietly saying, "Damn. Damn. Damn," hitting the armchair softly with his open palm each time. We were Irish-American; JFK was "our" president.

I watched TV the whole long weekend, telling myself to remember this, remember this, nothing like this will happen again in my lifetime.

JFK was young, spirited, witty, cultured; his wife was graceful and charming; his children were beautiful. They invited classical musicians to play at the White House. He was brave and smart and he faced down Nikita Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He stated that he would bring the best and the brightest to the White House, and he did. Foreign allies trusted him.

He and his ideas caught our imaginations; he was of that time and he made that time. Because of him I sent away for the Peace Corps packet and kept it for years. He made us believe we could live our ideals and change the world in peaceful ways.

We genuinely grieved this loss. There's a tendency in the past 20 years to tear down our heroes and make sure no one can be perceived as any "better" than anyone else -- Dumb and Dumber about sums it up -- and everyone from film makers to gossip-mongers to historians has had a go at the Kennedy legacy. JFK was surely no plaster saint, but he made us believe in our better selves, and believe in our nation's better self.

Rest in peace, Jack and Jackie. We're grateful for the time we had you with us.

Hekate

[lamp_shade]

63. I was a H.S. Senior

Catholic school. Mother Superior made the announcement and sent everybody home. We went to our favorite hangout where the owner was crying because she had just heard on the announcement that "The President is dead". It seems that we spent the next few days at home in front the TV. I remember being so sad, so many people crying. Mostly though, I remember being just horribly CONFUSED... hard to describe. You had to be there.

[POAS]

65. Just out of high school working my first job

Came back to the front of the shop from the warehouse and everyone was huddled around the radio in the foremans office. When word came that he had died everyone was sent home and we didn't go back to work till after the funeral.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

66. Sister Mary Esther came to our classroom

- always a bad sign, when the principal shows up unannounced - and took our teacher into the hallway. Then both nuns returned and told us the President had been shot, and we were to pray for him. We sat at our desks praying for a short while till the principal returned and told us school was dismissed.

I raced home and found my mother sitting numbly in front of the TV. Walter Cronkite had already announced Kennedy's death. My father came home with an armful of newspapers. All I remember for the next few days is watching TV and reading papers along with everyone else, and trying to comprehend it all.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

67. Brooklyn, NY...gorgeous, sunny November day... 5 days after my 12th birthday & sister's wedding.

7th grade Social Studies class. The Principal comes into our room, whispered something into my teacher's ear and he blanches.
When the Principal left, my teacher told us that President Kennedy had been shot and we were being dismissed early from school.
On the bus ride to my home in Queens, I don't think I had any idea that he could die. I remember a small group of kids laughing, not understanding that this was serious.
I reached my home, my mom had the tv on and was weeping, President Kennedy was dead and I was devastated. I don't recall leaving the tv for days......

[sazemisery]

69. 2nd Grade - Killeen, Tx

Sitting in a classroom. A teacher came in and whispered to our teacher. She started crying and announced that the President had been shot and that school would end for the day. I walked home to find my mother sitting in front of the TV crying as she watched the news unfold. We watched the funeral on TV at school.

[H2O Man]

70. I was a kid in school.

I remember getting on the bus to go home early. The bus ride was quiet. I remember our house being equally quiet. The tv was on, and the only other noise I recall was my mother crying.

At church the next week, they handed out little cards of JFK. They were about the size of a small baseball card. Many years later, I met an elderly relative, who was the "keeper" of the extended family history. He was in his 90s, and was passing on the Bible brought from Ireland, and photos that ranged from tin-types taken on the Old Sod, to records and photos from the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He had seen me in the news a few times, and wanted me to have them. Inside one album was one of those cards from the church. That's what JFK meant to my people.

[wicket]

71. My mom was 5 & my dad was in 2nd grade

My great-grandfather died of a heart attack on the same day.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

72. Only the overall emotion of the day.

A stunned sadness.

I was five when it happened, and thinking on it now, only the mood of the day, not any specific words from those around me come to mind.

[KharmaTrain]

73. 3rd Grade - Decatur School - Chicago

I was at home for lunch...watching Bozo's Circus and was walking back to school when i ran into the "neighborhood bully"...who asked me if I had heard that "President Kennedy had been shot in Texas". At first I didn't believe him...but all the way back to school I had this vision of JFK riding in a Conostogo Wagon or Stage Coach with sagebrush blowing all around...around him were bad guys in black masks with six shooters firing in the wagon.

When I got to school, all the teachers were running around the halls and crying. It was a surreal sight...we all knew something was real, real wrong and our teacher took us to an assembly where the principal told us that Kennedy had been shot and they weren't sure if he was alive or not. This was about 1:15 Central...about 45 minutes after the shooting...and school was dismissed for the day around 2 when word of his death became official.

I remember it being a very warm day that was sunny in the morning and then suddenly turned cloudy and by 3pm it had begun to rain...it was like the world was crying.

At home that night, my family sat around the TV in stunned silence...all the channels were carrying non-stop coverage (the first time that had ever happened) and I don't think I moved out of the family room all weekend. I was right there that Sunday morning when Oswald was shot...I saw it live. On that Monday, we had a short school day...another assembly as we watched the JFK funeral and then went home. We were still all very stunned. Even moreso as we didn't know who did it and why.

Shortly thereafter we gave money for the new Kennedy library and I got a beautiful thank-you card from Jackie...I still have it today.

While I was 7 years old at the time, I can still recall that day like it was yesterday. And I still wonder "what if"...similar to how I would feel in June '68 when Bobby was gunned down.

Peace...

[blogslut]

74. I was being very good

Mom was an "As the World Turns" fan and that was my designated quiet time. Then the big CBS eye came on with a special report. I don't remember much except that Walter Cronkite was very sad.

sigh

[peacefreak]

75. I was in 7th grade in our local parochial school.

We were on stage rehearsing a Thanksgiving play. One of the nuns got us off stage & said to pray for someone who was hurt. They sent us home shortly thereafter. As I walked home, the people on the street were in shock. When I got home my mother was watching Walter Cronkite. It was just then, when he made that horrible statement that the President was dead. It was almost as overwhelming to see that strong man take off his glasses & cry.
That night we went to church. It was eerie to be there at night with so many people crying.

[Bassic]

76. Also on November 22nd, 1963,

Aldoux Huxley died. Not as grand, I know, but he deserves a mention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley

[long_green]

110. I thought it was C.S. Lewis who died that day

nm

[Bassic]

117. Him too apparently.

Man, that was the Day from Hell.

[Sapphocrat]

77. I was two years, two months, and four days old.

And I remember it.

I was sitting on the linoleum floor of our L-shaped kitchen at the ranch, playing with pots and pans as any two-year-old would, when my mother came in from the family room, where the television was, with one hand to her face, wearing a look of pain I will never forget. She asked me -- not told me, but asked me, in a very weak, quiet way -- if I would stop making noise. "Why?" I asked (as any two-year-old would). "Because," she said, "today is a sad day. Today is a day we don't want to make any noise."

It took some time -- all of those Four Days in November -- to connect, in my own two-year-old way, what had happened to the only thing I could relate it to: the death of a pet. But I did. And I understood then why I wasn't supposed to make noise that day.

CUT TO: PACIFIC GROVE - DAYTIME - AUNT ANNIE'S HOUSE - SOMETIME IN THE MID-1960s

Aunt Annie had lost Uncle Frank some twenty or thirty years earlier, but she still dressed in black -- until the day she died. We visited her -- my mother, my grandparents, and I -- once or twice a year. I loved going to Aunt Annie's, and I loved her. There was always a period when I would grow bored with the grown-up conversation, but it was worth it, as half the day would be spent on the windy, rocky beach, and the rest of the time we would eat far too much food at the kitchen table I would inherit some twenty years later.

Aunt Annie's home was a classic, stucco California bungalow, photos of which were featured in all the Monterey-area guidebooks due to the breathtaking mass of wisteria adorning the exterior.

I was unaware of just how "famous" Auntie Annie's house was; it was the interior that fascinated me: There wasn't a wall without a framed picture of Jack or Bobby on it, and not a surface without a memorial figurine or commemorative plate; one wall was dominated entirely by a tapestry of the two brothers.

At some point during every visit, Aunt Annie would find a moment to take me aside and into her dark bedroom, where she would show me her large, ceramic statue of St. Ann, her namesake, and tell me the story of St. Ann, and how St. Ann was the mother of the Virgin Mary... as if she had never told me a hundred times before. I didn't mind; at four, five, ten years old, I knew enough to know it made her happy to tell me again. And I felt special.

There was something else Aunt Annie would tell me -- tell anyone within earshot, in fact -- repeatedly, every time I saw her. Partly because I was less than a year younger than the heir to Camelot, but mostly because Aunt Annie loved the Kennedys more than anyone but her dear, departed Frank, she would intone, softly, with this oddly serene smile on her weathered face: "When she grows up, J- is going to marry John-John... Yes, J- is going to marry John-John..." I think she really believed it. I know she did.

CUT TO: ARLINGTON CEMETERY - EARLY MORNING - SOMETIME IN OCTOBER, 1996

It is wet, and I am sick with the flu. But I have only one full day to spend in and around Washington, D.C., and I will see The Mall, and The Wall, and Arlington, even if it kills me. And it almost does.

I wheeze like a grampus as I hike the gentle, sloping hills of Arlington to visit the women and men to whom I most want to pay my respects; if I do nothing else before I collapse from this damned thing I've been trying to kill with too much Ny-Quil and Dristan, there are four stops I must make -- and then if I have any strength left, I will visit Oliver Wendell Holmes and Robert Todd Lincoln.

I do visit Holmes and Lincoln, but not until after I have watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, stood silently for a very long time before the Space Shuttle Challenger memorial, and given Medgar Evers my promise to carry on.

I save the Kennedys for last. There is no one else around -- just me, and Jack, and Jackie, and Bobby. And, for the better part of an hour, I cry like a baby.

And then I have to leave. I forget just how sick I am until I find my way back to the Metro station, and I suffer badly for not taking better care of myself, throughout the drive down to North Carolina, and for another week after that.

But I don't care.

EPILOGUE

Of course I never wanted to marry John-John, even if it had been possible. But when he died, I cried like a baby, all over again.

[watrwefitinfor]

78. Sweeping the floor of our little apartment

in Daytona Beach. My babies were napping and I had the tv on for background noise. First they interrupted to say he had been shot and rushed to the hospital. I stood there, leaning on that broom, heart in my throat, paying more attention to the soap than I ever had in my life - waiting for an update. It didn't take long.

Then Dan Rather was reporting from the steps at the hospital, among a sea of reporters and onlookers? A little later Walter Cronkite came on and announced he was dead. I walked outside - can't say why, but all sorts of people were doing the same thing - hanging off motel balconies, looking around at all the others. Crying. Strangers calling out, back and forth to each other: I can't believe it. Just can't believe it. What is happening in our country?

Aside from the shock and fear, the biggest thing I remember about the newscasts were how all the people ran up a grassy knoll. All the news reports stressed that. And it wasn't long before there was footage on tv of everyone running up the knoll.

Later that afternoon there was a report that some Dallas police had run up to the 5th floor where they found a rifle near a window. They identified it by name and caliber. But later it was reported as having a different name and caliber, saying the Dallas police just didn't know what they were talking about and didn't' know one gun from another. I have never heard the discrepancy mentioned again. But it was the first thing that made me wonder. Of course, shutting up Oswald was the second...

Wat

[Celebration]

79. High School

San Antonio. We had all gotten out of school to see him pass by the front of the school either one or two days before. In English class, one student had noted how little protection was around him. The teacher just said, don't worry, there is CIA everywhere. After he was killed, nobody in that class mentioned that conversation.

I found out from my car radio (we were allowed to go out to lunch to area restaurants every day, believe it or not) that he was injured. After we got back to school the news reports were all over the PA system and the school was very quiet.

This was mainly a Republican area of town, but from nobody did I feel anything but sadness. It was shocking to hear that some students cheered in schools in Dallas. My parents were devastated and they were not Democrats. My mother cried I think. The same was true of my friends.

[Hepburn]

80. I was in high school...

...trig class right after lunch. The principal's voice came on over the PA and he was choked up and then the radio came on ... and we sat and listened and were transfixed.

I can tell you to this day, what I had on, where I was sitting and even the shoes I had on. It's like a freeze frame in my memory. I can even remember how my hair ~~ a bouffant do, of course ~~ felt when I put my hands to my face. Hair spray...lots of hair spray ~~ and I remember how my hair felt on my hands. I was dazed. We walked through the school halls like zombies. It was just so unreal.

I was watching TV when Ruby shot Oswald...and...it was like watching the WTC fall ~~ I could not believe what I was seeing. I was home alone ~~ don't remember where my parents were. I was sitting on the floor in the family room at the coffee table...and I was doing my nails. I spilled some polish remover because I jerked when I saw Oswald get shot. The remover left marks on the finish of the table ~~ which had been my grandmother's oak, center post dining room table and my dad had cut it down to coffee table size. I now have that coffee table in my living room...and people often ask me why I never had it re-finished. I just never could. It just marked something that happened to me that changed me.

I am not Catholic and not religious, but the lady across the street who I babysat for was Catholic. She was going to church for a mass for President Kennedy. I don't know why I asked her to go with her ~~ but I just had to do something to show my feelings of loss for him. I went with her and kneeled and cried with her and the rest who were there. What was going on in the Catholic service was meaningless to me ~~ but I just had to go and mourn him.

I remember seeing JFK, Jr., and the salute. When he was killed in that plane crash, that picture of him as a child at his father's funeral came to mind. I saw him at that age and not the pictures of him as the handsome man he grew into. I remember thinking when he died and how much Jackie had been through ~~ and as sad as his death was ~~ I thought how much better that he went after her death than before. And, then I thought of Caroline ~~ she was the only one left of that Camelot family....and I thought of JFK all over again and remembered the day he was killed in Dallas.

I went to Dallas many years after JFK was shot and I went to Dealy Plaza. It was nothing like it looked on TV. It was a cramped, little place and I saw right away what a target JFK was when his motorcade passed that through. What an eerie feeling to be there. For many reasons it was eerie, most of all, of course, that it is where Kennedy was shot. But....I stood there and wondered what really happened the day President Kennedy was killed.

[mandyky]

81. I was 8 and we got sent home from school

My sister was about 4 and ran outside where my Mom was hanging clothes and told her the president has blood on his face.

It was very tramatic, even though I was only 8 John John saluting tore at my heart even then. My youngest daughter shares a birthday with John JR. His death tore open the wound of losing his father and uncle.

[bdamomma]

131. I was 8 too, and I was sent home too

my mother (when she was alive) told me I was crying when I came home. That was very sad, a day that changed our country. I remember watching the funeral on TV.

[AbbyR]

87. It's one of the few days from my youth I remember vividly

We were just changing classes - I was in eighth grade and was walking up the steps to my next class when I heard someone shout "Kennedy's been shot." Then I heard another voice, even louder, asking "Kennedy who?"

Then I went to math class, where our teacher told us what had happened. We had a moment of silence, then went on with math.

A pall seemed to fall over the country, and I remember hiding in my room for days, listening to a radio, hearing the drums - I can hear them yet.

And I see John-John, in is little blue coat, saluting as his daddy went by.

We lost more than a president that day, and we continued to lose - so many of the wonderful, progressive people who were making our world better and might have continued to do so, had they been allowed: Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Paul Wellstone.

And still, I hear the drums, and the sound of the horse's hooves as he walked by. I will never forget.

[slackmaster]

88. Just shy of 5 years old, in the living room with my mom

She was ironing clothes and watching TV when it all broke loose. She ran into another room, called someone. A neighbor, another young mom came over. There was a lot of crying.

I remember the funeral very, very well.

[OhioChick]

89. I wasn't born yet.

but my parents said that everyone huddled around their televisions crying. They both said it were as if the world stood still....

[Jawja]

90. I was in 7th grade class

and the Principal came and called my teacher to the door. She turned around, shocked, and told us that President Kennedy had been shot. We went to the "multipurpose" room to watch the news on black and white TV. We got there in time to hear Chet Huntley of NBC declare that the President was dead.

Students were crying and upset. We went home after that.

My siblings and I sat with our parents in front of the TV for the next couple of days.

[Fla Dem]

91. Was 15 in band practice when someone came in to tell the

band director the President had been shot. We were practicing for the halftime show for the Thanksgiving day big football game. He told us. We were in shock. He dismissed practice. I walked home with my friends. At that point we didn't know if he had died. Found my Mom crying when I got there. Saw Cronkite announce he was dead. Our little B&W TV stayed on right through the funeral on Monday 11/25.

We had our Thanksgiving Day game,...can't remember who won or lost, but remember playing the Navy Hymn, and seeing everyone weep. Still can't hear that hymn without getting choked up and remembering.

[Cameron27]

92. I was in class,

9th grade. I remember the flag being lowered, and the shock I felt when the teacher told us what had happened. I watched Walter Cronkite wipe a tear away when he announced that JFK was dead.

It was the first time I felt so much sadness and anger over anything.

[Dulcinea]

93. "Ask not what your country can do for you....

...ask what you can do for your country."

Will we ever hear a sitting President say anything like that again, in this day & age of "I, me, mine?"

For the record, I wasn't born until 1965, but I can understand how everyone's memories are so clear of that day. I remember clearly where I was & what I was doing on the day the shuttle blew up & 9/11.

[yellowcanine]

94. Just finished taking a quiz in seventh grade science. We were grading the

quizzes (switch with your neighbor and grade each other's paper) and the announcement came over the intercom. Actually they put the news broadcast right on the intercom. I grew up in a Republican town and there was one kid in the hall actually gloating about it afterward. He was damn lucky I was a pacifist.

[LibDemAlways]

95. I was in the 6th grade. We were off that day because

it was set aside for parent/teacher conferences. My girl scout troop took the 3-day weekend opportunity to schedule a camping trip. We were on a bus that had just pulled into the campground parking lot. One of the girls noticed that the flag out front was at half staff. A ranger came onto the bus and announced that President Kennedy had been assassinated.

I lived in a predominently Republican community. No one - none of the girls or parent chaperones -became emotional or even said much about it. The camping trip proceeded as scheduled. It wasn't until I returned home that Sunday and began watching on tv that the enormity of the event hit me.

On the 20th anniversary of the assassination back in 1983 I was teaching high school. I asked the students that day what important historical event had happened on Nov. 22, 1963. No one knew. Not a one.

This morning I mentioned it to my 13-year-old just in case her Social Studies teacher asks a similar question. (Though I doubt it. The woman's a kool-aid drinker.)

[CrispyQ]

97. A worthy read:

http://www.liberalparty.org/JFKLPAcceptance.html

Dreams & contemplations of what might have been.

[bobthedrummer]

99. What a find CrispyQGirl, thanks for sharing it. n/t

[Penndems]

98. Friday Afternoon, November 22, 1963

It was a warm, sunny, Southern, late-fall day. In fact, it was balmy enough that we were taking off the coats we'd worn to school that morning.

I was in my third-grade class. My younger brother's first-grade class was three rooms down on the other side of the hallway.

We were dismissed early on this particular day, joyous in the belief that this was a precursor to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. While we obediently lined up on the playground blacktop awaiting our respective buses, holding our book bags, lunch boxes and textbooks, one of the other students (his name was Walter Coker, I'll never forget it), mentioned that he'd heard President Kennedy had been shot. We turned around, looked at Walter, and gave him a serious tongue-lashing about making sick jokes. People just didn't say things like that in 1963.

Little did we know when we got home that it was no joke.

Walter Cronkite was on the black-and-white screen of the sixteen-inch television that was perched atop one of those black metal "spider-leg" stands. "This is a Special Report from CBS News". The situation was dire: President Kennedy had been taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, CBS would keep us informed as events warranted. And then, a few moments later, "This just in . . . President Kennedy is dead."

Walter Cronkite was crying, our family was crying, the entire nation was crying. Who would commit such a horrific act against our youthful, vibrant President? Why would they want to hurt his family - and our country? What would become of us as a nation? We felt rudderless, orphaned, abandoned. Our hopes, dreams and innocence completely evaporated with Jack Kennedy's murder. Even the upcoming Christmas holiday was shrouded in dispair and mourning.

It was Lee Harvey Oswald, as we found out in the ensuing hours and days. And then, right in front of our eyes, Jack Ruby appeared from nowhere and killed Oswald. Without a trial, what Lee Oswald's motivation for gunning down the President will always remain a mystery.

Those of us who are old enough to remember JFK's assassination will never forget it. For those who weren't around or don't remember, compare it to 9/11. November 22, 1963 was every bit as devastating.

[maveric]

100. Miss Plummer's 2nd grade classroom. Salem NH.

Teacher was called out to the hallway and came back in upset, almost crying. She told us that the President had been shot and he was in a hospital. We discussed it as 8 yr olds would for about 20 minutes. Then she was called out to the hall again. This time she came in crying, and told us that the President was dead. They sent us home from school about 30 minutes later. When I got home my Ma was watching the TV, crying. I didnt even have to ask why. My dad came home from work a couple hours later with tears in his eyes.
Ma & Dad did door to door campaigning for JFK in 1960. They met him several times and told me that I actually shook his hand, although I have no recollection of that.

That was a hard day in the greater Boston area and in most of the country.
The day that changed everything.

[bobbie]

101. K&R, President Kennedy's murder was the coup that started today's regime

The very same people, in fact, are guilty.

It's essential that people know that.

[Vinca]

103. I was in 9th grade science class.

It didn't really hit me until I got home and plunked down in front of the black and white TV. I hardly moved from that spot the whole week. The memory that sticks in my mind the most is the riderless horse and the cadence of the drums. I don't know why - I saw the JFK Jr. salute, Jackie and the brothers walking in the funeral procession - yet, it still comes back to the drums.

[PCIntern]

104. Fifth Grade at a Quaker School...

My teacher, who was a former WAC, a 'crusty but benign' gal, walked into the room from the hallway and looked like she'd seen a ghost. They didn't tell us what had ahppened until the parents came to pickl us up. My Mom worked a little late on Fridays and in the Late Room, the 3rd grade teacher was quite happy with the circumstance and was rather cheery.

But the real amzing moment was to come the next day. I hd a violin lesson in Center City Philly, and we met my dad at the Horn and Hardart's on 16th Street. We wlaked up into the upper follor which was the table service and although the place was full, there was not a sound...it was like my hearing had been lost. People were just in a state fo utter shock. Many black people looked very scared...the thought of Johnson as President was of great concern. I'll never forget that silence. My parents were worried as well that this was a coup. They were right, of course.

[Brazenly Liberal]

105. I was in study hall

Someone came to the door and was whispering to the study hall teacher, who then turned to us crying. We were so shocked to see a teacher crying, we didn't process it right away when she said the President had been shot. She had to tell us again, this time barely able to choke out the words.

We all started crying, too. When we left the room, the hallway was full of students who were either openly weeping or walking as if in a daze. When I got home, my mother was staring at the TV, sobbing.

Growing up in a Catholic Democratic neighborhood in a Democratic and largely Catholic city, Kennedy loomed large for us. Our parents believed in the whole "Camelot" concept and saw life in America as a good, hopeful thing. If I were to visit any of my parents' friends or relatives today, I'd still see somewhere in their house that mass-produced portrait of Kennedy in the Oval office - the one with the eyes that follow you around the room.

If I had to pinpoint the moment my feelings about politics first began to stir, it would be the moment a teacher told me Kennedy had been killed. I was 14 years old. Three years later, another teacher showed us pictures of what was going on in Viet Nam and I became fully politicized.

[ourbluenation]

111. I was 22 days old and in an orphanage. But...

I soon made my way to two Irish immigrants who adopted me. My father particularly loved JFK, as I grew to too.

[drmom]

114. I was still in utero...

...but it my Grandparents always had a picture of JFK in the house, right next to the Catholic shrine that is apparantly a requirement for those of that generation.

[Pat Speer]

120. A new video on the assassination

Here's something I put together with a friend the other day. It explores government dishonesty and/or incompetence (it's hard to tell) regarding the head wounds. It includes footage of Dr. Michael Baden testifying before congress with his exhibit upside down!! You'll have to see it to believe it.

Here's the link to the video:
http://www.noisivision.com/JFK.htm


Here's a link to my webpage.
http://homepage.mac.com/bkohley/Menu18.html
JFK: A New Perspective (2006) Main Menu

[greatauntoftriplets]

119. I was a freshman in high school.

It happened just before my (early) lunch break and I was in my homeroom dumping books into the desk when this girl told me that she had heard that President Kennedy had been shot and that she didn't believe it. Then she asked if I believed it, and I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach. Went down to the student lounge where half the school was gathered around the television, watching.

We were dismissed for the day.

Funny, but I never liked that girl afterwards.

[conning]

121. I had gone home for lunch

between my class at Emory University and the afternoon rehearsal of the Atlanta symphony. I heard the news on the radio. When I got to the rehearsal we started playing Sibelius' Finlandia. I was so choked up I was unable to play my French horn. After a few minutes, the conductor stopped us and told us we should go home.

My apartment was in the garage behind my landlord's house. For some reason I went to that house and found that the people there were in a happy, celebratory mood. When they saw my face and reaction to them, they became more subdued.

[byronius]

122. I was three years old.. Strangely, I remember it, sort of.

My parents had reactions -- I think my father rejoiced.

Asshole that he is.

[Ron Green]

123. My high school played its football game anyway. After all, this was Texas.

I do think we dedicated the halftime show to the Dead President, though.

[kaygore]

124. November 22, 1963

It was a sunny late November afternoon. Our school was housed in an old cottage-style hotel on the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I had been working as the student aid in the school library as a middle school student at Country Day School for Girls (now the girls' division of Norfolk Academy). Several repetitions of the school bell signalled an emergency assembly but as I was the lone keeper of the library that period, I decided to stay at my post. When the end of period bell rang, I left the library and was met as I went down the stairs by a flood of sobbing girls trudging up the stairs. In answer to my, "What's wrong?," one of them said, "President Kennedy has been shot."

I don't remember much else from that day. They may have dismissed school early because the images I have of that time is of being glued to the TV. School was cancelled and we sat around our TVs, first praying for the president to live and then in disbelief as the events unfolded.

Kennedy, with all the flaws that today's media ascribe to him, was a giant. Next to him, the likes of Regan, the Bushes, Johnson, Carter, and even Clinton seem puny, almost insignificant.

Oh what a wonderful world this would be if only they had not killed him!

[ThomWV]

125. High School History Class, Wheaton, Maryland.

[paganlib]

126. I was a grade school cheerleader.......

and we were at an afternoon basketball game in a different town. The principal of the school came out in the gym and announced that the president had been shot. The bus ride back to our school was very quiet and when I got home, my parents were upset. I didn't know that he had died until I got home.

[bobthedrummer]

128. I remember the "generation gap" that was cited shortly after 11-22-63

and it isn't surprising to see something similar in this thread-it's in all recorded human history.

What is disheartening is the foolishness and ignorance displayed by some people that consider themselves politically aware on this political website-regardless of their age, and that certainly comes as another consequence of the directions and influences that quickly surfaced in our society after 11-22-63.

Fwiw below is a link to The John F. Kennedy Assassination Homepage for those that know how to research, have the patience to read, trust the critical question skills and expertise of others and really have a desire to learn.

I know my friend got the basics right 43 years ago when he told me why he was crying: "They killed President Kennedy in Dallas."

The John F. Kennedy Assassination Homepage
http://www.jfk-assassination.de/faq.php

[dailykoff]

129. Random comment: 11/22/63 was the end of the beginning

and 9/11/01 was the beginning of the end!! :mad: :mad:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

130. I've always been fascinated with the case...

The man saved the world. And then they killed him. Because he was beloved and threatened their power and strong hold on the country. I will never be convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. The CIA wanted him dead. Poppy Bush wanted him dead.
And then they killed his brother Bobby for the same reasons.
They saved the world. And then they were killed. :cry:
Duckie

[WinstonSmith4740]

138. Don't forget Martin Luther King.

Same guys, same motive. Did ya ever notice nobody ever shoots at the hard core right wingers? Reagan doesn't count, because even he wasn't as far right as these guys. Besides, they're not above killing their own to consolidate power.

Anybody ever see "The Manchurian Candidate"?

[Just-plain-Kathy]

132. Kennedy's assassination was one of my first memories...

I was four years old. My older sister use to collect President Kennedy bubble gum cards (could you imagine a president so popular they marketed bubble gum cards after him?). I remember standing on my tippy-toes trying to get them out of my sister's dresser draw. I could still picture some the of cards.

I remember being scared because we lost "the father of our country".

[WinstonSmith4740]

137. Biology class...

Sophomore year of high school. Our teacher was called out into the hall by another teacher. I didn't hear what was said, but the girl sitting across from me blanched and said, "He said someone shot Kennedy!" I replied, "Don't be silly. Who would shoot Kennedy?" (Yeah, I know. What can I say, I was 15) Then Mr. Schilling came back into the room and gave us the news that, indeed, Kennedy had been shot. A couple minutes later he went back out again, and came in to tell us he had died. Time stopped.

I'm sure someone else has mentioned this here, or in another post somewhere regarding this, but isn't it just a little weird that the only person I've ever heard of who DIDN'T know exactly where he was and what he was doing at that time is George the Elder? Was that when he headed up the CIA? Just wondering.

[Contrary1]

139. I was in the 7th grade...

The principal announced over the loud speaker that our president had been shot. The nuns were all crying. We prayed.
I was too young to understand the importance of what had just happened, but I cried too.

Now that I do understand...I cry, still.

[dweller]

140. i don't know why i read these threads, but i do read them

and end up quietly crying during them.

4th grade, we were on the playground at a small church where the 3rd & 4th grade were housed while the elementary was being expanded. We were called in early and my buddy Joey Smith pushed on a pull only door and put his hand through the glass pane. He was cut but not seriously. Shortly afterward we were sent home.
I walked home the neighborhood streets along with other kids, my 2 brothers were were in the group and i don't remember any discussions, but on arriving home and opening the door saw my mother vacumming the floor and crying. This usually meant trouble for myself or my other brothers, or all 3 of us, because she told us my dad would be home shortly. The tv was on, and we started watching it, and saw the news and sat there for the rest of the day, and for days afterward...saw the killing of Oswald, the funeral, Cronkite crying that day, all of it emblazoned on my consciousness, but never buried. It always flames again around this time, especially during these threads. So i read them.

thanks bob. drum on. We'll never forget.
dp

[G Hawes]

141. November 22, 1990

The day my brother died of a drug overdose.

That's a much more significant date to me than November 22, 1963.

Not really relevant to this thread, I admit, but there you have it, for perspective.

[Virginian]

142. Seventh grade

Edited for clarity:
I had just moved to the DC burbs that summer. I was becoming something of a politics nerd. I read the Washington Star and Post and the Daily News for anything I could find about the Kennedys. They were always throwing elegant state dinners for some visiting dignitary and there was plenty in the society pages about those events.
I had just gone to the auditorium for my sixth period music class. One of the teachers came running in saying "Turn on the TV, the president has been shot." There was only one Black and White TV in the building. The younger kids used it for TV Science classes.
I sat there until after school let out. I cried. I wanted so much for it to not be true. It was the first death I had ever experienced. I was devestated. Except for going to church, I watched the television all day and into the evening until the funeral was over.
On Sunday my step-brother asked me if I wanted to go to church with him. We came home just in time to see Oswald shot.
None of it was making any sense to me. We are in a civilized world. People don't shoot our leaders.
In the paper there was a comparison between Kennedy and Lincoln.
Kennedy's personal secretary was Evelyn Lincoln.
Lincoln't personal secretary was named Kennedy.
Lincoln was shot in Ford's theatre.
Kennedy was shot while riding in a Ford.
Both of them had a VP named Johnson who became president.
Both of them lost a child while living in the White House.
Lincoln elected in 1860, Kennedy 1960.
There was more but I don't remember it right now.

Then they mentioned the 20 year curse. Every President from William Henry Harrison to JFK who had been elected in a year ending in a zero had died in office.

I guess Reagan called off the curse when he survived his Henkley event.

[Moderator]

144. locking.....

This is flamebait.