November 22, 1963

[Jersey Devil]

I was in Play Production class at Bergenfield (NJ) High School and for some reason, as class begun, in the stage/auditorium, the teacher was not in the room. The kids were pretty well behaved and about 10 minutes into the class we got a bit anxious as we saw teachers running about the hallways just outside the room, whispering to each other and some crying, some yelling things that were unintelligible.

About 20 minutes into the class our teacher finally arrived. He went up on the stage and said something like this: "President Kennedy has been assassinated. Vice President Johnson may also have been killed."

We looked at each other, really not knowing how to react and then an exchange student, a girl from Norway, loudly gasped and clasped her hands to her mouth. At that moment I realized that not only was this an American tragedy but also a tragedy for the entire world.

I don't know how to explain what happened for the rest of that school day. For some reason I think of that as my last class though I don't think it was. I think we daydreamed and went numb through the rest of the day until school was dismissed at 2:34 pm.

That's when it really hit me. I went to the locker room, as was my custom as a member of the football team and all the other players and coaches were there. No one said much and everyone got dressed and went out to the field for practice. We went through opening calisthenics and still no one spoke, just the coaches who said they assumed we'd still play our game that coming Saturday. Then we moved to the playing field to practice plays from scrimmage for the upcoming game and I just couldn't. I was crying and playing football at the same time and the absurdity of what I was doing hit me like a brick wall.

I just took off my helmet and started walking off the field, the first one to do it as I recall, going slowly toward the field house and locker room. The coaches said nothing except for one assistant coach, who, as I passed him, looked at me and said, "It's hard for us to know what to do. We figure the best thing to do is to try to be as normal as possible. But don't worry about leaving. You might be right. It might be what we should be doing."

So I went home, a short walk from the school since I lived on the next street. And then I started watching the TV and began to digest the awful enormity of what had happened. I couldn't sleep and I remember driving around town aimlessly and listening on the radio to the the dirge music (without commercials) that every radio station was playing, in between news reports, until I was exhausted and finally got some sleep. My Dad woke me up the morning Oswald was to be moved from jail saying, "They are moving Oswald, get up", so I did, and with sleepy eyes I watched on live TV as Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby.

There was no game Saturday, it was cancelled and never played.

God I hate this day and every November 22 when I must relive it.

[ChazII]

1. I was in kindergarten.

[Jersey Devil]

3. My tribute

A musical tribute:Abraham, Martin & John by Dion

[liberal N proud]

2. Might I suggest a view of this thread from earlier this week

John F Kennedy's Bodyguards Ordered Off Of His Car

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=6514

[man4allcats]

4. I was a H.S. sophomore at the time.

I remember all of it as if it were yesterday, but more than anything I remember:

"I think we daydreamed and went numb through the rest of the day until school was dismissed..."

That is exactly the way it was.

Thanks for posting.

[Gloria]

5. 8th grade--Rutherford (NJ) Jr. High School...passing in the halls,

news started to filter through...until we got to the next class (in my case, Social Studies with Mrs. Blakey) and found out....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I was in eighth grade math class

We had two lunch periods in my junior high school, and I had first lunch followed by math.

A few minutes into class, the geography teacher, who had second lunch and who had been listening to the radio in the teachers' lounge, came into the room and said, "Kennedy has been shot!"

Of course, we were all shocked and silent. In a minute or two, the radio came on over the school intercom. The bulletins were contradictory and confusing. Some said Johnson had been shot, too, but others said, no, it was Governor Connolly. Two Catholic priests were seen entering Parkland Hospital, and when they came out, reporters asked them how the president was, and they shook their heads. Finally, the official announcement was made that Kennedy had died. Many of the other students burst into tears. I was just numb. I couoldn't imagine anything like this happening in the country that nothing bad ever happened to (at least that was the way I saw it then).

A few minutes later, the principal came on the intercom and told us that we would be going home as soon as the school buses could be summoned, so we were just to stay in our classrooms until further notice.

I lived close enough to school to walk home, and when I came in the back door and asked my mother if she had heard that Kennedy had been shot, she said that the older of my two brothers, home sick with the flu, had been watching TV when the announcement came on and had yelled the news to her.

The whole weekend there was nothing on TV but coverage of the assassination and the funeral. I still remember world leaders such as DeGaulle and Hailie Selassie marching in the procession, and the skittish riderless horse being led behind the catafalque. Of course, I remember Jackie with John Jr. and Caroline, both children quiet and solemn. I also remember the funeral service and thinking that Cardinal Spelman sounded like W.C. Fields.

I didn't see Oswald get shot on live TV--although my brother did, because he was still sick--because we were all in church on Sunday morning.

I think we baby boomers and older people remember this weekend so vividly because it marked the beginning of the time when everything changed. We talk about "the sixties," but in fact, the time until about 1964 felt like a continuation of the 1950s. The assassination didn't cause the upheavals of the 1960s, of course, but it was the first in a series of events that challenged everyone's preconceptions of how American society works. 1964, for example, saw the arrival of the Beatles, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, and race riots in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the announcement of the War on Poverty. The roller coaster ride began.

[Crabby Appleton]

12. I was in 8th grade - drafting class

I completely agree with your last paragraph.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Crabby Appleton, huh?

Yes, you're definitely a boomer. :-)

[jus_the_facts]

7. The Military Industrial Complex....Jim Garrison had it nailed....

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/jus_the_facts/64

[Riddler]

8. 10th Grade Biology Class....

when the principal came on the intercom and interrupted classes for a special announcement. He then played the NBC radio broadcast over the loudspeakers and we all just sat there in stunned silence. When the bell rang at the end of the day, everybody looked like zombies just walking around to the busses and parking lots like they were in a trance. No one really spoke to anybody, we just all wanted to get home as soon as we could. The next 3 days leading up to LHO getting killed on national TV were unreal. It may have just happened yesterday for as real as it still seems.

[jus_the_facts]

11. Eerily like 9/11 in hindsight isn't it.....

The Official Legend is created and
the media takes it from there. The
glitter of official lies and the
epic splendor of the thought-numbing
funeral of J.F.K. confuse the eye
and confound the understanding.
Hitler always said "the bigger the
lie, the more people will believe
it."

Huey Long once said. "in the name of anti-fascism" - it will
come in the name of your security -
they call it "National Security," it
will come with the mass media
manipulating a clever concentration
camp of the mind. The super state
will provide you tranquility above
the truth, the super state will make
you believe you are living in the
best of all possible worlds, and in
order to do so will rewrite history
as it sees fit.

George Orwell's Ministry of Truth warned us, "Who
controls the past, controls the
future."

"STUDY THE PAST"

"PAST IS PROLOGUE"

"ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY"

DEDICATED TO THE YOUNG, IN WHOSE SPIRIT THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
MARCHES ON.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/jus_the_facts/64

[Rageneau]

9. I was a HS senior. The next day was supposed to be our homecoming.

Sort of put a damper on things.

[murielm99]

10. I was a sophomore in high school,

in typing class. Those old typewriters made a lot of noise, so we did not hear the intercom at first. One of the kids in the front of the class had to tell the teacher it was binging, the way it did before anyone began to speak.

The principal told us the President had been shot. He said he would keep us informed as there was more news. We were all halfway listening for the intercom again, so not many people were typing. The teacher did not care.

Soon, the principal came back on the intercom. He played the radio over the intercom, so the entire school could hear it.

The meanest kid in the whole school sat in front of me. His name was Bruce. When the announcer said that Kennedy had been shot in the head, Bruce put his head down on his typewriter and cried. I will never forget it.

When the bell rang, I had to go a short distance down the hall to Geometry. There was no talking. I could hear lockers closing, and footsteps in the hallway, but nothing else.

The geometry teacher did not teach that day. He talked a bit about what Kennedy had stood for, and about how people always tried to kill ideas by killing the people who expressed them. It never worked.

We were dismissed early. I went to see my Latin teacher, because I had to make up a test. She told me to go home. When I got there, my Dad was crying.

I will never forget that day. I can still see and hear and smell everything about it.

I was in church that Sunday, too. My church was very overflowing with people that day. They replayed Oswald's death so many times on the TV that it did not matter that some of us had not seen it live.

Remember the flags at half-mast for a month? The flag in our gym had a black border around it. I can still see it.

I did not believe one thing that they told us about the assassination. The Warren Commission Report was such a lie that a fifteen year old like me could see through it. I seem to remember some newsmen expressing open skepticism about it, too.

I can remember the other assassinations. I remember where I was, and what was happening. But nothing hit me as hard as JFK. We lost more than a President that day.

[Doctor_J]

13. 2nd grade. The pricipal came on the intercom and told us

Who could have predicted at the time that it would be the beginning of the end for the American Experiment?