I am 64

[TNNurse]

Therefore, I was 14 when Kennedy was murdered. I always thought that assassination did not sound bad enough. I knew all about death. My father had died a few years before and father figures were important to me. A Democratic, charismatic President represented a better future to me. That of course all changed. I saw Oswald killed live on TV, I grieved with his children.

I cannot watch the coverage. I have read some articles, but I cannot watch. It is too much for me. You would think that 50 years would make a difference, but I find that it has not.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. ...

[Mr.Bill]

2. I'm 60, and I see things like you do.

The most disturbing thing is listening to some of the ignorance from young people who have been exposed to so many nonsensical conspiracy theories in their lifetimes.

[PDJane]

3. It doesn't go away, I find. I'm the same age as you.

I also remember Texans speaking about how they felt it was a good thing....that he was a 'socialist' and how bad that was.

It still leaves me heart sore.

[WillyT]

4. I Just had A Birthday... (Nov. 9th)... And Am Now 58...

I walked home from the the 3rd Grade at Alice Birney Elelmetary School... for lunch...

Only to find my mom sobbing uncontrollably on the couch.

Did NOT go back to class... watched TV for the next four days.

[sarge43]

5. I'm 70.

That time is still with me. You can move on, but some things stay right with you always.

[texanwitch]

6. I remember President Kennedy running for office, I was 6 going on 7 years old.

I remember watching him on tv.

He was my first president that I remembered, like many of us here.

I had just turned 10 years old when he died.

I remember those awful sad days watching his funeral in b/w.

Younger people may not get it, some do.

It is like Pearl Harbor was bombed, most of us were not born yet.

Just talk to someone who remembers December 7th, 1941.

I remember going to downtown Houston to see President Kennedy before he was killed.

I saw him in person at the Rice Hotel downtown.

It is a personal thing.

Something changed in the US after that.

The Vietnam War started for real after that.

We watched it every night on tv.

[Thinkingabout]

7. The assassination occurred one day after my 16th birthday, I was in algebra class and a great hush

Went over the class, I guess we was trying to understand what this really meant. We spent the next several days watching TV over the Thanksgiving Holidays, talking with friends and how horrible this was. It was a sinking feeling and to watch as John-John saluted his father's casket, so very young and Caroline near her mother's side.

[Hoyt]

8. My dad was not a Kennedy fan, but he was in shock, like most, for several days.

I remember seeing Oswald shot in real time, the Kennedy children, the funeral, etc., like it was lasr week.

Really not interested in seeing it anymore.

[rurallib]

9. I am also 64. Raised Catholic. My father the same age as Kennedy

Never knew for sure what party my Dad was but he love Eisenhower for winning the War and he loved Kennedy who I think he viewed as a brother he never had (he was an orphan).

I have some vivid memories of that weekend. But I had forgotten about my Dad. He didn't really grieve - he sort of went numb. He drank a lot that weekend, but then he was a heavy drinker.

[dflprincess]

13. I'm 60, not just raised Catholic, but IrishCatholicDemocrat (one word as Tip O'Neill said)

he was one of "us". -- Or so we liked to think.

My dad liked that he was also a Pacific veteran and he trusted a combat vet to help keep us out of more wars. I remember asking him if he had met the president during the war (this was before JFK died so I was only 8 or 9) and was disappointed to hear he had not. Dad's excuse for not meeting him was "He was Navy, I was Air Corps."

Thanksgiving at my grandmother's that year turned into an Irish wake. I think Grandma was the only adult who was sober by the time dinner was ready and she was not happy. None of the family were teetotalers but I had never seen my parents and aunts and uncles behave like that before.

How can I possibly be old enough to remember something that happened a half century ago like it was yesterday?

[Mostly Orbiting]

10. Yeah

I get where you're coming from. But I'm still naive enough to think there's a ghost of a chance that I'll know the truth about that day before I die.

[texanwitch]

12. That won't happen until those of us who remember die off.

I was 10 when he died.

Once we are gone who will care.

The killing of President Kennedy will just be history after that.

[LiberalElite]

11. I understand -

I'm 63 and hadn't realized this is the 50th anniversary of the assassination - I wondered "why all this Kennedy stuff?" But now that I've looked at some articles and photos of that day, it's all coming back and I feel very sad.

[scarletwoman]

14. I'm 64, too. And I just can't deal with re-livng that trauma for the 50th time.

It just seems like it's gotten MORE painful as the years have gone by, not less.

[tavalon]

15. I was barely born

3 months old. I don't remember it. But I know it didn't happen the way they say it happened. Not possible.

[Lugnut]

16. I'm 68 and I was 18 on Nov 22, 1963.

When JFK was running for President in 1960 he campaigned in my town. Most of the local high school girls were recruited to be "Kennedy Girls" for his campaign stop and I was one of them. I saw him speak that day and I'll never forget it. I will also never forget Nov 22, 1963 and the following week. The grief never leaves.

[Hekate]

17. Hubs and I are 66; watched the PBS programs. He said: "I forgot how much we cared." And we did.

We had no idea how sick the man was, how much pain he lived with from boyhood on. JFK was driven -- the Addison's was a death sentence, and he was first given a year to live. After whatever new treatments there were, he told his family he figured he'd get 10 years. He knew he wouldn't live to be old.

JFK made us really care; he inspired a generation. In high school I sent away for the Peace Corp packet; so did my husband. Neither of us applied, but the idea of service was planted.

His death was an enormous psychic blow -- then there was another, and another -- and the seeds of mistrust in our own government that had been planted after JFK's assassination grew and put forth their poisonous thorns.

We have to remember that his legacy was more than that. Even though he died with so much potential unfulfilled, we could feel there was greatness there...

[Le Taz Hot]

18. I don't have a TV service so I'm spared

the coverage and I'm glad.

I was in the Third Grade on the West Coast. There was an announcement over the school's loudspeaker that the President had been shot. My teacher's face went ashen. A while later, the announcement came that the President was dead. They dismissed school and we all went home. I couldn't keep my eyes off the TV the next few days. Then, when John-John saluted, everyone fell apart.

As bad as John Kennedy's assassination was, it was Bobby's that tore my guts out. I was a VERY politically active almost-13-year-old and it happened 20 minutes from where I was. To this day I can't watch anything about Bobby without breaking down and sobbing uncontrollably. What a different world this would have been if both had lived.

[bemildred]

19. That's when I first realized what sort of country I live in. nt

[WinkyDink]

20. Just turned 64 myself, and ITA with you. It amazes me that TV and schools think nothing of showing

a man, let alone the President of the United States, getting his head blown off, as if it were some dramatic reproduction.

And yes, I've had to sit through such school assemblies.