November 22,1963...Where were you?

[rasputin1952]

I was in school; when we heard the news, a TV on a tall stand was rolled into he classroom, and we waited in silence, listening to the reports while waiting for parent to come and pick-up the kids.

I was in Flushing NY waiting for a bus to take my brother and I home, and for the first, and only time I can remember, NYC was silent. Everyone knew what had happened, there was not a peep on the City bus, just the drone of the engine and citizens staring out into the afternoon, numb tears welling in their eyes. Cars were virtually non-existent on the streets...everyone was somewhere where they could get the latest news.

Glued to the TV at home, I watched the entire scenario unfold...Parkside Hospital, Oswald's capture, the "Press Conference" where Oswald looked like he finally realized the implication when told he was charged w/the assassination...and finally, his murder on national TV. The days became a blur, time had little meaning.

The horse drawn caisson w/the Flag draped coffin, the Horse with no rider....JFK Jr stepping out... and that heart-rendering salute...

42 years ago, on this date; the nation came under a cloud that has never been lifted. I can feel that day as if it were yesterday....the hopes, the dreams, the future of the nation... was taken from this great land, in Dealy Plaza.

[Deja Q]

1. I was a little egg inside of mommy's ovary. About 1/4 the size of this> .

Sad, but true.

Now I could have been be a sperm, but they only live for something like 6 days...

Didn't somebody post this before? Or is it deja vu that I'm referring to a time before I was even conceived? :shrug:

[EFerrari]

40. On the girl's playground with other secondgraders, talking about

career paths. Our Lady of Mercy School in a burb of San Francisco. I wanted to be an opera singer or a nun.




:shrug:

[Road Scholar]

92. We were married in the spring of that year. I was still in school. It

was scary, sad,traumatic. Kinda like 9/11. The unthinkable had happened.
It was like a death in the family. Grown men cried. Innocence had ended.

[EFerrari]

99. Yes. All of those things.

And yet, the country hung in there for five more years, through the murders of so many dedicated leaders. It took a lot to beat us down.

And look, we aren't down yet. A mounting peace movement, a mounting call for accountability, a media in shambles because called to account, a corporatist president disabled.

Here's looking at you, kid. :toast:

[Road Scholar]

109. Yep. Here against all odds.

:toast: And still kickin'.

[leftchick]

142. I was in Kindergarten at Our Lady of Lourdes School upstate NY

I remember the announcement on the loud speaker "President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas", nuns crying and going home early.

It was very spooky and strange for me as a five year old. I remember the funeral and the horses and John John on tv. :cry:

[Roland99]

41. I wasn't even that far along. I was but a mere gleam in my father's eye.

;)

[SammyBlue]

98. Same here. . .I wasn't even a sperm cell in father's nuts yet

And I was an egg 17 years in waiting to be fertilized.

[Wcross]

2. I had a loaded diaper and was crying.....

5 months and 9 days old at the time.

[NewWaveChick1981]

10. Me too, but...

I was 6 months and 20 days old at the time.

[Wcross]

21. You old fart! ;)....... n/t

[NewWaveChick1981]

60. Yeah, back at ya!!! LOL

[Howardx]

33. a month and a week here

mom was so upset the breast milk dried up!

[Rainbowreflect]

45. I was 4 mos & 3 weeks old.

[Wcross]

121. Your just a young wipper-snapper compared to me! n/t

[halobeam]

67. 5 months and 19 days old then......

wowza... pretty close there, ey?

[Wcross]

120. Your so OLD! 10 days older than I am. Ha-ha! n/t

[suziedemocrat]

123. I was 5 months, 2 days old. Sun in late Gemini.

[amitten]

3. I wasn't born yet.

I'm glad for that.

[Nordmadr]

4. 10 years pre-fertilization. My mother turned 8 that day. N/T

[halobeam]

68. Now I feel OLD....holy macaroni!

[Nordmadr]

70. My mom was young when she had me. I'm 32 now. Today is her

50th birthday.

Olaf

[halobeam]

168. You are sweet to answer me, in my pity moment of my aging

so quickly... but, now knowing that you are 32, I would have had to be eleven to have had you... therefore you did good!... I physically couldn't be your Mom.

I will add that to my "What to be thankful for list today"....

I am thankful, I am not old enough to have a 32 year old child. LOL......

What CRAZY things mid-life has people grab onto.... yes, we get nuttier with age!

[jackster]

5. I was in the 2nd grade....

my teacher came in from the teacher's lounge at lunch crying and told us that the president had been shot. I don't remember what happened after that until I got off the bus a couple of hours later.... My mom was at the front door crying saying the President was dead.

I hardly moved from in front of the television - my mother even let me have my meals there. I remember the horror so well....

[acmejack]

6. Naha, Okinawa!

My mother woke me up and told me, it was early in the morning there. My father had called her from work and told her. I was a fifth grader. We only had the Armed Forces coverage, which was the Stars and Stripes newspaper and Walter Cronkite was the TV news.

[RaleighNCDUer]

38. I was also a brat, on the other side of the world.

4th grade, in Germany. It was early evening, IIRC, around 6:30pm. We were at the Fall Carnival at my school. I was at the Fishing Pool when the announcement came over the loudspeaker.

The carnival shut down in minutes. The base went on alert. I remember my dad discussing how long it would take for Soviet tanks to reach Bremerhaven.

[dooner]

156. Me too, in the UK

I was at my English Grandmother's house waiting to watch Bonanza. I was upset the show was interrupted by the news, and I didn't understand the big deal. My grandmother seemed a bit upset, but didn't say much. When I went home in the morning my parents had red eyes, and were listening to the radio. They were very upset and I suddenly realized that the news affected me and my family because we were American. It was a new realization because both of my parents were born in the UK, but my Dad had joined the USAF and now we were stationed back in the UK. I hadn't thought of myself as particularly American, but now I understood I was.

[SteppingRazor]

7. Still more than a decade away from entering this world...

might as well ask me where I was when Germany surrendered, or when Pearl Harbor was bombed, or when they blew up the Maine :shrug:

[Craig3410]

8. Not born yet;

heck; my mother was 3 mos. old at that time.

[kstewart33]

9. I was in a 5th grade classroom in Huntsville, Alabama

When the news was announced over the intercom, I was stunned. Some kids laughed. It was a very gray, overcast day. When I got home, the babysitter, who was black, sat there crying. It was all terribly sad.

I was young, but old enough to know that what happened was catastrophic. We all sat in front of the TV for the next few days, watching everything on an old, small black-and-white.

[bballny]

24. Black people loved

John. He was the first President who really stood up for them. Whether it was sending in troops or uttering the famous line of who would trade places with a black man they felt someone cared. Look at the lines to the rotunda and how many black people are in line. It is amazing.

[BR_Parkway]

11. I was born exactly 9 months and 3 days later, I'm thinking I was

probably concieved when my parents were consoling each other over the loss of a great leader.

[rodriguez94]

85. me too...9mths and 1 day later...amazing ... eom

[azmouse]

12. I was only 2 yrs old

and probably one of my older brothers was doing something to make me cry.... they seemed to really enjoy that when we were kids.

[FreedomAngel82]

13. I wasn't even thought of yet

My mother was just a little girl eating Thanksgiving dinner and watching the parade.

[Skidmore]

14. In my fourth grade classroom in west central Illinois.

It was my ninth birthday and I was distributing treats to my class.
A teacher came to the door and was in tears. She told our teacher "The President has been shot." The entire school assembled in the upstairs hall (a rural school, we had no auditorium) and we waited and waited, watching the principal listen to the radio in his office. I recall mostly how hushed it was.

[sinkingfeeling]

15. I was in geometry class as a sophomore in high school.

[Rick Myers]

16. 1st grade, Mrs. Summers class

An announcement on the PA said the President had been shot and we were all sent home. I remember the entire weekend, it was very creepy for a little kid, but it probably started my interest in politics and government.

[bleedingheart]

17. My mom remembers how the streets were empty

people were glued to their TV's in shock.

A neighbor told my mother she cried more for Jack Kennedy then she did when she got the news that her son had been killed in WWII....that is how much it affected people....he represented something more than just the nation...he represented hope.

I wasn't born until a year after his brother Bobby died.

[VOX]

18. 2nd year French class in HS; first bulletin came: "President shot."

The kids in class had the usual mix of reactions -- gasps, some really bad jokes, etc. On the heels of the first bulletin came the second: "The president is dead." The teacher, an older woman, had trouble reading the bulletin as she fought back tears. I remember the girl sitting in front of me just breaking down altogether.

I really cannot recall the remaining details of the day -- it was one melange of horror, shock, confusion, anger.

My mom had been out running errands, and just by chance, she didn't hear the news until much later in the afternoon.

We picked my dad up at the airport that night -- of all places, he'd been in Dallas that day on business. He brought copies of the 11/22/63 Dallas Times-Herald for my brother and me. I still have mine. We sat in an empty coffee shot near the airport; nobody said much of anything.

There was a pall over the rest of 1963, and early '64 as well. Nothing ever seemed completely on balance after that horrible afternoon.

[bballny]

19. Like you

I was at school. Our principal told us and we were in shock. I agree with you the nation lost it's innocence that day and we have never recovered. Some think Reagan reinvigorated our will but what we have today is directly related to his actions. He let the nut jobs and racism back into the mainstream.

[Arkansas Granny]

20. High school English class. A call came over the P.A. system

for all teachers to come to the office. Our teacher, a Texas native, came back to class with tears in his eyes to announce that the President had been killed in Dallas. School dismissed, everyone glued to the TV for days.

[AZBlue]

22. Two and a half years shy of being born.

[Burried News]

23. 59th St subway station at rush hour. A thousand or more passengers

were on the platform. Not a word was spoken - not a word - people just looked at the headlines on some of the newspapers that others were reading. Absolutely somber. A piece of me died that day. Never Forgive Never Forget.

[El Supremo]

25. I was in Dallas

7th grade math class. One student in my class had said, "wouldn't it be neat if Kennedy was shot while here?" The teacher came back into the classroom later and said dejectedly, "Doug, you got your wish."

[Hippo_Tron]

139. Holy shit that is freaky

[sandnsea]

26. On my way to mass

With the rest of my first grade class when women came screaming out of their house that the President had been shot and to pray for him. Very very scary.

[zanne]

27. I was playing jumprope with my friends in the schoolyard...

A nun walked up to us with tears in her eyes and told us to get back inside the building. When we were all gathered inside, we were told that the president had been killed. I remember walking home from school that day with my joined-at-the-hip friends and not one of us said a word.

[Soloflecks]

28. I was in 9th grade world history class.

It was near the end of class and there was announcement over loudspeaker. When I walked out of that classroom there was total bedlam in the halls, and I saw my French teacher running to the ladies room with tears in her eyes. It was surreal.

[Midnight Rambler]

29. Seeing as how my mom was 7 and my dad was 5...

I wasn't anywhere. I wasn't even a sperm.

[MuseRider]

30. 5th grade.

I told this story last year I think but it is a bit odd so here goes.

We were sitting in groups of 4 desks, each facing another student. Our teacher came in and she was in tears as she told us that the president had been shot. A TV was brought into the classroom. We were all silent as she passed out paper and told us all to draw pictures. I don't remember what I drew or what the others drew except for the kid directly across from me. The infamous Fred Phelps Jr. drew a picture of Kennedy with blood shooting out of one side of his head. Now we all knew they were a very odd family but this cemented my life long belief that they were also crazy and mean. Now we know. Runs in the family I guess.

I spent all the next days like the rest of you. Watching all those sad things and feeling a tremendous sense of loss that I could not really explain. I was 9, just short of 10 but I knew it was more than it seemed.

[ronnykmarshall]

36. You went to school with Freddie Phelps' brat?

You poor thing.

Sounds like he was a pig then like his father is now.

[MuseRider]

39. Yup, my one

and only claim to fame. Sad isn't it? Knew them all :puke:

[ronnykmarshall]

31. I was only 2 years old.

But my mom said we had dropped my grandmother off at the beauty parlor (at Brock's Department Store) and we were driving to see my grandfather at his service station when the news over the radio.

[ProfessorGAC]

32. Home Sick From School

My mom was talking on the phone with her best friend and i was in the little spare bedroom with a 17" b&w TV. She was watching "As The World Turns", and they broke in with the news bulletin.

She asked me "What did they just say?" and i told her "They said the president's been shot!" She said bye to her friend, hung up the phone and came in the room. We watched it from that point on.
The Professor

[patdem]

34. I was 13 years old and in reform school in VA when he was killed...

back then you could be put in reform school if you ran away from home and your parents claimed you were 'incorrigable'..I recall the next Sunday was visiting Sunday and we were at some monument in Richmond when it was announced that Oswald was killed.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

35. I was eating lunch at my high school

I was in seventh grade, and couldn't believe the reports, which the secretaries in the office heard on the radio. Word spread through the halls, and we students all wound up standing near the office door, hoping it was a hoax. The bell rang, and I went to math class, where algebra took a back seat to what was happening. One Catholic girl started yelling at the rest of us, saying he was killed because of his faith; the teacher suggested that we look at the location-could Goldwater have decided this was the way to win the election? The idea was so ludicrous we all laughed, and that broke the tension. The principal came by soon after, and told us the sad news. We were dismissed from school-and it was pouring down rain. I walked to the elementary school where my mother taught, not putting on a rain hat or even buttoning my coat. To me, the whole world was crying with me.

Mom was shocked when I got to her second grade classroom. They hadn't been told. I remember sitting in the classroom as she went to the office, and smiling at the students so as not to upset them. They were African American, and I know that JFK was a hero to many.

The rain continued. I stayed with my mom as her school ended, and then we went to do laundry. The wind whipped up, nearly busting the windows of the laundromat-to me it was the elements raging against the injustice of it all.....

[BOSSHOG]

37. St Columba Catholic School, Lehigh Avenue, Philadelphia

Sister came in the classroom Friday afternoon and told us to put our heads down on the desk and pray for the President.

[EFerrari]

43. We did that for what seemed like hours, too, but standing

by our desks. All the sisters were crying.

[BOSSHOG]

51. Happy Anniversary

I checked your profile, you've been at DU one year! I think a bottle of Champagne is in order.

[EFerrari]

53. Thanks. What a year, too! Hey it must be noon somewhere.

:)

[jeanarrett]

106. I just realized I have been here one year too,

yesterday.

[EFerrari]

128. Thank you for being here.

Didn't this year defy time? Or was that just me?

Thank you, Jean

:toast:

[MrMonk]

42. Third grade

The principal walked through the halls, stopping in each classroom to break the news. I remember the teacher weeping, then a number of the children started to weep, too. Of course, children being people, a few attempted to distract us by claiming special sensitivy, knowledge, wisdom, regarding the event. I was confused and agitated, and wanted to shout that everyone should shut up, that we should get back to reading about the Pilgrims and then everything would be OK. Then I heard one of the teachers in hall say "This is the best thing that could happen to this country." There was something in the way she said it, a sort of petulant "so there", as if she had been vindicated after long years of suffering. It scared me, and I felt frightened by that woman for some years afterward.

[KarenS]

44. San Rafael, Ca,,,,, 9th grade,,,,, 1 period gym class,,,,

we were out in the field, running,,,,

we could hear there was an announcement on the PA system but could not hear what it said,,,,

2 period they announced that he had died. The buses came & we went home.

It seems so long ago now,,,, but I do believe that was the end of America's innocence.

[Hand]

46. High school Physics class in New York

Happened to be the same classroom from which I'd watched JFK drive down First Avenue a few months before. The teacher was this strange, severely repressed little Irishman who knew but didn't even mention that it had happened--another student ran in and told us.

While everyone tried to absorb the news, the teacher started urging us to get back to our classwork and not worry about it--very strange man. He wasn't back the year after.

I most remember, though, that Adlai Stevenson had been assaulted by insane right-wing demonstrators when he had been in Dallas a couple of months before. When Kennedy announced that he was going down to Dallas, I had a terrible feeling that he was taking a huge risk... wish I'd been wrong. I was thirteen at the time, and the world was never, never the same after that. The demons had been unleashed upon the world.

[TexasProgresive]

47. In my 8th grade parochial class room

we were praying the rosary when we got the news that the president had been shot. Classes were suspended and most students drifted to the church. Later we were told that our President had died. Their was silence broken only by the soft sobs of some of the girls and the tolling of the church bells echoing through the downtown streets of Houston.

Riding home on the public bus was odd, no one spoke, everyone had their eyes cast down, black, white or brown. We were one people bound together in sorrow.

[hippiegranny]

48. I was a first grader in Lancaster PA

I don't remember the announcement in school, but I do remember sitting on the steps to the back door, after school, crying because I could hear all the adults in the house crying. I knew something really terrible happened but I didn't understand what.

[Jersey Devil]

49. The drumming as the funeral cortege went through Washington to Arlington

I was in my high school Play Production class and there was no teacher in the room. I saw teachers scurrying about the hallways and finally our teacher came in and told us President Kennedy had been shot. A few minutes later we were told he was dead. There really was no reaction except for a foreign exhange student from Denmark who gasped loudly. The rest of us looked on in stunned silence.

But the reality of it all did not set in for me until the funeral. Up until that time it had been a very bad surrealistic dream.

But the rum tum tum, rum tum ta tum, over and over and over again, followed by Handel's Funeral March and the riderless horsemen made it suddenly very real.

And the salute by Johnjohn wet every eye in America.

[warrior1]

50. Northcrest elementary school

outside Waco, Tx.

[MarsThe Cat]

52. i was 2.75 years old.

i have no recollection.

[MamaBear]

54. In an 8th Grade Social Studies Class

I remember one of the male teachers crashing through the door and annouhcing in a loud voice "The President's been shot."

I was 13 years old.

I remember a pretty little pastel girl -- yellow hair, pink cheeks, blue eyes -- sitting in the front row, those blue eyes all saucered, saying, "Oh my God they killed Danny F______!!!" (He was our class president.)

I remember staring at her is puzzled disbelief. I had assumed, based on the strong, visceral reaction of the adults, that he had meant the President of the United States. In a moment, the principal came on the PA and the matter was clear.

They sent us home. In the halls, the teachers were in little knots in the hallway. Some of them were crying.

Our little black and white tv stayed on for four days. We watched Oswald being murdered right before our eyes.

During the funeral was the first time I ever saw my father cry. And he had neither liked nor supported JFK. (He didn't abandon the republicans entirely until Reagan destroyed the flight controllers union).

I think it was the night of the shooting that Brian Wilson and Mike Love got together and wrote "The Warmth of the Sun." I think I'll listen to it when I get home.

[Armstead]

55. 6th Grade Class

OUr teacher interrupted the usual day and started by saying "There are some bad people in the world..."

They closed school early and sent us home. I remembr my family being glued to the TV all weekend. We were in Massachusetts, so it was a douible blow to lose the state's favorite son and a president at the same time.

A few years ago one of the cable networks actually reran the covertage from NBC in "real time" for a couple of days, so it was a chance to see the events unfold as we watched them back then. It was eerie, because watching it made all the years between melt away.

[Writer]

56. I was an ideological construct...

a sort of hope on the horizon... a future result of sperm and egg... 12 years later, that is. ;)

[maveric]

57. Miss Plummer's 2nd grade class. Salem NH.

My teacher was called out to the hallway for a few minutes when she returned with tears in her eyes. She then announced to the class that the president had been shot. We discussed this for a while and Mis Plummer took questions. I remember asking if Kruschev did it and my teacher smiled and said "No, I dont think that he did it". A while later the teacher was called out to the hall again. When she returned again she was sobbing, ans announced to the class that President Kennedy was dead.
School was dismissed early. Salem NH is a Boston suburb and JFK was loved there.
I remember getting home from school where my Mom was crying, watching TV reports. People were calling and everyone was crying. When my Dad came home he was crying too.
We spent the next 4 days glued to the TV watching the reports, funeral and the assasination of Oswald.
I remember it like it was yesterday.

[Loge23]

58. 4th grade, parochial school

I remember a nun kind of running in the classroom and whispering to our classroom nun. They ran out and soon reappeared with the TV on the stand. Lots of tears from the nuns. They were really sweet and caring that day. They knew we were totalled.
The class was just shocked. We were 10 year old kids. I guess the over-riding emotion from us was fear.
That weekend was the longest ever. The TV images were surreal - to this day. I had the biggest crush on Caroline back then (OK maybe a little still!).
I felt so bad for them. I always wondered how I would react if I had met John Jr. or Caroline (I lived & worked in NYC for a long time). Probably just cry.

[brook]

59. On 81st St.

headed toward a shoe store on 3rd. Rushed back to our apartment and called ABC where my husband worked, then went down to my daughter's grade school near the Campbell Funeral Home on Madison to walk her home. They had already lowered the flag. I heard children arguing about whether the President was really dead or not.

It was a further shock when I recognized Ruby from my days in Dallas.

We took the children to the Met Museum the next day and ran into a friend from Texas. I remember walking him back to his hotel - about 30 blocks - and the quiet followed us.

[MrBenchley]

61. 7th grade parochial school....

It hit everybody hard that day....

[Bombero1956]

63. I was in Puerto Rico

my parents had separated and my Dad being the control freak he was packed my brothers and I off to his parents house on the island, I remember that it was like living in a third world country. I remember the radio announcer for the local station was crying his eyes out on the air. Because we were the only ones in the area with a TV we became the place where all the people in the barrio came to watch the services in Washington. On edit, I was 7 years old at the time.

[MrBenchley]

66. I remember adults openly weeping...

[suston96]

62. Where I was......

I was in the Air Force stationed at Otis AFB, on Cape Cod. Yeah, THAT Otis AFB - where Air Force One used to fly in on week-ends and then JFK would heliocopter or drive to Hyannisport.

I had a part time job at the Cape Cod Standard Times (now the Cape Cod Times) in Hyannis and I worked as a bundle wrapper using a wire bundling machine.

The paper started its presses around noontime or a little later, for its afternoon edition (it is a morning paper now) but then stopped as if there was a malfunction, which happened now and then.

But the press was fine, as our supervisor came in and told us that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas and the edition was on hold.

A black guy, buddy of mine working in the same mail room on a similar machine, a Korean War combat veteran, shrilled out: Yay! President Johnson! Took me awhile to figure that one out.

I immediately left the mail room and headed for the wire services room where a group of us stayed until.....

I was one of the first and stood motionless in front of a wire service machine. There were few updates but when one said that the President had been shot in the head a reporter behind me said: he is done for.

I turned around angrily but said nothing.

Shortly, I don't remember exactly when, the FLASH appeared on the wire service machine: PRESIDENT IS DEAD.

The presses started up again and the headline was glaring and final. The composing room had prepared several headlines but, sadly and definitively it was the one we all least wanted to see.

We scooped the country, I heard tell. Yeah, we sure did.

When I went in that evening to my Air Force job for my swing shift, my supervisor who always used to kid me about my Italian origins looked at me and said: Tony, the Mafia did it.

I looked at him angrily too, but again could say nothing.

Sorry, didn't mean to get weepy about this, but you know how it is.

[DearAbby]

64. I was at school, lunch had been over and we had recess

came back into the building, when we were told, we would be going home. We would have been elated about the fact, but the look on the teacher's face. Ms Kershaw < still remember her name. I was 8 yrs old at the time.

I didn't really understand it, until I got home to see my Mother crying in front of TV. I watched it with her, whispering questions, she answered me in the same hushed tone. I cried too, It scared me.

It still does.

[Booster]

65. It was my 21st birthday and a friend had taken me out to lunch.

We came back late to work and I jumped out of the car and raced for the door to my office. My friend, who was still in the car, yelled back at me that Kennedy had been shot, and it stopped me in my tracks. Every birthday since has always had a small amount of depression tied to the day. I loved ya, John.

[YOY]

78. Know how you feel.

Mine is 9/11. At least the 'pubs havn't made yours a rally point to support a stupid war.

[Booster]

110. Oh, God. Your birthday just may be worse than mine. It will be in

your mind every birthday for the rest of your life. Sorry.

[YOY]

113. No worries...

I enjoy partying when the neocons expect me to act somber and morose for the my birthday. They can bite me.

Frankly, I believe that they choose to celebrate internally for the commemoration of their newest excuse to spend money and scare the public...

After all, in the grand scheme of things it is just another nmber on the calendar. Whatever meaning we choose to assign to it will not impede the world from spinning.

[Booster]

136. Good attitude. It's just a number is the best way to look at it.

[CTyankee]

69. My baby boy was asleep in his crib

My husband called and said "Kennedy has been shot." I was so naive I truly thought JFK had only been superficially wounded.

JFK was the first president I voted for. I was living in New YOrk City and everything seemed so great. It was a new day for a new generation. We were tired of Ike.

Wasn't it great to have a president who was smart and witty and totally with it? We didn't have that again until we had Clinton.

[roguevalley]

71. All of the above but in Central Point, Oregon. Our teacher came in

from lunch, bawling like a baby. She sat and told us "The President is dead. You will be excused to go home." Then she put her head down and cried. You could have heard an ant crawl on the ceiling. I went home fast as I could and we sat and watched TV for three days. They told us school was out for three days. I was scared. I thought the world was going to end. It was hideously tragic. I remember all the black people standing along the route, crying. I remember all the young people crying. I remember watching Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot on tv. Amazing time. I didn't know then that is was the death of hope for our country. Nothing has ever been as hopeful and possible since.

[Fovea]

72. I had much the same experience

sitting in a horrified classroom.

[AngryAmish]

73. I was a dirty thought in my father's mind.

[ClayZ]

74. 8th Grade. Our teacher left the room.

She came back crying. After she gathered her wits , she told us "Our President has been assassinated." They told us all to go home, so I did. I watched the TV the rest of the day. It was very scary!

I imagine it is how my 13 year old must have felt when the World Trade Center was hit.

Sigh! Cry! Argh!

[in_cog_ni_to]

75. I was sitting in my 3rd grade classroom when my teacher walked in CRYING.

:cry: I'll never forget it. I even remember the row and seat in the classroom I was sitting in. WEIRD since I can't remember what I ate for dinner last night! It was a sad, sad time.

[rox63]

76. I was 6 months old

So I was probably either sleeping, eating, pooping or crying. Or possibly some combination of those things.

[MADem]

77. In Franco's Spain, trying to find a TV set to see what the hell had

happened.

I never saw all of the round the clock footage until much later. We got snippets on the news (didn't have a TV though, so had to impose on a neighbor) and it was BIG NEWS over in Europe. The whole continent seemed to stop; a pall hung over everything.

Times sure have changed...

[wicket]

79. 15 years before my birth

n/t

[Daphne08]

80. I was home from school

sick when I heard the news on the TV.

It was very frightening.

[tandot]

81. In my mother's womb with 4 more month to go...

[Tom Joad]

82. I wasn't anywhere near a grassy knoll in Dallas, lets be clear about that.

[FVZA_Colonel]

83. My parents had not even met yet. My mother, however,

was working her school's library, when someone came running in at full speed and said that they had heard on the radio that the President had been shot. She's never really said more than that, and I do wonder why.

[EVDebs]

84. At recess during the morning on the West Coast.

By the way, a GREAT new book is out called

A Farewell To Justice by Joan Mellen, english prof at Temple Univ.

see http://www.joanmellen.net/

""A Farewell to Justice
Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History

From the new evidence in the National Archives' JFK Assassination Records Collection and interviews with over one thousand people, author Joan Mellen in her comprehensive new book A FAREWELL TO JUSTICE demonstrates how the cover-up began in Louisiana months before President Kennedy was shot in Dallas...

Biographer Joan Mellen met New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1969. His relentless search for the truth about what happened to President Kennedy made a deep impression upon her. In 1997, Mellen started to work on the story of Garrison's life.
Her biography turned into the story of Garrison's investigation and then into a new investigation of the assassination itself...

Working with thousands of previously unreleased documents and drawing on more than one thousand interviews, with many witnesses speaking out for the first time, Joan Mellen revisits the investigation of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only public official to have indicted, in 1969, a suspect in President John F. Kennedy’s murder....

This book will become a landmark. As Mellen explains in the Preface, on the 40th Anniversary of President Kennedy's death in 2003, a Gallup Poll verified that twice as many people believed that the CIA was responsible for the assassination as believed that Oswald, a man without a motive, acted alone.""

[Lilith Velkor]

86. I did not exist at that time.

I grew up entirely within the shadow of that nightmare.

[Bake]

87. In Mrs. Hilliard's third-grade class

at Highland Park Elementary School, in Jakcson, TN. One of those days you remember your entire life. The principal got on the PA and summoned all the teachers to the office. A few minutes later my teacher ran back into the classroom crying, "They've shot the President! They've shot the President."

I still remember the caisson, John Jr.'s salute, Jackie's pillbox hat.

Sad day for America.

Bake

[rodriguez94]

88. Is anyone on this thread over 35??? It seems the oldest person

to post so far is about 63..but they are the only one anywhere near that age..most of us appear to be 43 or younger? just curious...about the DU crowd..

[Bake]

90. All the third graders would be around 50 ...

I'm 50.

Bake

[malaise]

118. I'm 50 and a wee bit n/t

[kittykitty]

153. 67. I win .

[SharonAnn]

173. I´m 60. I was a freshman in college and it turned my entire world

upside down. It was really a loss of innocence on a scale so big I´ve never really gotten over it. It was the "end of the ´50s", meaning the end of optimism, belief that we could better the world, etc.

And I still miss that naive belief.

That´s why living through this administration, terrorism, and the war in Iraq is exactly like what Yogi Berra said. "It´s deja vu all over again."

I feel like screaming at times to my fellow citizens "Don´t you remember anything? Didn´t you learn anything? Don´t you know anything?"

Violence doesn´t solve anything. It just creates more problems and bigger problems.

[Tuesday_Morning]

89. I was in Kindergarten...

and the teacher came in and told us. We watched tv for a little while with the lights out. It was hushed, somber, a little scary. Then they sent us home. The sky was a dark grey. My Italian grandmother and great Aunt came over and all the adults were crying, crying. I had never seen adults cry before. It made me anxious and I hid out in my room alot.

[drm604]

91. Lincoln Elementary School.

I was 7 in November '63. They sent us home early, I lived right across the street from the school (which, decades later, burnt down and was replaced by houses). If I recall correctly (and I'm not positive that I do) I was told in school that he had been shot but I didn't find out he was dead until I got home. I'm not sure if that's because the teacher knew and didn't tell us or because it hadn't been announced yet. This is the earliest memory I have of anything relating to politics.

Hmm... I never thought about that before. My earliest political memory is an assassination. That has to have had a dramatic affect on my world view. Especially considering that it was followed up by RFK and then King.

[Ptah]

93. 6th grad in Conrad, Montana

I also remember watching his inaguration,
Robert Frost being part of the ceremony.

The riderless horse.
:cry:
JFK Jr saluting.
:cry:
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty."
-John F. Kennedy (JFK)



The end of hope

:cry:

[Carla in Ca]

94. I was 10 years old

We were in the classroom and we also had a TV brought in. I will never forget it because of the reaction of my parents. A sad, sad day. What a decade that was. We had so much, we lost so many.

[Peace Patriot]

95. Reading the Los Angeles Times front page news story on JFK's trip to...

...Texas, and how much crap the Texas politicians and oil men were giving him (does nothing ever change?), on the Student Union deck at my college (I was a freshman), and someone turned up the SU radio, and I heard.

Time stood still. I don't remember a thing after that, for days and days. I remember watching the funeral. Otherwise it's a blank. JFK's 1960 campaign for president was my first political campaign. He got me interested in government and politics, and his message of public service was rivetting. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." I actually have a snapshot of him as he exited the convention center in Los Angeles, after his nomination speech.

Three years later, I saw the Texas Tower sniper shootings on TV, and didn't yet realize that my best friend (who was there studying for the Peace Corps) had been shot dead.

So many hopes and dreams destroyed in Texas. But I know it isn't the people. I've learned that much. (I used to hate Texans.) We and they are all the victims of the global corporate predators and fascists who have now completely taken over the reigns of our government, and are destroying our country.

I still believe in the power of the people, though, and in the dream of a just and peaceful U.S.A. We, the people, will win, in the end--because the dream of democracy that our founders made real, and which has been a beacon of hope to the world, despite all the horror that has been caused by our lords and masters, will never die. It is being reborn as I write this, in numerous depressed and hopeless hearts. Believe me. It will live again, and we will be a better people for all that we have suffered in these dark, dark years of the Bush junta.

[BrklynLiberal]

101. Beautifully written.... We are the same age. I was a college freshman at

the other end of the country...in Brooklyn


:cry:

[AlabamaYankee]

96. Mrs. Wise's Pennsylvania History class

9th grade

[jeanarrett]

97. I was peeing in my diaper or maybe being potty trained.

I know for sure though that I was sucking my thumb.

[BrklynLiberal]

100. I was in the quadrangle of Brooklyn College...a freshman. Someone

said that President Kennedy had been shot. I yelled at him that I thought that was NOT a funny joke. When we found out it was not a joke, my friends and I went home. We stopped on the way at a church to light candles, even though we were not Catholic.
The next four days were spent sitting and crying in front of the tv..numb.
The only comparison can be the sensations felt after 9/11. I had worked in and around the WTC since 1979. Total emotional numbness...disbelief.
.......................................................................

Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron have written a new book about the assassination called "The Ultimate Sacrifice"

http://www.ultimatesacrificethebook.com/

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6282948.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786714417/ref%3Dnosim/thomhartmann/102-5268408-2176156

[Catamount]

102. I was in Australia--still a teenager, but remember the day...

very well. It was spent with me crying in front of the TV, along with the rest of the nation!
One of the saddest days ever!
:-(

[biggles1]

151. I was an Australian 10 year old,

preparing for a cricket match with my friends. We stood around with our coaches before the game, praying for the well-being of the US, tears streaming down our faces.
As I look at the current US administration and its deplorable betrayal of US values, the tears roll again and the prayers are every bit as relevant..........

[Danmel]

103. I was 3 years old

I don't remember it at all. The first real world event I remember was the 1964 NY World's Fair which I went to with my grandparents who lived in Queens. I also remember the 1965 NYC blackout.

I really remember very well the assassinations of MLK, Jr and RFK. I was 8 by then.

[silverlib]

104. Mr. Holley's band room

Middle school - Ingleside, TX.

Mr. Holley - if you are out there somewhere - you are still the tops - one of the best teachers I ever had.

He had tears in his eyes when he told us. School let out the next period. I walked home and woke my mother up from her nap to let her know.

[jimshoes]

105. Sixth grade

sitting in Sister Bernarda's class when the call came in. A classmate took the call, presumably from the Pastor, (Sister Bernarda couldn't move vey fast and the phone was in the office next door) he came back in the classroom looking ghostly white and announced that the President had been shot.

[AmBlue]

107. I was in my kindergarten class.

I remember the teacher being very solemn and making a pronouncement, though her words escape me now. She looked very sad. I remember going for naptime and feeling something very heavy weighing over all of us. I remember Saturday cartoons being pre-empted by coverage of the horror and the funeral. Jackie, so stoic... Caroline, my age, wondering how she must feel losing her daddy like that...... little John's salute as the casson went past.

So terribly, terribly sad.

[kliljedahl]

108. Algebra class, 8th grade

small town Iowa

[PlanetBev]

111. Typing Class, 8th Grade

in Los Angeles.

[mcar]

112. I was in kindergarten

I don't remember the day, but I remember the funeral. I can see my mother rocking my baby brother while we all watched the horse drawn hearse. She was crying.

[Susan43]

114. I was a new mother

Ron was just 6 wks old and I was watching TV as I nursed him, when the first bulletin was flashed.

The next few days were just a blur as the whole story unfolded. The sorrow is something that we, who lived through it will never forget.

It's hard not to think that the country nmight have gone in another direction if he had lived. It's just very, very, sad.

[MrSlayer]

115. Not even a twinkle in my daddy's eye.

I won't be born for another 6 and a half years.

[malaise]

116. I was in school

in a far away country. We had just entered the high school from the prep school at a conservative Catholic institution. Students, teachers and nuns started crying, but what struck me then and for years after was that most of them had never seen Kennedy other than in the newspapers. There was no TV in my country at that time.

I grew up in a politically conscious family so I had heard about Kennedy and he was popular with my father and his friends. That night my father was listening to BBC and talking about him. The local radio stations only played what we call funeral music for the rest of that night and it was the major news for days.
That his death had so much impact so far away among total strangers made me want to read about him.

[Eugene]

117. I was only 10 months old.

I do not remember it at all.

[StellaBlue]

119. Good question.

Born '79 here.

My mother was 14, home sick with the chicken pox, and saw it all on TV. My father was 16, and at the drugstore having a chocolate malt, heard it on the radio.

Likewise, when I was home sick with the chicken pox at age 6, I saw the Challenger explode live on TV.

[kittykitty]

122. Rayley's in Bijou, CA. (Lake Tahoe) Checking out-it came over the radio

on the store's PA system. I was just ending the summer as a Keno Writer (before machines we actually wrote keno tickets with sumi brushes and ink). My roommate and I high-tailed it back to our cottage, and were glued to the radio for a day or so until we returned to Berkeley. It was unbelievable, and devastating.

[scarletwoman]

124. 9th grade, Hazel Park Junior High in St. Paul, Minnesota.

I had just turned 14 eight days earlier -- my "golden" birthday, Nov. 14.

I was in English class (my favorite), when the announcement was made over the P.A. that Kennedy had been shot. Stunned silence in the classroom, our teacher suggested we pray, then left the room for a short while.

A while later it was announced over the P.A. that the President was dead -- they switched to a live radio news broadcast over the P.A. at that point (no TVs in our blue collar neighborhood school in those days). Just about all the kids were crying, I don't remember anybody speaking at all, we just all sat there in stunned silence and grief.

A short time later they announced that school was being let out for the day. I remember my best friend at the time, Laura, running down the hall toward me screaming in horror and grief, absolutely undone by the news. We hugged and cried -- it just felt like it was all too horrible to absorb -- then headed home in our separate directions.

I don't remember much else except my whole family being glued to the old black & white TV from then on. Irish-Catholic Democrats on my mother's side, and Labor Union Democrats on my father's side, the loss of JFK was felt almost as deeply as a loss of a family member.

My next BIG memory of that time was of watching the live broadcast on that Sunday of the shooting of Oswald. My god! If you were not around at that time you simply cannot imagine how SHOCKING that was! It was as if the whole Universe had tilted on its axis! A MURDER on live TV!

And not just any murder... I will NEVER forget what my Dad said at that moment: he said, "Well, they've made sure now that we'll never really know who killed Kennedy."

From that day forward, I've NEVER trusted the "official story" of ANYTHING. The seeds of the skeptical, cynical, tinfoil wearing radical that I am today were planted way back then in my early adolescence.

sw

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

125. Home on leave from the marines.

Just before going to Japan. I'm not one to cry about much of anything, but I bawled as I watched TV nonstop.

[On Par]

126. High School Chemistry Class....

...and we watched the flag outside the high school go to half-mast.

Just got my driver's license the day before. And, as was the tradition, whoever got their driver's license, drove that Friday nite. Well, we got together, and went to Eat n' Park, but we didn't stay long.

The next 4 days was an unrelenting nightmare.

[ThomWV]

127. High School History Class - Wheaton, Maryland

The first news over the PA was he had been shot. About 20 minutes later we were told he was dead. We were sent home about half hour after it was confirmed he was dead. School did not reopen for some time, about a week as I recall. I was at the home of a friend near Rockville and walking through the living room, where the TV was on, when Ruby shot Oswald several days later. My friend's father, two brothers, and I saw it live. We went into semi shock.

We also went down town and stood in that cold cold line to view the casket. It was around 9:00 PM when we (my now dead best friend, Jim Haynes) passed by in respect.

[triguy46]

129. In Mr. Keiths 6th grade science class at Highlands grade school

in Mission, Kansas listening to a girl give a speech about planets.

[dennisnyc]

130. i was very young but i have a clear memory of my mother crying,

sitting me up in a pile of clean clothes, warm, fresh from the dryer as she cried and ironed clothes.....

[Loge23]

131. super thread, rasputin

You really hit a nerve. I just cruised through some of the messages - it seems like just about every member name I recognize has posted here. Peace.

[Useless in FL]

132. College Freshman

I was walking back to my dormitory for lunch when a passing student told me. When I got to the dorm, everyone was glued to our small b&w TV in the basement break room, silent and in disbelief. I think I was in denial at first, believing that he could perhaps recover from his wounds - until the newscaster announced that he was dead. Another poster said that there was a sense of a loss of innocence and that's exactly how I felt, as well as a loss of hope.

We were excused early for Thanksgiving break and my family and I sat in front of the TV for the entire funeral procession. We all cried - even my mother and dad who didn't even vote for Kennedy. It was heartbreaking and I always thought that we could never have such a wonderful president again, and we haven't - except for Bill Clinton who has come the closest, but he was not quite the same. Unfortunately, JFK has become a standard by which I measure all presidential hopefuls and so far I have been pretty much disappointed.

It seemed after JFK's assassination that life went into a tailspin from which we have never recovered - Vietnam, Nixon, the emergence of the radical right - and this tailspin has accelerated since the selection in 2000. Yes, my beloved country reached its zenith with the JFK era and it's been all downhill ever since.

[maxsolomon]

133. 6 weeks old

in the hospital with a hernia.

[bearfan454]

134. I was 7 years old.

We were at my grandmother's house. I remember it vividly.

[4_Legs_Good]

135. I wasn't born yet.

The day America died.



Has anybody out there seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?

david

[alterfurz]

137. Coach was giving us boys the mandatory "sex hygiene" talk...

when the news came over the P.A. Saved the poor embarassed guy from having to finish, and the topic never came up again!

[ismnotwasm]

138. I was 3

But it's funny, because I remember. I remember my Mom and Grandmother crying. I remember adults being upset. I didn't know why, exactly. I sure as hell don't remember anything else from when I was 3.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

140. Not yet born. My mama were only 8.

:D :D :evilgrin:

[misternormal]

141. 5th grade...

... Even that young I was glued to the TV... My parents were Republicans, I find them then, different from republicans now... They still cried... I'll never forget it.

[DemonFighterLives]

143. 4 years old and scooped the news for Mom

I ran to yell at her in the basement that Mrs. Kennedy was shot.
The reminders by my parents helped reinforce the memory. I remember the funeral and John John.
:grouphug:

[ignatius 2]

144. 7th grade health class when the principal announced his death over

the loud speaker. Our teacher sat stunned for a few moments,thenwe were dismissed to go home early.

I remember mom was glued to the tv set and when dad came home he did the same. I can remember my mom crying at the funeral..a horrible day for our country but even worse when you realize there was a coverup,and,9-11 gave me a feeling of deja-vu.The same mindset of warmongers creating tragedy for an end goal of money and power.

Rip,John,I believe the world would be a better place had you not died so young.

[Alexodin]

145. In Miami....

I was playing with toy soldiers in the yard of our Miami home. I would shoot the soldiers with rubber bands. I always saved the captain for last. My first shot killed the captain and I was disappointed by this. My mother came out of the house, she was crying and called me inside.

I was John John’s age. I remember thinking he was the bravest little boy in the world when he saluted his Father’s caisson. The backwards boot, the rider less horse, the widow’s veil, we could not know that this was just the beginning…….then King, then Bobby too.

[kahnmann]

146. I was a twinkle in my moms eye

I look back at what happened then and wonder what it would have been like with today's technology (blogs, forums and the internet as a whole).

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

149. Not born yet. Wouldn't come along until 1970.

[rasputin1952]

147. I would like to take a moment and thank you all for responding to this

thread.

I have read every post, and was touched by all, (yes, even the ones where some of you were not born yet///:) )

The pic of John Jr hit me right between the eyes...:cry:

During the funeral procession, it was the first time I had ever seen my father cry. He had seen the horrors of WWII, he had seen the Camps and the suffering, he had been through hell; he would pass away on 4Jul65 from colon cancer, and he did not weep through that, but the funeral procession had tears running down his cheeks...:(

My parents were Definitive Republicans, my mother, at 80 still is, (but she intensely dislikes bush and where the neo-cons have taken the nation). But to be a witness to such a tragedy was beyond all political borders. The nation wept a sea of tears.

For those of you who were not here in those very dark days, you have lucked out. While you are still under the darkness that descended that day, you have been spared what those of us witnessed. I have thought about this over the years, and I feel as those did when Lincoln was shot and killed...I know that things would have been different. Perhaps roses would not have sprung from dung heaps...but the nation would be on a better path.

Once again...Thank You all for chiming in, for those of us that lived the history, we know....just as those who were born later and witnessed the Challenger explosion know where they were and what they were doing at that very moment. Flashbulb memories are intense.

:grouphug:

[Nevernose]

148. My mom was in Dealey Plaza, w/ my aunt, shopping...

...when they heard the president was going to be in a parade. Man, have I heard THAT story once or twice. ;)

I hope to hear it a few more times. Thanks, Mom, for reminding me that history isn't something that just happened yesterday, it's also something that happens tomorrow.

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

[jimshoes]

158. That is interesting, nevernose

did your mom and aunt agree or disagree with the Warren commission conclusions concerning the number of shots fired and the point or points of origin? Just curious to hear from a first person account. I'd love to hear the story.

[Nevernose]

163. They don't care one way or the other about any Commision

They were mostly just sorry to see him go.

They've never talked about the specifics much. Mom didn't discover things like the Warren Report or politics until years later, when she met my dad.

Also, you don't want to hear the story first hand. It's a lot more depressing than insightful, especially through the eyes of teenaged girls.

[orpupilofnature57]

150. Watching my first grade teacher crying her eyes out

[proud patriot]

152. I believe I was living a past life somewhere

I was not born yet .

[fortyfeetunder]

154. In the nation's capital

School was out that day. I can still remember it. A six year old on a cold, crisp, day in the nation's capital. Was watching my siblings playing outdoors. But in another room down the hall from the room I was in, I could hear my mom switching channels. She was looking at "As the World Turns" but it stopped. The bulletin about the President being killed.

I was still trying to understand what death was about. Having been told the Jesus resurrection story countless times, I thought the 3 days out of the tomb applied to everyone, therefore I was very confused.

In the nation's capital, school is not in session the day of a POTUS funeral. We watched on TV in disbelief.

My first grade teacher's husband served at the funeral with his USCG unit. A couple of months later, we had a field trip to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the gravesite.

My parents were not talking much. I saw the video of Oswald's murder, but mother would not explain what happened. Asked me to stop asking questions. But she forgot I could read at that time, and I later read the newspaper, to figure it out for myself.

[CatholicEdHead]

155. 13 years from being born

[WyLoochka]

157. Twas the day before my 16th b'day

the silence is what I remember most vividly.

Grosse Pointe High MI - algebra class is where I heard the news.

We left that school so silently. Walked about a mile home alone with just the crunching of the fallen leaves breaking the eerie silence.

[Greylyn58]

159. I was 5 years old at the time

but I clearly remember that day. At the time, my Dad was in the Marines and he was stationed in Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. We lived off base in the nearby town of Triangle.

My Mom's favorite soap opera was "As The World Turns" and she was watching it while she was ironing some clothes. I was sitting on the floor nearby reading the newest Dr Seuss book my folks had gotten me.

I remember it hadn't been on too long when a special bulletin interrupted the show. Then suddenly there was Walter Cronkite(how I miss that man's honesty and integrity, but that's a discussion for another day). He began talking about what had happened in Dallas and I remember my Mom gasping and then suddenly she was crying. I don't think I quite understood what was happening or why she was crying, but she tried to explain it too me. I also remember watching the funeral...so very sad.

So much has changed since that tragic day that I often wonder how different this country would be if he had lived to serve out his term in office and to no doubt be re-elected for another 4 years.

[Gloria]

160. Passing between classes, on my way to Social Studies where

we got the confirmation....I was in 8th grade

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

161. 8 years old

I remember our teacher bringing us inside from outside on the playground and clearly remember seeing the teachers out in the hallways in little groups openly sobbing. I watched as our teacher told us to wait and walked up to a group of teachers to find out what was going on. Then our teacher started crying, forgetting us, leaving us standing there. I didn't know what had happened, but to see all of the grown-ups, standing in groups crying, made our little class frightened and we began to cry, too, even though we didn't know why.

My grandmother taught a 4th grade class in the school, and came to my classroom and got me and then we went and got my two brothers and we went home. I remember asking what was wrong, and not being told for what seemed like a long time. We were told to go play in the yard. My grandparents and my dad were huddled in front of the t.v. and I guess they had the belief that it shouldn't effect us. They didn't seem to want to answer questions my brothers and I had about it. I guess they thought they could protect us or that we would not understand the enormity of it.

I remember the tv was on constantly. I remember getting in the car to go to the elementary school some days later to get a polio vaccine - a sugar cube with a little pink dot of vaccine on it. When we got home, Dad met us at the door with the news that Oswald had been shot. I remember making a joke about it - the man who shot the man who shot Kennedy - and getting severely scolded for making a joke.

What I remember most was the somberness of the adults in my home. I was raised by my grandparents and father (my mother had left us several years before). It was as if any childhood laughter was wrong and that the very air was filled with sadness and disbelief.

[onenote]

162. fifth grade...my mom met me at the bus stop

which she never did...we lived in northern Virginia, not more than 20 minutes from the White House. It was such a sad sad time.

onenote

[murielm99]

164. I was a sophomore in high school, in typing class.

Typewriters made a lot of noise, so we did not hear the P.A. system right away. Someone in the front heard it and alerted the teacher. We did not hear the beginning of the principal's sentence, but we heard, "...President shot in Dallas."

The principal said he would keep listening to the radio, and come back on the P.A. if anything else was known. We typed some more, but half-heartedly. He came back on right away. He just turned the radio on, set it in front of the P.A., and let the whole school listen to everything, until the President was pronounced dead.

The meanest boy in the whole school sat in front of me. When they said the President had been shot in the head, his eyes filled, he shook his head, and he put his head down on his desk.

The President was declared dead shortly before the bell rang for us to switch classes. When everyone went to the next class, there was no noise. No one spoke. The only sound was locker doors closing.

Our geometry teacher knew what Kennedy had been. He gave a brief talk about good and evil, and how Kennedy and his assassination would become a symbol to future generations. I think he spoke to fill the silence, and to keep his own emotions under control. He certainly was having no trouble controlling the stunned students sitting in front of him.

Then they sent us home. Nothing has ever been the same.

[wookie294]

165. I was a drooling baby in a crib

I was born in the same year JFK was assassinated (in May, 1963). I'm proud to be a child of the sixties, one of the most historic decades in American history.

[ms liberty]

166. I was 4 yrs. 4 mos. old, I remember it like it was yesterday...

My mother was washing windows, and I was playing with my dolls in the living room, in front of the TV. As The World Turns was on, she watched it every day. Walter Cronkite broke in with the news. I started crying and yelled to my mom, "Mama, they shot the President!"

I remember it so well. My four year old heart was broken, first by his death, then again by his son's brave little salute. He was my age, and I cried for us both.

And then Martin, and then Bobby...

[Inland]

167. I was forty years from being bored with "where I was when JFK" stories.

Just saying.

[WillyT]

170. nice...

:wtf:

[kedrys]

169. My second birthday

My earliest memory, of people (family) being very sad and quiet when they should have been happy. Very weird. An impression more than anything else.

[Thirtieschild]

171. The telephone rang,

the UPI division manager wanted my husband to be ready to fly to Dallas. Why? The president had been shot. I had Husband paged at the Green Stamp store where he was trading stamps for I-don't-remember-what. As it turned out, he didn't go to Dallas and we spent the next four days glued to Walter Cronkite and the tv set. Five and a half years later Husband covered another assassination and funeral. MLK Jr.

[hollowdweller]

172. I was 3 years old , playin in the basement and heard my mom sobbing

I came up and asked her what was wrong and she said they had killed the president. I remember the sadness even though I was little. My parents loved Kennedy and are still liberals.

[Hidden Stillness]

174. A Kid at Home With Mom--My Introduction to Tragedy

I was 6 years old and not in school yet. I remember the TV was on and my Mom was working in the house, in the kitchen I think. Suddenly the programming was broken into by the news and I remember Walter Cronkite, so it was either on, or my Mom turned it there. My parents were good New Deal Roosevelt union Democrats, loved the whole Kennedy family for their generations of public service, and always knew what Republicans were capable of--leave it at that (ever hear of "assassination parties"?). There was shock and a frightening kind of terrible grief at it all. My parents were crying, which I had never witnessed before, and I remember the other kids sent home from school early, but nobody was happy, nobody went out and played, etc.

I didn't really understand what death meant yet, but I wanted to comfort my Mom, and so while the funeral procession was on TV later, I drew a picture of Kennedy in the casket, so she would have it and it would be all right. I found years later that she had saved it. I remember Pres. Johnson at the airport runway, with the "heavy heart" comment, and the total sense of grand-scale tragedy that this was. It was upsetting to me that Johnson was ugly and graceless compared to Kennedy, and I had a dreadful sense of what we had all lost, and that it wasn't coming back. The only good thing about this horror was that Johnson ended up being one of the greatest Presidents.