44 years ago Nov. 22 was on a Friday, and the world changed.

[Faygo Kid]

I did not know when I walked into my last class of the day, 7th grade history, that I would remember every tiny detail about what I was about to hear and what had just happened and would happen over the coming weekend for the rest of my life.

[patrice]

1. Thanks for the Beautiful picture.

Never forget!

[EFerrari]

2. One of the things we remember most in our family is the president's

press conferences. He was terrific. That looks like an image from one of those briefings.

[chaumont58]

3. This country came to a halt for four days

I was 25 years old and living in Los Angeles. Black and white television was what people looked at for four days. One of the most poignant sights I have ever seen was when the pallbearers carried Kennedy's casket up the Capitol steps while a military band played "Hail to the Chief" in dirge time. Truly sad.

[Kurovski]

4. K&R. (nt)

[coffeenap]

5. I was five and in kindergarten. I knew it was something really

bad because we were allowed to walk out the front door of the elementary school, instead of the kindergarten door. That was where the flagpole was, and we all paused there before being dismissed to go straight home.

[BlueInTN]

6. This Day Remembered

I was at the other end of the educational extreme, a senior in
high school, Class of 64, the Friday of our senior play,
waiting for the bell to ring to end my next last to class of
the day, ironically, American History. One of the runners from
the school office went from class to class in those
pre-intercom days announcing the news to each class. In my
next class, we turned on that old HUGE GE 19" black and
white TV and confirmed that he was dead. My American
Government teacher (more irony) sent me and a friend to lower
the flag to half staff. The rest of the day was just one of
numbing sadness and sense of loss. I took his loss personally
as I had campaigned hard for the ticket despite my prejudiced
neighbors oppostion to JFK due to his religion.

We lost more than a president that day and I still lament what
might have been.

[Faygo Kid]

7. Unbelievably, I went to the Detroit Public Schools football championship that night

My Mom worked at Denby High School in Detroit, and had free tickets for the Public School League championship game at Tiger Stadium that night. She was a single Mom, so she really wanted to do this for her two fatherless sons, so we went. I was just 12, but I knew we shouldn't have been there and the game shouldn't have been played, and I was numb through the whole thing. It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. That Sunday, the NFL played a full slate of games, a decision that Pete Rozelle later called the worst decision of his entire tenure as NFL commissioner.

I too lament what might have been, and do so about Bobby, as well.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. I was in 5th grade and I remember it like it happened yesterday

It was the first time I saw my mother cry. And my grandmother. We were watching the funeral on TV and I heard them both crying and was afraid to turn around and look at their faces. Somehow I knew this would be a life changing event and I just wasn't ready for it.

It was the first time I ever heard anyone say anything bad about Catholics. We had a neighbor who made an obnoxious comment (can't remember exactly what she said) but my sister and I decided not to play with her kids anymore if she didn't like Catholics. And we stayed away from those kids for a couple weeks. Finally their mother said something to our father who told her why we weren't playing with her kids. I can still remember the look on that bitch's face as she apologized to my family. She told us we were good Catholics and good neighbors and she never meant to offend us. And her kids were there listening to her too. We feuded with these kids for most of our childhood so this was a rather significant event.

Nov. 22, 1963 still represents a loss of innocence. Both for me and for the country.

Oh and they have been lying to us about who killed JFK. I was a teenager when I realized that. Another loss of my youth. Haven't trusted them since.

[Faygo Kid]

9. I remember the 1960 controversy over his Catholicism - in my own family

My grandmother was a Swedish immigrant (so Lutheran, of course), and her oldest son (my uncle) had converted to Catholicism to marry my aunt in the 1940s. She had accepted it long ago by then, but still criticized JFK's Catholicism at a family gathering during the 1960 election, and I remember as a 9 year old that all hell broke loose, and it's the only time in my restrained Scandinavian family that I remember heated arguments. She was a wonderful woman, but carried the prejudices of her time and place with her. It all blew over, of course, as she and my aunt were really close, but it was something to see and something I never forgot.