Tell us about that day 50 years ago today

[vivaldirules]

I've been dreading this day for a long time. I was going to put my head in the sand to avoid it all but now I find I'm immersing myself in the immense sadness. Maybe it's standard human behaviour, maybe not.

I was a first grader in Arlington, Texas (a few miles from Dallas). It was the Friday before Thanksgiving and it was just after lunch and we were finger painting. I was excited at the prospects of doing this for the first time. I never got the chance. Shortly before it was my turn, the teacher and the principal told us to gather our things and go outside where we said the pledge of allegiance and maybe sang the national anthem and then walked home. I was confused and didn't understand at all what had happened. The thing I remember most is about having been personally denied the chance to finger paint, not about the death of JFK. And somehow I'm still ashamed of that though I was just six at the time.

So what was your day like?

[vivaldirules]

Here's a live feed from the eternal flame at his grave. Sorry, but there's an ad.

http://www.click2houston.com/eternal...z/-/index.html

[poohbear_nc]

I was in second grade in Ohio .... all the grades (K-6) were suddenly taken out of class into the gym and told to sit down and watch the only TV the school owned - where we saw Walter Cronkite announce President Kennedy's death and take his glasses off to wipe his eyes .... we were stunned and turned to our teachers ... it was the first and only time I have ever seen a teacher 'on duty' openly cry .... that image of my 2nd grade teacher crying has stayed with me all my life - along with the iconic image of Cronkite removing his glasses on air ...

School was then closed and we were sent home .... to find our parents also watching TV, stunned, and in tears. I was scared and didn't know why.

I was too young to fully understand what was going on, but the profound horror, shock, and sorrow from that day can still bring tears to my eyes today.

I recall the day still. I was in 3rd grade at an elementary school in Houston, Texas. It was shortly after we had returned from lunch to the classroom when Miss Johnson our teacher announced that we were all to gather in the school gymnasium where all large gatherings were held. Everyone was told to sit on the floor in class groups and than the school principal came in and announced that Kennedy had been shot. Then we were told that the school day was over and by the time everyone exited the school buses were lined up in front of the school.

I recall on the ride home there was one boy, older and probably in 6th grade, who somehow had gotten hold of a spent cartridge casing and was telling everyone that it was the same as what had been used to kill Kennedy. No one believed that it was one of the casings, we were young but not stupid, but that did have everyone vying to hold and look at it. When I got home my two older sisters were home from high school and my mother sat us all down in front of the television. We basically sat there watching the coverage until my father came home from work a few hours later. I even recall what we had for dinner that night, melted cheese sandwiches and canned cream of tomato soup.


I guess I was too young still to really understand the implications. As I recall it any emotions I felt were more just in reaction to my parents and older sisters. My mother took it especially hard. I do recall at the time that only a few weeks prior I had been very upset that one of my favorite evening television shows at the time had been replaced with live coverage of a speech or press conference by JFK.

That it all happened fifty years ago brings back many memories. It also makes me feel very old and leaves me feeling that was all from a different time, and a different America.

[cromag]

I was eleven back then, and in sixth grade. For some reason we had no school that day. I had taken my bike to get groceries for the family. On the way back I managed to fall off the bike and break a gallon jug of milk -- milk came in glass jugs back then. Kennedy had just been shot when I got home, so I caught most of the news on the fuzzy black & white TV in the living room.

We had quite a few Cuban refugees in New Jersey back then. I found out later that many of them had called their kids home and locked their doors for the weekend, expecting a military coup.

[Lady Blue]

I lived in New Jersey back then. I was in Mr. Gerrity's 2nd floor 8th grade English class. Someone came into the classroom and whispered something in his ear, and then quickly left. He turned to the class and asked if anyone had a radio.

I was the only one who had a transistor radio, which was very strange in itself. I'd never taken a radio to school before, and never took one to school after then, either. It just wasn't something I did. Especially with the size of portable radios back them. It was about the size of 3 hardcover books and that was small for those days.

Without saying why, Mr. Gerrity asked me to turn it on. I went to the wide waste-high window ledge and tried to tune it in. It didn't matter the station; they were all reporting the story that the President had been shot in Dallas, but his condition was not yet known. A short while later it was announced that he was dead. School did NOT let out early, but I don't remember much of the rest of the school day. I think everyone was just numb.

At home later, with no one else at home, I sat down in front of the TV and watched the steady news coverage late into the night. I was at the age where JFK was the first President I ever paid any attention to, him being the youngest to ever take office, the first catholic in office, probably the least frumpy ever elected. He had gotten us through the Cuban Missile Crisis for those 13 days in October of 1962, etc. It was all so sad. And then 5 years later dé·jà vu all over again, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.

[cromag]

In the 1980s I worked for New England Telephone. A group of us visited a nearby underground switching center for AT&T's Long Lines -- the backbone that carried interstate calls into, out of, and through the northeast. The center was deep underground, intended to survive a nuclear war.

The person on duty had also been on duty 20 years earlier. Back then the switching systems were electro-mechanical, and the relays clicked as they counted off and snapped into place. As he told it, he was sitting at his desk doing routine work while there was a steady, but quiet, background of calls going through.

Suddenly, the call volume grew and the relays went faster and faster, louder and louder. The first bank went to capacity and transferred to the second bank, then the third ... The relays got louder and louder, marching from bank to bank ... Then, the system busied out and went down. It was silent. He assumed it was war. It was the assassination.

[FizzyWater]

I was five days away from turning three-years-old. I have no memories of this.

I remember while watching the various horrors of 9/11 that I thought "this is going to be like the day Kennedy was shot, where I'll know what I was doing at that moment for the rest of my life..."

[Quexos]

I wasn't born yet on that day when the US gov made that coup, but if i had been and old enough to understand what was happening, I would have felt quite dejected when realizing how much democracy is a joke...

[cromag]

Obviously, there was no coup.

[Quexos]

Actually, good sense and obviousness show there definitely was. But to continue this discussion would be against the rules of the site ...
So let us leave it there if you don't mind.

Originally Posted by cromag

Obviously, there was no coup.

[MickeyC]

I was a sophomore at the University of Connecticut and had just walked into my dorm when someone told me the news. A few days later three of us drove to Washington DC to attend the funeral. I remember seeing Charles De Gaulle and Prince Phillip walk by followed by the horse drawn casket on its way to Arlington Cemetery. Will never forget that moment.

The day after I thought I would mention this story that I saw yesterday.

Remembering Huxley and Lewis: Marking 50 years since the death of two giants of literature, who died the day JFK was assassinated.

Even if someone had told this to me or I had read it fifty years ago it would have meant nothing to me. I would have had no idea who Huxley or Lewis were. It is an interesting footnote to history though that because of the way the world and the media were so focused on JFK's assassination it took three days for the deaths of Lewis and Huxley to make the papers.

[desertgrandma]

I was 16 and in school, gym, playing singles tennis.

An announcement came over the loudspeaker. I remember both of us walking to the net and crying....I still remember wearing the white gym shorts and blouses that were uniforms back then..........

Some things you never forget, if you were there, regardless of your age.....

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by cassidym

... I remember seeing Charles De Gaulle and Prince Phillip walk by followed by the horse drawn casket on its way to Arlington Cemetery. Will never forget that moment.

I'm surprised that I never knew till now, that they had attended! It makes sense, but still, I never heard that.

I too was 6 yrs old in first grade, and I think we were sent home from school early. What I remember is watching John-John salute during the funeral. And his mummy dressed in a long black veil.