JFK: 39 Years Ago Today!

And so, my fellow americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, January 20, 1961


John F. Kennedy

My first memory is really horrible. I was in class and our teacher made the announcement. For some awful reason all the kids (most of them anyway) began to cheer. I was so frightened, I remember it felt like bees were buzzing all around me. I looked at the teacher, a (I later found out) gay man with whom my mother was friends, and he was crying. It was terrible.

Geeze, Piffka, what an awful response . . .

We went to our afternoon first period class, and the instructor, a young, just-out-of-college woman, very full of herself, and dedicated to projecting a blasée, woman-of-the-world image--she basically said: "So what? We've got work to do." When the administrator came in to inform us that there was television coverage we could watch in "study hall," and we left the lab (it was chemistry), the instructor looked very peeved . . . most of the students were giving her smug looks . . .

I remember all too clearly watching the live coverage on Oswald, when in walked Jack Ruby, who then shot Oswald . . . very shocking to me at the time, as we were none of us used to seeing people murdered on live television . . .

Yes. That was a horrible shock to see him fold over in front of the cameras. I couldn't believe it was real.

Funny, on another topic yesterday I was mentioning my other main memory of JFK's funeral (even though I didn't remember how close we were to this sad date)... that his kids were dressed in light blue and red. Anybody else remember that?

We didn't have a color tv, Boss, i remember "John-John" standing there saluting, and the rider-less horse most of all . . .

It was around 11:00 in San Diego, and I was practicing with the drill team and the band in the streets surrounding our high school. We were preparing for a competition parade in which the winner would march in the Rose Parade on New Years day. The band director stopped the practice and we gathered on the football field. He announced that the President had been shot in Dallas. We went to the gym showered and changed and then to lunch. The loud speakers were giving us reports about every ten minutes or so. Finally the bell rang and on the way to my Civics class it was announced that President Kennedy was dead. Most of us started crying and some laughed, I never understood that. When I got to class my teacher was in a state of shock and just sitting on his desk. He opened the class to discussion but no one had much to say. I remember staring out the window at the street below and wondering what would happen next. Was it a communist plot I thought, would we be attacked. Then the principal came on and said that the Vice President might have been shot too and that the governor of Texas was also wounded. It was panic time. Finally we were dismissed to go home. I spent the next three of four days, it is hard to remember, glued to the TV set.

Y'know. I don't remember it from TV, but from photographs, maybe even years after.

Here's an image...

Home on leave from the Navy, I went to a spot next to Texas' Garner State Park with an uncle and my big brother to assist in the framing of a house. We were out in the country, with no one else and no radio. By the time we got back to pass through town on the way home, a headline at a news rack read "JFK SHOT TO DEATH." I felt afraid. My immediate thought was of Johnson as the president. For very visceral reasons I could never explain, I disliked the man intensely. I never overcame the feeling. But, then,Kennedy was never a hero of mine, either. That is not to say I felt totally against him - mainly I felt disdain. I went through the whole Ruby/Oswald thing with a surreal detachment and had too much going on to spend time at the television watching the funeral. In some ways I never made the full connection on a personal level. I think when you come from a certain alienated upbringing you learn to pass off loss and tragedy almost matter of factly. It was not until the shootings of MLK and Robt. Kennedy I had developed enough social involvement to be truly moved.

We didn't have a color TV either. It was just an odd-looking black and white. I remember watching TV all day and night and al we saw was the same thing. Nothing different...just views of the funeral and all the people who went to view the body in DC.

It was a cold and gloomy day in Nov. in Chicago, when I heard the news. I was sitting in the library and suddenly realized, no one else was there.
I finished up my work and went to take the bus home. The bus was full , but was dead quiet. No one was talking. The man who sat in front of me, had a foreign language newspaper, looked like Polish (?) and the paper had a big photo of JFK on it.

Not knowing Polish, I didn't know that Jack Kennedy had been shot. I got home and the first words out of mother's mouth were, "The President's been shot"!

I said "You're kidding'!

I ran over and turned on the TV...It was the truth. The sickening truth.



Twenty-five years later, I met Jackie Kennedy in the AirPort in NYCity. To this day, I've never met a woman as "classy-looking" as Jackie O'!

I was in my car running home on an errand from the office when I heard it on the radio. I turned around and went back to the office where the boss had brought in a TV. Everyone was stunned, sad and glued to the TV until it was announced that he had died. The boss excused everyone for the day. It was one of those days like 9/ll where time seemed to stand still. The recordings of the official over-the-air military instructions on CNN today were really chilling.
The capture of another Al Queda terrorist chief was welcome good news but I still was carried back to that day.

How did you happen to meet her???

We were both waiting for planes. She was on her way to Washington, DC and I was on my way to Boston. Same terminal, at LaGuardia. Teddy Kennedy had just dropped off Jackie and her boyfriend, the diamond merchant.

It was humid and relatively hot (87 F). Jackie was cool. No obvious body guard and she went to the women's room, all alone. This surprised me since, I would have thought she would have body guards.

One thing for sure, all of the airline personnel at the counter, were in awe of her. I mean IN AWE!

Thin woman...well dressed and plain. I mean plain.

I'never forget my impression of Jackie in the airport.

Likewise...I remember when Queen Elizabeth of England visited Boston.
Great experience, even if the FBI were savages, while protecting her!

How interesting. How did you first happen to notice her then, if she was so plain and did not have an entourage?

Was she THAT cool? Was she wearing a dress and sandles? She must have been fairly old by then. Let's see she was born in... just checking her obit.... 1929-94

http://www.obitpage.com

So she was 65? 64 or 65? Not that old.

Will you tell about seeing the Queen?

Jackie in sandles?

No way. She was well dressed from head to toe. She stood out, because she stood at the counter and everyone except the boyfriend stood back and looked.

I'd never call that babe "hot". She looked like a very rich, sophisticated woman with not a care in the world. With her money , why wouldn't she look cool. Plain with big Bucks! No white or grey hair. Dark brown and well groomed. Not a slob.

The Queen came to Boston. I think she visited the the Ben Franklin house (?). Her husband was with her. She went to the 2 nd level of the building and came and looked out. A large number of the Boston Irish were down in the crowd making noise. The Queen looked out, saw the Irish yelling and pulled her head back in.

She isn't cool or hot. But she is a lady, as one would expect a QUeen to be. The Queen always wears a hat and gloves, when she appears in public. It's rare, except in the US South, to see woman dressed, today in a hat and gloves.

During the summer of 62 I was on a trip to Washington, D.C., and one of the members of our group was the grandson of JFK's nanny and we were privileged to meet the President and Mrs. Kennedy on our visit to the White House. They were both gracious and had kind words for all of us, I was a giddy 16 year old and all I could say was I love your house and the laughed.

Many years later in the late 80s I ran into Jackie at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, it was late in the afternoon and she was in the gift shop looking at and selecting postcards just as I was. She was very thin, dressed in all black and very beautiful. She looked at me and flashed that smile and my heart stopped. At this meeting I was speechless and smiled back. It was so cool to see her doing regular stuff just like I was. Later I learned her condo was about a block away from the Met.