11/22/63 -- for us old-timers only

My dad and I saw jfk land in LA in '60 on a campaign visit. No, we didn't talk with him.

He may have had intercourse/etc with a patient of a doc I worked for after school (gossip later) but I've no idea. (Oh, to talk now, me now as an adult)

Port Authority bus terminal with my father. Learned about it from the ticker agent.

" intercourse/etc"

picturing a cuban cigar...

(it's all bill's fault)

Amazing that we all remember such specifics.

Pity you weren't in a maths class, you might have learned to count.

I was at a yearly convention and luncheon for an organization I belonged to.

The news generated a discussion of whether to continue with the afternoon session, but almost no one was in any mood to continue, many were quite visibly upset, and we decided to adjourn.

I remember that when I got in the car, and turned on the radio, all regular programming had stopped. There were only somber announcements of the President's death, with few details at that point, and some playing of patriotic music. I was driving a friend home from the convention and, throughout the brief trip, I kept venting angry feelings toward LBJ--I was sure he was in some way behind what happened because it occurred in Texas, and I thought this would be the end of the civil rights movement. I was just very upset, not thinking too rationally, and my most predominant immediate reaction to the news was anger and some disbelief. As soon as I walked into the house, and turned on the TV, there was only a still photo of JFK on the screen, with the years of his birth and death under it. At that point, the impact and reality of his death really hit me, and I began sobbing, and I continued to cry, and to remain glued to the TV, for the next several days.

The horror of watching Ruby shoot Oswald, and witnessing a murder on live TV, has never really left me. I remember letting out a very loud scream at the time.

They really haven't mentioned the assassination in the news this year. That makes me feel even more ancient.

They'll mention it next year, firefly, when it's a nice round number of years. Half a century. Hard to believe.

I went to see my grandmother, and we ended up watching t.v. I saw whatever it is that they were broadcasting at the time.

I was in 5th grade and when our teacher announced the news one of our fellow classmates raised his hand and said:

"Today's my birthday and this is a lousy birthday present."

We were more disturbed by the reaction the news engendered in the adults around us than anything internal.

I liked JFK because my parents did, and when he died I was upset because of the fact that my parents and all the other adults around me were as well.

We left school early and got at least one day off as a result and because my mother was crying, John-John was saluting and that rider less black stallion was defying his handler, I was very upset.

I was, however, more upset when Krushev got ousted because I was sure he was the only Russian who was sane enough not to drop atomic bombs on US cities.

In retrospect it was another major departure from worldly innocence.

It was truly progressive.

Thanks for reminding me of that riderless horse. What a poweful image that was--and a powerful memory.

For me it's the image of little John-John trying to salute the bier, his little right hand up at his forehead, an American flag held in his left and a totally confused and sad look on his face.

I remember being in the 7th grade at school when the principal came in and announced that the President of the United States has been shot. We were all in shock...how could that happen?

I was at the end-of-the-school-year ceremony in grade school (school years used to run from early February to late November in Mexico City in that time). Schoolmate Ruiz was at my side and he told me (don't know how he found out): "Do you know that they killed the President of the United States?". I was dumbfounded.
Perhaps I was too young to notice that the rumor started in the parents' section, and that some of them only got half of the news ("the President was shot to death") and thought it was the Mexican President.
Me and my parents went home to watch the news that went on and on and on. It was interesting at first but, hours later, I wanted to watch my cartoons and my dad was glued to the damn TV news.

globe cover, 50 years ago today...

Yea, that scene has stuck in my mind all these years, and still can "see it" in my mind's eye.

With so much history created during our lives, it's interesting how certain events stay with us for such a long time.

I was 12 an it was a Friday. We got up early cause my dad had a week off for hunting and we went out very early to a spot near Myerstown Pa, where the corn had just been harvested and there were pheasants all over. We went in the early morning and came back home to make some sammiches and then we got the dogs out to go down by the River to turn out some rabbits and quail. We were in the middle of a very thick brushland around noon and were having really good luck with rabbits and I had several quail. The dogs were especially hrd working.
I remember it was about 230 when my dad said that the dogs were looking a bit tired from all the brush work so we walked back to the car when we saw a farmer who yelled to us that "KENNEDY WAS SHOT_HES DEAD!!"

We didn't know , we went home and I started painting a workbench I was making . I.listened to WBZ on the radio all weekend . I only remember Dick Summers being on the air and it was all reporting and the regular Dick Summers comedy schtick programming was suspened as the news and more news and still more news came flooding in .
It was then about 4 days of blurred news and ceremony, with Jack Ruby killing Oswald and then the funeral with its muffled drums
Boom biddada boom biddada boom biddada boom (pause)
Boom biddada boom biddada BOOM! BOOM! DA BOOM!!.

I watched the funeral with my mom . She was crying and I felt that I too oughta be crying but couldn't quite work it up. Instead, I was taken in by all the conflicting news an the goings on ALL IN BLACK AND WHITE GRAINY COUNTRY ANTENNA STYLE TV.

Other than 9/11, I can't recall anything that has jolted the entire country with the kind of emotional impact Kennedy's assassination had on us.

I still have the newspapers from the day after the assassination carefully wrapped and stored.

It's hard to believe it's been 50 years, and recalling the memories still brings me to tears. Some things you never forget.

Thinking back to 50 years ago, I think the grief people felt was experienced on both a national level and a personal level, which was part of what made it so profound.

Certainly there was devastating grief over the murder of our President, and the loss of this man in the prime of his life.

But we also knew the Kennedys--Jackie and the children, Bobby and his clan--and this family was liked, and familiar to us, in a way that I don't think any President's family has been since (or perhaps even before). And our national grief was heightened by witnessing the acute and personal loss of a husband, and father, and brother, and we grieved with this family, and for them.

The grief of a widow, as well as that of the country, was mirrored on Jackie Kennedy's swollen face, apparent even behind her dark veil, and her stoicism and dignity, through the most public ordeal, was genuinely inspiring, and our hearts ached for her. We wept when little John-John, holding his flag, saluted his father's passing coffin, because we knew that cute little boy, who hid inside his father's desk in the oval office, would grow up without that father. And we knew that little Caroline would never again happily run to greet her father when his helicopter landed. We cared about this family, and we felt great sorrow for them.

The memories, and emotion, remain so vivid, even now, because it was such a traumatic loss, and it was a loss we shared through our TVs.

It surprised even me that, when I visited Kennedy's grave in Arlington, almost 25 years after the assassination, I suddenly burst into tears. And the sadness I felt then was further heightened by the nearby grave of his assassinated brother, Bobby.

And today, 50 years later, I have still shed tears. I still mourn the loss.

I think you really have to be an old-timer to understand it.

Name was Blackjack as I remember it.

I still cannot listen to the Navy Hymn without tearing up.

With me its Barbers Addagio for Strings