# Annual "Where Were You 51 Years Ago Today?" thread (JFK assassination) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 22, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339 "2014-11-22T15:02:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/41 "2014-11-23T20:08:15Z")
I was in 1st grade, about 3 miles from where I am currently sitting. The announcement came over the loudspeaker that he’d been shot, and a few minutes later that he was dead. The teacher and I cried, maybe a few other kids too, but most just were confused. We got sent home, where I found my mom crying as she watched TV. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/42 "2014-11-23T20:20:35Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > It was Saturday morning here when the news came through. I was playing cricket just up the road from my house. I ran home to tell my parents. I remember that I was horrified that such a thing could happen. > > In 1993 a local newspaper did a “Where were you?” segment and John Hewson, opposition leader of the Liberal party, told some story about being in the crowded courtyard at school. No-one, other than me apparently, noticed that his memory, and accompanying self-aggrandising statements, were complete BS. Maybe he didn’t hear about it until the following Monday? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/43 "2014-11-23T21:42:42Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > \…In 1993 a local newspaper did a “Where were you?” segment and John Hewson, opposition leader of the Liberal party, told some story about being in the crowded courtyard at school. No-one, other than me apparently, noticed that his memory, and accompanying self-aggrandising statements, were complete BS. Background on this for me, please. Not getting the significance. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/44 "2014-11-24T00:23:30Z")
I was walking from a grassy knoll carrying a long flower gift box. Too soon? Sorry Actually, I was a young lad driving with my parents to visit my big sister at college. We stopped at a Jersey diner along the way. There was dead silence when we walked in. A large waitress with eyebrows painted high on her forehead came to our table and told us the president was shot. Then black eyeliner began running down her cheeks and we knew she wasn’t joking. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/45 "2014-11-25T03:12:31Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I was a small child in Fort Smith, Arkansas. We moved to Texas the following year. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > We moved to Texas the following year, too, and I was convinced I was moving to the land of the barbarians. And it was true. ☹ > [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > It was Saturday morning here when the news came through. I was playing cricket just up the road from my house. I ran home to tell my parents. I remember that I was horrified that such a thing could happen. > > In 1993 a local newspaper did a “Where were you?” segment and John Hewson, opposition leader of the Liberal party, told some story about being in the crowded courtyard at school. No-one, other than me apparently, noticed that his memory, and accompanying self-aggrandising statements, were complete BS. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Background on this for me, please. Not getting the significance. He couldn’t have been in a crowded schoolyard if it was a Saturday morning. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/46 "2014-11-25T14:41:49Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > And it was true. ☹ Alas… ☹ Adlai Stevenson, then U.N. Ambassador, had been harrassed by a crowd of right wing protesters the month before in Dallas. > [@](#): > > …Stevenson tried to reason with the protesters. Suddenly, one woman conked him on the head with her sign. A man spat on him. After police broke through the crowd to rescue him, Stevenson was heard to say, “Are these human beings or are these animals?” > > Once again, the spotlight shone on Dallas. “A City Disgraced,” read the headline in Time magazine. > > The Dallas Morning News, in an editorial headlined “Our Apologies,” defended the ambassador’s right to deliver his speech and admonished demonstrators for their crude manners. The editorial ended with words that, read today, are chilling: > > “The President of the United States will be here in November. We trust he will be welcomed and accorded the respect and dignity that go with the office he represents.” [cite](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/jfk50/reflect/20131012-extremists-in-dallas-created-volatile-atmosphere-before-jfks-1963-visit.ece) > [@](#): > > He couldn’t have been in a crowded schoolyard if it was a Saturday morning. Duh. _\_ ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/47 "2014-11-26T01:40:37Z")
I was co-managing a field study office in Portland, Maine, where I’d lived on an expense account in a hotel since July and the State Highway Patrol radioman, Ben Bean, came out of his adjacent radio shack and asked, “How’s it feel to be without a president?” and then broke the news. We all took Friday p.m. and the following Monday off and stayed glued to a tv. Since then I’ve worked in the same USN ship’s office with one of the honor guards that accompanied his casket in the funeral procession and interment, visited the gravesite several times when in the DC area, and lived in the Beacon Hill apartment house where he caroused in his youth and where the Kennedys’ office was at the time. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/48 "2014-11-26T01:45:43Z")
I was working in the cafeteria at our boarding high school when the principal stepped in and asked me how to turn on the speakers in the dining room. We got them turned on and he made the announcement. (Addendum to him it was almost a good thing since Kennedy was a Catholic and should never have been elected in the first place.) Be aware that this is not my position on things ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/49 "2014-11-26T02:14:11Z")
Wasn’t alive yet, although I was born sixteen years later on the exact day it happened. ---
**Author:** ![qualityleashdog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/9f8e36/32.png) [@qualityleashdog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qualityleashdog)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/50 "2014-11-26T05:20:30Z")
My Dad was nine and my mom was two. But I do remember where I was on the 25th and 30th anniversaries–sitting in grade school listening to the adults tell stories about where they were the day it happened. It really made you feel like you had missed history by being born too late, as if nothing that important would ever happen during your lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Holdsworth\_Effect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/848f3c/32.png) [@The\_Holdsworth\_Effect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Holdsworth_Effect)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/51 "2014-11-26T05:35:04Z")
I was in 7th grade, home sick from school. Mom was vacuuming, i was half dozing, when she ran over and turned the radio up (we didn’t have TV) and started crying. Our doctor was there later to see me (back in the house call days) and said he could not have survived the wound(s). We watched Oswald get shot at school. (I can’t remember if it was real time, or repeat films). The world did change. Our world was shocked. It’s never really been the same. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339/52 "2014-11-26T05:59:07Z")
I was 2½ years old. Back then a ½ a year was a big deal. I’d have to ask my Mom what we were doing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annual-where-were-you-51-years-ago-today-thread-jfk-assassination/705339.md?page=2)