JFK Assassination: November 22--50th Anniversary

In My Humble Opinion
1

The 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy will be coming up shortly (he was shot November 22, 1963). Perhaps Dopers could ask their parents or grandparents what they were doing then–for example your Dad was in high school, rumors swept through the school; the principal made an announcement and classes were dismissed early; he went home and his eyes were glued to the television set (black and white back then) for hours…

Perhaps there are even some Dopers who remember the event?

2

SOME Dopers who remember the event? I was in 6th grade you young whippersnapper!

It was raining, so we were in our classrooms instead of outside after lunch. Without warning, the principal started playing the radio bulletins over the PA system, which scared the crap out of a bunch of elementary school kids. You know how you always hear on the news after some horrible event that schools have counseling available? We had nothing like that; classroom teachers had to do they best they could to calm us down.

We had a scheduled early dismissal that day. At that time there were a lot of stay at home moms who didn’t even turn on a radio or TV during they day, so they didn’t even know what happened until their traumatized children got home from school.

And everyone was numb for the next four days.

3

I was in the fourth grade and school was being dismissed for the day. Our teacher was leading us down the stairs and one of the third grade teachers came running up to tell us President Kennedy had been shot. None of us really believed it because, well, she was kind of a loon. Right after that we heard it from the school principal so we knew it was true. By the time I got to my grandmother’s house (a natural stop on the walk home cause, well, grandma’s always have cookies, right?) the news was reporting President Kennedy had died. As kunilou said, over the next few days, everybody was numb.

4

I was in the 4th grade - Sister Teresa’s class. The principal came on the intercom and told us the President had been shot. I cried. I mean, you only got to be President if you were the best man in the country, right? Why would someone kill the best man in the country??

That was the day my political naiveté began to die…

I remember watching the funeral on TV - we were off school that day. It seems all the more somber because the TV was black and white. And after 50 years, I can still remember the shock and sadness of 9-y/o me.

5

I was in first grade in Catholic school in Norfolk, Virginia. The principal made an announcement over the PA. We didn’t get out early, but the day was almost over anyway. I went home very excited that I had big news to tell my mother, but she already knew and was very sad. I don’t remember watching the funeral or anything, though I’m sure we did.

6

I was in first grade. A woman stopped in and asked the teacher if she had heard the news. My teacher (Mrs. Gaskel, as I recall) said something like, “Yes, it’s terrible, isn’t it?”

After school let out, I saw the woman again (she worked in the main office), and asked her what the news was. She replied that President Kennedy had been shot.

I was a bit confused, because for some reason I had thought that Kennedy had been president many years previously, like in Washington’s lifetime.

Hey, I was six years old.

7

I was in third grade, and I remember it like it was yesterday. We were down in the school’s basement coming up from gym in double file, and we stopped when one of the janitors came out of their break room to talk to our teacher. I was at the head of the line and was the only one watching the adults; the janitor muttered something to our teacher (Mrs Wooley, who was already quite old in 1963) and she crossed her arms and mouthed “Oh, no!” with an expression of pure agony on her face. Then she turned to us and said “Children, President Kennedy has been shot,” and told us that school was over for the rest of the day.

My house was only about a ten minute walk away, and when I got home my mother and older brother were huddled around the TV. I remember being quite surprised when the news coverage continued into the evening; I expected my favorite shows to be on in prime time. I also wrote my dad a letter (he was living in West Virginia at the time) asking if he had heard what happened (remember, I was only eight years old).

I saw Ruby shoot Oswald on Sunday morning, and I remember every detail of the funeral on Monday. Watching it on TV now, all I can think of is that everything was much sharper in the live broadcast. It’s like seeing a rerun of that part of my life.

8

I was co-managing a field office for a regional study in Portland, Maine, in the offices of a state agency.
The agency’s radio room was adjacent to the office where about 14 of our crew were working, receiving and processing interview forms.

Ben Bean, the on-duty state trooper manning the radio, came into the room on that Friday and said, “How’s it feel to be without a president?”

This was of course a misstatement because, at the moment of JFK’s death, Lyndon Johnson became President automatically. Only later, would his “official” swearing-in occur, on board the plane carrying JFK and Jackie back to DC.

We all turned on the radio, heard the news and the conjecturing, and then closed the office and went home until Tuesday, the day after the funeral.

I retired to my 6-month-leased antebellum hotel room and listened to the news on the radio, having no tv available.

All of the radio stations, in between news updates, played sad classical music most of that weekend, including such works as Beethoven’s “Pathetique” Symphony.

During the weekend, I visited with a friend who had a tv and watched many of the news events, or replays of same, including Lee H. Oswald getting shot by Jack Ruby in the basement of the jailhouse.

Monday came, the day of the funeral procession, and I watched it through copious tears, which still arise in me when I see some of the reportage, etc. I was from Mass. at the time and had followed JFK’s candidacy and admired his youthful vigor.

I wish there was a filmed record of the procession and the lying in state, and the funeral that I could obtain to re-view. There probably will be, along with all of the numerous books that have just hit the shelves.

I had joined the US Navy Reserve several months earlier that year and was assigned to Class A school for 6 weeks in Maryland in late '63. One weekend I visited JFK’s grave and the eternal flame, before all the later embellishments were installed. Just a plain white picket fence there then, and the flame, recently made more permanent, again. When I finished (aced) the clerical class, I was assigned duty in a fleet admiral’s shipboard office overseas about a year after the assassination (2-year Med cruise based on the French Riviera), beginning on December 7, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

A fellow worker had been collecting all sorts of JFK memorabilia so we did a lot of reminiscing and soul searching. Then one day near the end of my duty term there, a young seaman was assigned duty in our office. He had been on the Honor Guard at JFK’s services. If you see pictures of the lying in state at the Capitol and some of the procession, the young man is identifiable, being the only Black sailor. I wish I’d had office duty at the same time that he did more often so I could have discussed more of his experiences. I finished my active duty service shortly after he came aboard and have not had any contact since then.

I did acquire much later a copy of James Felder’s book, “I Buried John F. Kennedy” which gave all the details of the memorial process at Arlington National Cemetery. He was in charge of the Honor Guard during that time.

Less than 10 years later, coincidentally, I would live for a year in the Beacon Hill, Boston, apartment building where the Kennedy’s office was then located, and where JFK had spent some time in his college-plus days.

9

Madison Jr. High School. As we were coming off the field from PE a general buzz of rumor about the President getting shot was echoing around us. Went to the lunch room and got the announcement over the intercom.

10

From the Arlington Nation National Website, here’s an excellent history

http://www.history.army.mil/books/Last_Salute/ch23.htm

11

Second grade. I was walking home and the crossing guard told me.

12

I was a sophomore in high school, Niagara Falls, New York. Geometry class. The principal, Sister Eloise came over the intercom and told us Kennedy had been shot. The class immediately started praying. A little while later she came back on and told us he was dead.

In this jaded, terrorist-ridden, media driven world, inundated with violence and information, it’s impossible to convey the impact of that event on the world of 1963. We were glued to our black and white TVs for the next week. I saw Jack Ruby get shot on live TV.

Then when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed five years later, the USA was changed forever.

13

I was in eighth grade, in Catholic school in the Bronx. They first made an announcement over the PA that the president had been shot. A short time later came the news that he was dead. Everyone was of course stunned. They let us out early. I and others went to the church, which was next door, to pray, and then went home.

The next few days, until the funeral, the TV was constantly on. I remember the solemnity of the funeral procession with the coffin on the black draped caisson, the riderless horse, the procession of world leaders from De Gaulle to Haile Selassie, the poignancy of John-John’s salute to his father. And then there was the added shock of Oswald’s murder.

14

CORRECTION: I saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live tv.

15

I was in third grade. I lived very near to the school, so at lunch I went home. That day, when I returned to school, kids were milling around on the playground before returning to the classrooms. Some said they’d heard that the President had been shot while riding in his car.

We went to class. Then the principal came around to each room, to tell us that the President was dead… He looked so very stricken, as if he wanted to cry but wouldn’t do it in front of us. The same look was on the face of my teacher, Mrs. Huffman. She was young, and expecting her first child.

I watched the funeral procession on TV. The traditional riderless horse was led by, and my mother explained the whole thing. It was the first time I learned about that ritual.

16

I slept through the whole thing; 'course I was in an incubator at the time…

17

7th grade, math class, Miss Barton, announcement over P.A., Miss Barton got loony, got out early, delivered newspapers with big headline, watched TV continuously, watched Oswald get shot on live TV, my mother went loony, I cried when John-John saluted his father’s coffin.

18

I was only one at the time, and lived in Scotland.

Many, many years later I asked my mum about the assassination, and she said she cried the whole evening watching the news reports. I then realized what kind of a global event this must have been.

19

I was a high school senior. We were allowed transistor radios in art class and I told the teacher what I had just heard. She sent me to the principals office to tell them. They announced over the PA system, dismissed us and experienced the same as everyone else, shock, Oswald’s murder on live TV, the funeral…

20

My post from a 2006 thread.