JFK 50th Anniversary

[Laser Man]

For older members, we are approaching the 50th anniversary of that fateful day in Dallas when JFK was assassinated.  Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?

I was in second grade.  It was Friday afternoon and we were having art class when the principle came in holding a transistor radio.  She spoke briefly to my teacher and then turned to us and said "President Kennedy has been shot.  We now need to pray for him."  And we did. 

[EarlBald]

I was in sixth grade.  We had gone on a field trip the day before to see the movie "How the West Was Won" at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. (the only one of the "grand old theaters" still open, used for epic films like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings).  Someone ran in with the news, and we all couldn't believe it.  The first news was that the president was shot; he died about a half-hour later.  It was hard to believe that a president could be assassinated, altho there had been three previous assassinations and various attempts.  I think that U.S. society genuinely changed at that point, because an area of vulnerability was exposed.  Nowadays, the president doesn't go anywhere without a ton of Secret Service agents.  I knew people who had gone to the Eisenhower inaugurations and occasionally got a chance to talk to Pres. Eisenhower in person.  Of course, Pres. Kennedy was riding in an open motorcade.  Those days are gone forever.  In most ways, our society has gotten better since then, especially for women and minorities, but we seem, for better or for worse, to have lost a sense of innocence and self-confidence as a nation.

[mrzed]

I was in Miss D'Alessio's class.  5th grade.

[bennett11]

Geezz I am older.  I was working in my Lab at Eli Lilly when an announcement came over the PA system. The company asked all employees to go home except those needed for essential services.  The company closed.  I was 31 at the time.

[stasiu]

I was in third grade.  We just finished our last recess when news broke out on the playground and then in class.  It was somber riding the bus home and then to find my mom sobbing with the radio and TV on ... very somber weekend indeed.  I kept a front cover Weekly Reader picture of Pres. Kennedy posted on my bedroom wall for the longest time (next to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans).

[Mikekoz13]

I was only 3 1/2 years old BUT I have faint memories of it because my Mom was so distraught over it. My Mom's friend called to ask her if she had heard... I answered the phone.

[Mikekoz13]

For older members, we are approaching the 50th anniversary of that fateful day in Dallas when JFK was assassinated.  Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?

I was in second grade.  It was Friday afternoon and we were having art class when the principle came in holding a transistor radio.  She spoke briefly to my teacher and then turned to us and said "President Kennedy has been shot.  We now need to pray for him."  And we did. 

My how times have changed. Can you imagine the liberally driven school (USA) systems asking the kids to pray these days?

[schro]

For older members, we are approaching the 50th anniversary of that fateful day in Dallas when JFK was assassinated.  Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?

I was in second grade.  It was Friday afternoon and we were having art class when the principle came in holding a transistor radio.  She spoke briefly to my teacher and then turned to us and said "President Kennedy has been shot.  We now need to pray for him."  And we did. 

My how times have changed. Can you imagine the liberally driven school (USA) systems asking the kids to pray these days?

Nope.

[schro]

The Lovely Mrs. Schro and I took a tour of the Sixth Floor Museum in the Teaxs School Book Depository when we were in Dallas several years ago. Very powerful and moving.

[Cave Dweller]

One of my earliest memories is being terrified of the blood I saw coming from the gash in my mom's hand she got while picking up broken glass from a tumbler she had knocked over upon hearing the news. I was a toddler, and had been put in a high chair in our kitchen while she cleaned up the shards. (I don't remember the news or the tumbler breaking, just the cut and the blood.)

When I was about five or six, I noticed an old building with a big, yellow Hertz Rent a Car sign on it while we were on Stemmons Freeway. The sign was prominently seen from that freeway. It wasn't until I was in third grade that I found out about the significance of that building under the sign. It also was when I discovered our church was five blocks down the street from the intersection at which Officer Tippit was killed and about two blocks from the Texas Theater. At that time, Dallas had erected a Kennedy memorial, but had nothing even to acknowledge what had happened there.

[Slyest]

I wasn't born and to be honest I used to dismiss the "jfk moment" and think it was weird to know exactly what you were doing when a story broke of that magnitude, as it hadn't happened in my lifetime. Then Princess Diana's death and 911 happened and I understood as the moment does stay with you.

[wpruitt]

I remember little about it; I was about 3 1/2.  Mother and I were in the S Curve Big Apple - a local grocery store.  A lady (some of this comes from Mama) came in and told her the president had just been shot.  We went to the car - a 1958 yellow and white Ford Galaxy - and listened to the events on the radio.  I remember watching parts of the funeral on TV.  Mama told me "a very bad man shot the president".