primitives recollect November 22, 1963

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x11501

Oh my.

CurtEastPoint  (1000+ posts)         Sun Nov-22-09 11:24 AM
Original message
 
JFK: November 22, 1963. My recollection...

His death affected me greatly. I was 13 and can remember every bit of it as if it were yesterday. I hope I will never see a nation have to mourn as it did back then. RIP, Jack.

AndyA  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-22-09 11:30 AM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message

1. I was a toddler at the time, and the memories of 11/22/63 are among my first.

I remember being in the den, when the neighbor lady from next door came over. She was crying. We had a television in the den, so my Mom and the neighbor came in and turned it on. They both sat there, watching it, in silence.

I knew something was wrong, but of course I was too small to understand what was going on.

Eventually, my Mom decided that perhaps it wasn't best to have the television on in the same room where I could see it, so they moved into the living room to watch, and I was relocated to a sitting area off to the side, where I could be seen but I couldn't see the television.

I remember not much was said, I think everyone was in shock. They just sat there watching the TV in silence.

Later, when I was old enough to realize what was going on at the time, I was thankful to at least have some recollection of that day.

The Die alte Sau, the dysmenopausal Kansas school teacher:

proud2BlibKansan  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-22-09 11:33 AM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message
 
2. I was 10, in 5th grade

It was the first time I saw my mother cry. Also the first prejudice I encountered directed at me. We had a loopy neighbor who kept referring to JFK as "YOUR president". "I don't understand why they killed YOUR president" Because we were Catholic.

Yeah, yeah, sure, that really happened.

Graybeard  (1000+ posts)       Sun Nov-22-09 11:51 AM
Response to Original message

3. I was in the Army Hospital, Ft. Gordon, GA.

I had been injured in Basic Training and was in a wheelchair. A cousin had sent me a large box of home-made cookies she baked for my birthday and I was passing them around to the guys in the ward.

The show that was on the TV was interrupted with a graphic that said,

** BULLETIN BULLETIN BULLETIN **

We watched it all happen the next few days. Johnson sworn in. Oswald captured and murdered. The funeral in DC.

icee2 (68 posts)      Sun Nov-22-09 11:51 AM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message
 
4. "Time has blurred our memories, words have stilled our feelings,...but we remember the man and the day, and feel a muted sorrow."

Harvard Crimson, 11-22-64

goclark  (1000+ posts)         Sun Nov-22-09 11:54 AM
Response to Original message
 
5. I was walking across the campus at USC

All of a sudden time stood still and all of us were crying and hugging each other for support.

We were hugging students we didn't even know.

I can still feel the day and the sadness and the tears.

icee2 (68 posts)      Sun Nov-22-09 12:01 PM NON-DONOR
Response to Reply #5

7. I was in the library at Roanoke College reading the Look magazine article about JFK which featured the famous cover photo of JFK jr. playing under his father's desk. I walked out of the library and crossed the street and noticed people going into the student union building. I asked why and someone told me what had happened and
that they were going there to watch TV coverage.

When I went home to Norfolk, I was shocked that my stepfather said things like, "good, they got the SOB communist."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the old stepdad really said that.

goclark  (1000+ posts)         Sun Nov-22-09 05:34 PM
Response to Reply #7
 
13. It still remains one of my strongest memories
 
Still feel like crying.

madamesilverspurs  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-22-09 11:58 AM
Response to Original message
 
6. It was terrifying.

I was in high school, and the memories remain vivid. Hallways full of people, all stunned, many crying, some sobbing loudly, but no one was talking. At home my very Republican father burst into tears, the only time I ever saw him do so.

oswaldactedalone (28 posts)      Sun Nov-22-09 12:54 PM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message
 
8. I was in third grade at a Catholic school

just a few minutes before my Mom was scheduled to pick me up to take me to the Doctor. I was having a cast removed following a broken ankle injury from six weeks before. The Nun had been called out of the classroom just as we were changing subjects. She came back in and said we should pray for President Kennedy as he had just been shot.

No one at that moment knew how severe the injuries were. While driving to the Doctor, the announcement came on the radio that the President was dead. Needless to say, Mom and I were shocked and the Nurses and staff in the office were quite upset.

Fly by night  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-22-09 01:17 PM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message
 
9. Ninth grade at Notre Dame High School in Chattanooga ...

Our Algebra teacher got called out into the hall in the middle of class. When she returned, she was so shaken and crying so hard that she could not continue the class.

As I remember, the principal closed the school after that period. Many of us walked down the block to the cathedral to pray. Even though the news was less than two hours old, the church was packed -- standing room only.

Like lots of others, I was also up watching Sunday morning TV when Ruby killed Oswald. Quite a horrific sight for a 14 year old.

Our country (and the world) has never been the same since.

Yeah, the then-emergent hippies thereafter screwed up the country.

peacefreak  (1000+ posts)         Sun Nov-22-09 01:56 PM
Response to Original message
 
10. 7th grade. Catholic school

We were rehearsing a Thanksgiving play when a nun came in & said we should pray for someone important. We were released from school after they told us it was the President. I remember walking home & everyone was in shock. I got home just in time to see Walter Cronkite announce that the President had just died. I'll never forget him taking off his glasses & wiping his eyes. He was just as affected as we all were.

rasputin1952   (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-22-09 02:05 PM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message
 
11. I was in school in NYC when we heard of the tragedy...

Several things happened.

We were all stunned into silence, there was some sobbing and many a teary eye. Our principle brought a TV into the room, and we watched in horrified silence as the news was given to us...Walter Cronkite, the announcement, the glasses coming of, the glance at the clock...the awful feeling that this was happening.

Parents were called to pick up kids, my younger brother and I took the NYC bus home, it was the only time in NY that i could ever recall when it was completely silent...absolute silence, it was eerie.

Upon arriving home, my mom was sobbing, my dad had tears in his eyes...both were Republicans, but this senseless death left them stunned and they, like everyone else, wanted answers.

The TV was on all day/night, we heard of a "Lee Oswald" being caught, and marveled at how quickly the Dallas PD responded to the murder of the president and Officer Tippet and caught "the perpetrator." Then we saw the Oswald press conference, he looked like a little man, and shocked us that he could possibly have committed the crime.

Then came one of the most telling moments...when asked about the murder of the president, Oswald looked shocked when told he was charged with the crime...even as a youth, i could tell by the body language that he was truly shocked it had come to this. From there on in, I have thought that there was a cover-up of some kind. The only things I knew were facts were that the president was dead, Johnson was now the president and Connelly was wounded.

To this day, I believe there is more to that day than the "official" version of events.

We saw Oswald shot, on live TV; and with that, the full story would never come out. Ruby played mind games till he died from cancer...what really brought these events together, I hope to find out in my lifetime.

Lugnut  (1000+ posts)        Sun Nov-22-09 02:46 PM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message
 
12. I was 18.

RIP Pres. Kennedy.

CTyankee  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-22-09 05:53 PM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message
 
14. I was 22, a young mom, living in Greenwich Village. My husband called from his office to tell me to turn on the TV. At first, I hoped he had just been wounded as I couldn't believe that anyone could get off a shot so close to the President. I thought it was just some random crazy wandering around waving a pistol.

The days that followed were among the most incredible in my life. Bobby's death was pretty rough and then, when JFK, Jr. disappeared and his wife's bags washed up on the beach at Martha's Vineyard I was shaking my head in disbelief. I remember thinking "I feel like I've gone through my entire life watching Kennedy's die..."

Inspired  (1000+ posts)      Sun Nov-22-09 05:57 PM NON-DONOR
Response to Original message

15. I turned 5 years old on November 22, 1963.

What a crappy thing to happen on your birthday.

The above's the whole bonfire; in years past, the primitives used to build bonfires it took fifteen miles to scroll down to read.

[kenth]

15. I turned 5 years old on November 22, 1963.

What a crappy thing to happen on your birthday.

Mom, I want a pony for my birthday!

Oh, geez. Well, we got you something else...

[Chris]

Ha ha ha ha...   So bad.

Like a five-year-old has any concept of politics.  I guess they're all geniuses at that age.  Unfortunately, it all seems to be downhill from there.

[Chris]

You know, I (unfortunately) sit across from a large screen display that shows CNN Headline News while I'm at work.  It's mostly small bits of news and political posturing disguised as gossip, but I didn't see a single thing related to Kennedy today at any time.  I guess all the political zealots had the weekend off.

[Carl]

JFK would be tombstoned (no pun intended) at the DUmp if he were alive today.

[Ptarmigan]

JFK would be tombstoned (no pun intended) at the DUmp if he were alive today.

JFK was killed by a commie, Lee Harvey Oswald.

[GOBUCKS]

DUmmies remember that Bush41 was sneaking around Dallas that day, followed everywhere he went by a chubby little twelve-year-old named Karl.

[crockspot]

I was born in 61, so too young to remember the JFK assassination, but I do remember RFK and MLK.

My father was a big right winger, but I remember growing up with a photograph hanging on the wall (probably from LIFE magazine) of an empty rocking chair, and an "ask not what your country blah blah" quote from JFK.

But some years later, I also remember my father saying that JFK was not even a pimple on Nixon's ass. lol

[JohnnyReb]

I remember it well. I was sixteen. I was shuffling MACK trucks back and forth from the truck yard to the service station where I worked (I serviced them and other teenagers washed them). I had stoped by home for lunch and JFK was riding and waving on TV as I walked out the backdoor of home. When I walked in the service station about 5 minutes later they told me he had been shot....I thought they were joking....We never missed a beat, just kept working because we wanted to be finished by 7 or 8 pm.....all for a grand total of $5 a day....I got a couple extra dollars from the trucking company for being able to drive the 2-stick MACK's....it saved them from having a driver come in on Saturday to drive the trucks. Oh, the good old days. 

[Vagabond]

My parents were both 11  in 1963.  I don't really recall much of that year.

[Lord Undies]

I was nine back then.  The school principal delivered the news over the PA about an hour after the fact.  Johnson was already president by that time.  That's when it dawned on me that anyone can be replaced.  Life went on.

The murder of John Kennedy was a terrible and violent thing.  It may have been a political thing.  But it proves that our government does not rely on office holders.  It relies on the office.  No one in our government, from the president on down, is irreplaceable.  No one is ALL-IMPORTANT.  

That has never been more true than it is today.  

[Wineslob]

I was 5 at the time. All I remember is my parents crying about it, but it diden't affect me in any other way.
My understanding is if JFK had not been killed, other than being part of a "pretty" first family, that whole Camelot BS, he would have gone down as an also-ran Prez.

[jinxmchue]

Didn't TiT have some... um... interesting memories of Kennedy's assassination?

[GOBUCKS]

Didn't TiT have some... um... interesting memories of Kennedy's assassination?

He had a perfect view of the whole thing from his seat on the grassy knoll, where he was sipping a Bombay Sapphire martini as the motorcade cruised by. He saw Bushco taking aim, but just couldn't get his .50 cal. machine gun out of his backpack quickly enough to prevent the assassination. Damn clumsy belt-fed weapons! History would have been changed if he'd had his Ithica riot gun. After the shooting, he was called to Parkland Hospital to comfort Jackie. He completed that task and was washing up when some pencil neck with sunglasses and an earpiece gave him a pristine fired bullet and asked him to dispose of it. He refused, killed the man with his bare hands, and gave the bullet to Tom Snyder. The rest is history.

[kenth]

and gave the bullet to Tom Snyder.

 

[jukin]

I was three and remember being upset that the cartoons were not playing on Saturday morning TV during the funeral.

And yep, JFK would be cruicified in today's democra...fascist party.

[franksolich]

You know, I still remain mystified.

I myself didn't recall until about suppertime yesterday (Sunday) that it was November 22.

And there were no reminders of the anniversary in the newspapers, magazines, and (apparently) on television and radio.  And one had to dig, really dig into Skins's island to find that the primitives themselves remembered, and those who did, well, there were damned few of them.

How fleeting, fame.

It's my theory, based upon 20th-century examples, that the 20th or 25th anniversary of something is the "big" one, and that the 40th anniversary is the "last hurrah," as those personally touched by a significant event die off.

After the 40th, it's all downhill from there.

Few know that the assassinaton of William McKinley in 1901 brought an outpouring of grief that surpassed that of the assassination of John Kennedy sixty-two years later--as preposterous as it might sound, it did, really--but who remembers that date these days?

How fleeting, fame.

[GOBUCKS]

Few know that the assassinaton of William McKinley in 1901 brought an outpouring of grief that surpassed that of the assassination of John Kennedy sixty-two years later--as preposterous as it might sound, it did, really--but who remembers that date these days?

How fleeting, fame.

So did the death of FDR, far greater, and the assassination of Lincoln probably hit the hardest of all. In those days, presidents carried a mythological aura, not tarnished by the 24/7 news cycle, and those two deaths came as they were being celebrated as heroes for winning horrific wars.

[Servonaut]

I was 2 months old when JFK bought the farm so I have no memory of that.  I do have a very vivid memory of March 30th 1981.  I was a senior in high school sitting in class when a message came over the loudspeaker that President Reagan had been shot.  A girl who was our senior class president gave a happy squeal and hugged the girl next to her.  It's funny, after so many years I can still see the look of glee on her face.

[Ptarmigan]

You know, I still remain mystified.

I myself didn't recall until about suppertime yesterday (Sunday) that it was November 22.

And there were no reminders of the anniversary in the newspapers, magazines, and (apparently) on television and radio.  And one had to dig, really dig into Skins's island to find that the primitives themselves remembered, and those who did, well, there were damned few of them.

How fleeting, fame.

It's my theory, based upon 20th-century examples, that the 20th or 25th anniversary of something is the "big" one, and that the 40th anniversary is the "last hurrah," as those personally touched by a significant event die off.

After the 40th, it's all downhill from there.

Few know that the assassinaton of William McKinley in 1901 brought an outpouring of grief that surpassed that of the assassination of John Kennedy sixty-two years later--as preposterous as it might sound, it did, really--but who remembers that date these days?

How fleeting, fame.

Mount McKinley is named after him. It is the highest peak in America at over 20,000 feet.