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Memories of the day we lost President Kennedy [1]
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Date: 2022-11-22
I was in 2nd grade. I can still remember in detail that afternoon. We were standing in line in front of our classroom after lunch recess. The lights were out and we could hear that the speaker was on. A few moments later our teacher came and opened the door, not turning the lights on. She asked us to put our heads on the desk as we listened to the radio. We could tell she was crying, so we knew this was serious, and we kept quiet and still. It was about 15 minutes later that they released us to go home. I only lived a few houses away and when I got home no one was there. My mom was going to college at the time so I waited on the driveway, not sure what to do. When she pulled up she was crying so hard she could barely get the door opened. We went inside and turned on the TV.
Walter Cronkite was announcing that President Kennedy had died. This 12 minute video shows how a live coverage newsroom worked at the time, a mini history lesson in itself.
x YouTube Video
My mom didn’t miss any of the CBS coverage until after the funeral (back in the day when there wasn’t news 24 hour a day). I stayed home from school that Monday and as we watched the funeral procession together, she taught me what the caisson that carried his casket was and the “riderless” horse that had boots reversed in the stirrups.
My parent were big JFK supporters. My dad was a HS social science teacher and I remember vaguely the Kennedy/Nixon debate. I remember election night in 1960, with my dad and his teaching buddies drank beer all night waiting for results, a different time from our Steve Kornacki election coverage today. During the campaign my mom and dad had gone to an event and met Robert Kennedy. She never washed the white glove that he had touched. The book that I bought in 1965 “Meet John F. Kennedy” by Nancy Bean White is still sitting on my bookshelf. This is the last paragraph of the book:
“He was struck down long before we could see what lay at the end of his road. But for a moment we caught his step. And when he turned, we smiled.”
Isn’t it amazing that a 9 year old could understand that and that every time I read it I still cry.
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