Remembrances of November 22, 1963

Our nation will soon reflect and comment on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  As part of an oral and written history of regular folk, we should write how we heard about the assassination to inform others about a common shared event and the impact of the event on those too young to remember that horrid Friday afternoon the week before Thanksgiving.

1963 was the era of no Internet, no Facebook or Twitter, no instant messaging, no news or talk radio (AM radio was music) and no twenty-four hour news stations on television.  It was a period of multiple newspapers in an area, including afternoon newspapers.

SInce it's my suggestion to provide the history, I'll go first.

When I first heard about the assassination I thought it was a practical joke.  Remember at that time a popular record (the large black vinyl disks with two sides you placed on a rotating surface and placed a needle connected to an arm on the surface) was Vaughn Meader's comedy record about the first family.  I had afternoon physical education (when they still had it school) in the school pool which did not have a connection to the school PA system.  A student on the swim team was listening to a radio in the office and reported the event; the swim team was known as a bunch of practical jokers so we thought he was playing a bad joke.  At the end of the day we returned to our home rooms and realized by the look on fellow student's faces this was not a practical joke.  

I traveled to school by way of the subway in New York City.  When I entered the subway car everyone had a drained look on their face like someone in their immediate family had died.  Some were holding a mid afternoon edition of the New York Post, then an afternoon paper, with the headline.  That evening, gathering with friends, rather than talking about girls, college and illegal drinking (the drinking age was 18 at the time) we all felt a kind of emotional weightlessness.

For the generation of my parents, the assassination was a critical event like Pearl Harbor.  For my generation, the assassination critical event is matched only by 9/11.  I hope the current generation does not have to experience an event to move the emotions of 9/11 background, like 9/11 moved the assassination to the background.

It would be interesting to hear the remembrances from others in the Patch community.