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November 22, 1963

stratovani

stratovani

Nov 18, 2007
3,653
1,131
Spencer, MA, USA
#1
Fifty years ago today I was in the fourth grade at Percy Hughes Elementary School in Syracuse, NY. In the afternoon we children noticed teachers crying in the hallways outside the classrooms. Suddenly over the intercom the principal came on, telling us what happened, and that we were to go home immediately. We would not return to class until after the funeral later the next week. Several months later, it would take four young lads from Liverpool, England to shake America out of its funk.

That's my story for November 22, 1963. What's yours?
 
#2
My dad was a rambunctious 13 year old and I was one of many billions of little swimmers yet to exist while the egg that I would occupy 20 years later was resting comfortably in my mom's 11 year old ovum.
 
#7
For years, I remembered my mommy crying, and asking her, "why are you crying, mommy?" and her telling me because they shot Kennedy. Then, I got to thinking about it, and realized I was four months old at the time, and I'm going to bet I wasn't capable of that conversation, or even getting around that much.

So I figure on Nov 22, 1963, I did nappies, possibly pooped and/or peed, and maybe some drooling?

And the memory? Perhaps BOBBY? That was when I was five years old, and would make perfect sense.
 
#12
I was in 7th grade, a social studies class. When the class was informed that Kennedy was shot we were at the time listening to a record. It was Vaughn Meader's "The First Family". A very odd coincidence.

I rode the bus home and ran in the house, "Have your heard?". My mother was standing in the kitchen, scrubbing the pots over the sink and crying. My big disappointment was that I could not be the one to tell her.
 
#13
I was in 6th grade gym class and someone ran in and yelled that the president as been shot. The rest of the weekend was spend trying to understand the adults reactions. Since then there have been mountains of lies, theories, and false hopes. In the wake of all of it, a life half lived, history changed beyond anyone's imagination and years and years of speculation, I'm going to make my claim on unwritten history. I firmly believe that had JFK lived, he would have picked Paul as his favorite Beatle.
 
#15
My father was stationed at Minot AFB, N.Dakota in 1963 (B-52 bomber/ Minuteman missile base); I was 12, in the 7th grade, and going to school in town. I remember a lot of crying (lots of crying- kids and adults),shock and disbelief, when the shooting was announced. I also remember standing in the middle of all of that, feeling... numb, I guess... and thinking, "I'm really, actually, not surprised". And, in a distant sort of way, being kind of surprised that I wasn't. Hard to describe, really,

Why? As a kid, I always liked to hang out with adults; plus I had a paper route on base that included most of the barracks'. Those guys were adults, but not too much older than I was. We had a lot of stuff in common (hell, I was born on an Air Base), and we talked about a lot of stuff, including politics. It's easy to forget, after 50 years, and the erasing of "Bad Stuff" about a slain President from our collective memory (we prefer to forget, for example, that Abraham Lincoln suspended people's civil rights; threw war dissenters into prison without trial; and was a virtual dictator for most of the Civil War), that there were a lot of Americans who were extremely unhappy with Kennedy' policies in general, and hated him personally. They weren't shy about expressing it, either; in ways that would get them jailed if they did it today. I know; I heard it. A lot of people thought it would be great if he was 'got rid of', and said so-loudly. So, it was a shock when it actually happened; but, sad to say, not a surprise.

I also remember the school bus having a very hard time getting past the swarm of Security Police at the base front gate that day. The bus was boarded and searched; everybody's ID card was checked-very carefully- and the driver was dragged out, thrown on the ground, and searched. I think we left a couple of kids at the gate, too, 'cause they had forgotten their ID; their fathers were probably not real happy about it, either. Minot AFB was a very paranoid place for the next week or so. They finally calmed down after it was decided that the assassination wasn't part of a Commie plot to start WWIII. Not a happy time, for sure. For me, America died that day, too: and the Amerika that replaced it has not been a suitable substitute.
 
#16
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 10 and in the 5th grade. Our class, another 5th grade class and two 6th grade classes were packing school materials away because we were all moving to another school on the following Monday. The teacher in the class next door brought a TV from the office and had it in thier room. Sometime around 12:45 or so a kid from next door came bursting in our room saying "Kennedy's been shot. They just announced it on TV." We were all yeah, right, get outta here and he's saying "no, no...it's on TV right now." Our teacher went to the room next door and came back saying that yes, he's been shot but that's all they knew. About 40 minutes later....I'll never forget it....I was getting ready to put a stack of books I was holding into a box when I heard the door open and the teacher from the next room was standing there. He said "did you hear the news? President Kennedy's dead, they just announced it." For about 4 seconds all of us kids went dead silent and I'll never forget our teacher in her light blue outfit shedding a few tears.

The other clear memory I have that day is when I got off the bus. The sky was overcast and while the tree's had been bare for about a week I remember noticing how bare they REALLY looked, like they took on a differant look since the morning of that day.

My God.....can't believe that was 50 years ago. I was just a young boy, then.
 
#17
My dad had just gotten out of the Army and we had just returned from Germany where he was stationed. I was in school and a fire was raging around the small community we lived in. Few adults were at work that day, most were out trying to keep the fire from getting any closer. It had been burning for a couple days, going to bed with a red slash across the ceiling coming through my bedroom window, the strong smell of wood smoke and watery eyes from the smoke in the air.

We didn't have an intercom so they herded us into the basketball gym and the principal announced our president had been assassinated. You could see the fire and smoke out the windows and more than one kid (and teacher) speculated it was two sure signs we were in endtimes.

Because most of our folks were out beating back the fire they held us in the gym until someone came to claim us. My mom stayed home so when she heard (it was a small place and word traveled fast) she came down to the school and collected myself and my older sister.

School was shut down until the funeral so we stayed home with my mom. They got the fire out sometime that night so it was pretty much back to usual, except for the general sense of fear and anxiousness among the adults we may be facing another war. Fresh out of the Army, my dad was well aware of our growing involvement in Vietnam, but his concern was that JFK was the beginning of a larger move by the USSR. We were living in north Alabama at the time and my dad went straight to Ft. Rucker and signed on as a flight instructor in anticipation of the escalation of forces he felt sure would happen.
 
#19
InsaneBassninja said:
He's lives on in spirit. The only perstident breae eouch to say this...
Click to expand...
At first read, I could only assume that you were including Gaelic language in your post.

And I don't know if 50 years is too soon to include a typically-in-poor-taste Misfits video that may be NSFW, but it's definitely on topic and a toe tapper:

 
#20
mellowinman said:
For years, I remembered my mommy crying, and asking her, "why are you crying, mommy?" and her telling me because they shot Kennedy. Then, I got to thinking about it, and realized I was four months old at the time, and I'm going to bet I wasn't capable of that conversation, or even getting around that much.

So I figure on Nov 22, 1963, I did nappies, possibly pooped and/or peed, and maybe some drooling?

And the memory? Perhaps BOBBY? That was when I was five years old, and would make perfect sense.
Click to expand...


It's possible your mom loved JFK so much she was still crying about him 5 years later.
 

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