WHERE WAS EVERYBODY THIS YEAR?

Amazon.com Author Forum ^ | 11/23/2010 | John W. Cassell

[johnwcassell]

NOVEMBER 22, 1963 was a day many Americans still living will never forget....

The President and Vice President were in Dallas...

Most of the Cabinet were on a plane bound for Tokyo...

The country was preparing for Thanks giving which I was looking forward to spending with Helen Fairbanks, my teenage love, in Baltimore.

Whether you liked JFK or not, you found yourself listening to Peter, Paul and Mary, the Sound of Music and a song about "chickenfat" supporting Kennedy's fitness program.

You were YOUNG. Even going to Atlantic City High you could wake up JOYFUL.

It was just something in the air.

Some people, including noted author Jack Engelhard, said we lost our innocence beginning in the early afternoon when the first word from Dallas was flashed around the country.

I, of course disagree. Kennedy had a sordid private life and no experience governing. Rep. Howard Smith could halt the New Frontier by adjourning his powerful committee. Joseph Kennedy's mad ambition to turn his criminal millions into presidential power for some twenty years gave those of us who preferred the gentility and quiet, simple dignity of the Eisenhower years pause as well.

But those bullets that blasted into the head of the President on that fateful day did change the world for all of us.

The aura of youthfulness began to dry up. Helen and I had a great Thanksgiving....and we went to a Kennedy Era Hootenany... but things were about to change.

Nowhere can you find a more down and dirty, truly accurate description of the change than in Jack Engelhard's DAYS OF THE BITTER END.

The cities began to burn. There were tanks and National Guardsmen in the streets. Vietnam was escalated to a vicious slaughter... The Armed Forces were disintegrating with mutinies and fraggings. A whole division sat on the DMZ with the Army afraid to move them. Their officers refused to even try to take them out and the Pentagon felt it was too dangerous to bring them home.

As an Air Force officer I faced sit-ins... slow downs...

shutdowns...

There was a pall upon the land as that gross creature in the White House twisted arms ramming through Great Society opium to hook the economy on government aid.

Yes, I missed Kennedy. His successor had the nation in flames...mobs in Washington chanted "burn...baby burn

...burn that White House down."

It was nearly a half century ago...

Yet those of us there will always remember... Why wasn't this Black Day in our history observed with a pause... a minute of silence?

A lot died with the President that day.

Whether you liked him or not.

John W. Cassell

PS-I don't even know where Helen is now.

[pookie18]

Occurred about an hour after asking my future ex-wife to “go steady”...

[N. Theknow]

I was on the grassy knoll with 3 CIA guys, 2 FBI agents and 4 mafia hitmen.

Actually I was in 9th grade with a day off from school for the 1st Annual Sweet Potato Festival and Parade that was being held.

When my friends and I heard the news we were astonished that anyone would cry over losing him since no one we knew liked him.

[folkquest]

I turned three that year. Probably playing with my Tinker Toys and jack-in-a-box.

[a fool in paradise]

Dave’s not here!

[a fool in paradise]

The writer mentioned a song called "Chicken Fat"--

1950s MAD cartoonist Will Elder refered to all of the little details and inside jokes in his panels as "chicken fat".

Also working its way up the chart at the time was "Dominique," a musical oddity by Soeur Sourire, aka The Singing Nun. This French-language song, about the crusader and evangelist Domingo Félix de Guzmán, who fought in the thirteenth-century Albigensian Crusade, actually made it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and sat there for several weeks--an illustration as to how times have changed, as it would be considered highly politically incorrect today.

'Whatever became of...'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singing_Nun

Deckers became increasingly critical of Catholic doctrines and eventually became a public advocate for contraception. She also agreed with John Lennon's statements about Jesus in 1966.[citation needed] In 1967, she recorded a song entitled "Glory Be to God for the Golden Pill" — a paean to artificial birth control under the name Luc Dominique. It was a commercial failure.

... In the late 1970s, the Belgian government claimed that she owed approximately $63,000 USD in back taxes.[2] Deckers countered that the royalties from her recording were given to the convent and therefore she was not liable for payment of any personal income taxes. Lacking any receipts to prove her donations to the convent and her religious order, Deckers ran into heavy financial problems. In 1982, she tried, once again as Sœur Sourire, to score a hit with a disco synthesizer version of "Dominique", but this last attempt to resume her singing career failed.

Citing their financial difficulties in a note, she and her companion of ten years, Anna Pécher, both committed suicide by an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol on 29 March 1985.

[a fool in paradise]

Nowhere can you find a more down and dirty, truly accurate description of the change than in Jack Engelhard's DAYS OF THE BITTER END. The cities began to burn. There were tanks and National Guardsmen in the streets. Vietnam was escalated to a vicious slaughter... The Armed Forces were disintegrating with mutinies and fraggings. A whole division sat on the DMZ with the Army afraid to move them. Their officers refused to even try to take them out and the Pentagon felt it was too dangerous to bring them home.

Communists openly rioted in our streets and plotted to kill troops, police, and congressmen.

Jerry Rubin met with Che Guevara who encouraged him to take action in America rather than go globetrotting.

The Weather Underground sprang out of the SDS (Students For A Democratic Society) and launch their campaign of treasonous terror with a riot during the trials for the Chicago 7 (who'd coordinated riots in Chicago the previous year).

Rebel chic.

There was plenty of civil unrest from racists as well (and not just in the South).

[a fool in paradise]

There was a pall upon the land as that gross creature in the White House twisted arms ramming through Great Society opium to hook the economy on government aid. Yes, I missed Kennedy. His successor had the nation in flames...mobs in Washington chanted "burn...baby burn ...burn that White House down." It was nearly a half century ago... Yet those of us there will always remember... Why wasn't this Black Day in our history observed with a pause... a minute of silence?

A lot died with the President that day.

Whether you liked him or not.

The Red Diaper Doper Babies became more powerful in the 1960s and 1970s and BECAME members of Congress, anchors in the media, editors at the newspapers, and eventually took hold of the presidency several times over.

They won't mourn, if given half a chance, they would cheer.

[a fool in paradise]

I was managing an unknown group of unknown notalents called the Beatles.

Lucky you! I was busy managing Vaughn Meader.

After John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, sales of The First Family albums plummeted, and stores removed the records from their shelves as the nation went into mourning. A JFK-related Christmas single by Meader was released by Verve Records shortly before the assassination; it was quickly withdrawn. Meader and others commented through the years that the assassin's bullet killed not only Kennedy, but also Meader (or, Meader's career). His act was no longer in demand and even appearances that were already booked—including those for the Grammy Awards show, the Joey Bishop show, and To Tell the Truth—were canceled.

[a fool in paradise]

There was a book on Candy Barr that came out a few years ago.

She died a recluse in Texas.

[Fiji Hill]

After John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, sales of The First Family albums plummeted, and stores removed the records from their shelves as the nation went into mourning. A JFK-related Christmas single by Meader was released by Verve Records shortly before the assassination; it was quickly withdrawn. Meader and others commented through the years that the assassin's bullet killed not only Kennedy, but also Meader (or, Meader's career). His act was no longer in demand and even appearances that were already booked—including those for the Grammy Awards show, the Joey Bishop show, and To Tell the Truth—were canceled.

Meader later waxed a disc entitled "The New First Family, 1968." You can listen to the original "First Family" on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs9gOrGU8wE.

[Hoffer Rand]

Hey, another very special person! Did you know Vincent van Gogh also shares our birthday?

[FredZarguna]

Did you know Vincent van Gogh also shares our birthday?

Yes, but more importantly, so does Eric Clapton.

[ALASKA]

I was in my 1st grade class in Denton, TX.....40 miles north of Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald’s niece was in my class, his brother, Robert lived about 3 blocks away from me.

[ALASKA]

I was in my 1st grade class in Denton, TX.....40 miles north of Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald’s niece was in my class, his brother, Robert lived about 3 blocks away from me.