Posted on 05/30/2017 4:42:34 AM PDT by crazylibertarian
A PIVOTAL DAY
"Get the radio on. Kennedy's been shot!" I’d phoned my mother. We still hoped not the worst would be true. After all the years since then I can still recall what she replied to me and the way she said it that long ago autumn day. It still stands out like yesterday in my mind and others all say the same, I find. "Someone shot Kennedy,” a friend had said. We soon learned it was in the head! It was immediately after that, we all turned our radios on and sat down for the breaking news that so soon would seem to end our youth. That afternoon, after a pause, Chet Huntley's voice would hover in the room and our minds as it came over the radio. Chet Huntley said, "The President of The United States is dead". We stood in silence. Physically, we were fine but like never before chills ran in our spines as we walked around in horrid disbelief. John F. Kennedy was our Commander-in-Chief. He had a special place in our hearts. We were like balloons shot with darts. Our lives have been divided by that day and after that everyone would say the same. Good times would come after but that day changed our laughter. At the funeral the hymns were sung again but we knew we'd never be young again. More than a generation has now gone to its grave and those who have come since are unable to save memories they do not have. They can't perceive it and I'm sure that they could not believe it could happen. A half century later, it’s still hard to accept that a madman could kill and deliver to eternity and the fates The President of The United States.
So I was a sophomore at a catholic parochial HS in the Bronx. They didn’t explain why, but they closed school an hour earlier than normal. Had to take a public bus home. Didn’t talk to anyone on the bus. Walked the final half mile home. Got home and Mom was crying. That was well over an hour after most people knew what happened in Dallas that day.
Sunday morning I watched Oswald get shot on live TV.
Was 10 and sitting in 5th grade math class when they wheeled in the TV. Too young to grasp the magnitude but will always remember it.
I remember the numbness I felt, almost speechless, as I watched tv that afternoon.
Our country changed, that day in Dallas.
I absolutely don’t care.
The Democrats have made Kennedy a god and they worship at his altar.
At some point, the stupid worship of this failed president must stop. He wasn’t good. He blew it on Cuba, he screwed up Vietnam, he failed to act on Civil Rights, he was a drug addict and a philanderer. He was no good.
Every November it’s the same thing: Boo-Hoo! Let me tell you where I was when Kennedy was shot ...
2003 — 40 years ago ...
2013 — 50 years ago ...
Well, guess what? It’s May. It’s 2017.
53 and a half years ago ...
C’mon! Can we stop worshipping the Golden Calf?
JFK worship. Bleccch! When are these people going to get over it? I never saw my mother cry so hard as when she heard the news about JFK — the night she heard he was elected.
I’m with you. It’s not that JFK was so bad (today his policies would be considered conservative). It’s that the abject idolization of his mediocre presidency gave rise to the rest of the Kennedys, including the execrable Ted.
The Kennedys are so over ...
I was nine months old and slept through the entire thing.
In retrospect, Kennedy was mainly considered great because he was shot.
But imagine how Ted Kennedy felt. He was the only Kennedy not worth enough to get assassinated.
I was in 7th grade. The head nun came over the PA system and said “Your prayers are requested for the repose of the soul of President John F. Kennedy, who has been assassinated.” My nun left the classroom, and our first thoughts were that the Soviets had killed him and that we are at war. Remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis was just a year earlier.
Our nun came back in the classroom, crying, and herded us all over to the church, where all the other classes were forming up. They had us say the rosary.
Then they released us for the day.
In 1963 my Dad was a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, and he was a pilot. When I got home he has home, and so was my Mom. My Dad never came home from work before 7:00 p.m., and here it was about 1:00 in the afternoon. In those days there were no cell phones, and my Dad reasoned that if his unit was going to be activated he’d get the call at home.
The only people I remember who were visibly upset were the nuns. Most of the other adults were just sort of quiet. Almost everyone’s father in those days was a WWII veteran, and everyone’s mother had experienced WWII to some extent (my Mom especially, as she was from England, and had gone through the blitz, etc.). So, all the adults I knew were just kind of stoic.
I was in 7th grade. The head nun came over the PA system and said “Your prayers are requested for the repose of the soul of President John F. Kennedy, who has been assassinated.” My nun left the classroom, and our first thoughts were that the Soviets had killed him and that we are at war. Remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis was just a year earlier.
Our nun came back in the classroom, crying, and herded us all over to the church, where all the other classes were forming up. They had us say the rosary.
Then they released us for the day.
In 1963 my Dad was a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, and he was a pilot. When I got home he was home, and so was my Mom. My Dad never came home from work before 7:00 p.m., and here it was about 1:00 in the afternoon. In those days there were no cell phones, and my Dad reasoned that if his unit was going to be activated he’d get the call at home.
The only people I remember who were visibly upset were the nuns. Most of the other adults were just sort of quiet. Almost everyone’s father in those days was a WWII veteran, and everyone’s mother had experienced WWII to some extent (my Mom especially, as she was from England, and had gone through the blitz, etc.). So, all the adults I knew were just kind of stoic.
I too remember when the President was shot. He recovered, though.
One of my sisters and I were roller skating in the basement when one of our siblings yelled down the stairs to us that the president had been shot. I had a sleepover that night with a friend, and I remember her mother crying on and off that evening about what had happened. It was shocking.
Admittedly liberal comic Jimmy Tingle: "I remember being home and Oswald got shot. My mother says, Oswald's been shot, kids...get in the house. What was she thinking? Jack Ruby's saying to himself, Oswald got Kennedy. I got Oswald. But there'll be no peace in this great land until the Tingle kids are dead!"
I was 9 in 4th grade. I went to get my teacher’s afternoon coffee and was told to tell her President Kennedy had been shot. I did as instructed. She thought I was clowning around so kind of got the finger pointed at me. I told her to go see on the TV in the student lounge. She ran there and came back crying. I remember it being a quiet weekend sitting in front of the black and white TV and seeing Jack Ruby shoot Oswald. Seeing other parent’s reaction made me scared.
Fast forward to 1991. I worked in Dallas in the same building as Jack Ruby’s lawyer. He showed me Jack Ruby’s hat and suit...which had become a legal battle between the lawyer and JR family!
Assachusetts doesn’t think they’re over. The rest of the world knows it.
Camelot wasn’t a myth; it was an outright lie.
That is hilarious. Not much to laugh at today but I loved that....
“”But there’ll be no peace in this great land until the Tingle kids are dead!””
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