I was in kindergarten and we were getting ready for naptime after lunch when the nuns ran into the room. They were all upset and brought in a tv. That was the first time they had ever brought a tv into a classroom.
Then I was home in the livingroom watching tv when Oswald was shot. We had just bought our first tv days before.
I was in the kitchen with my dad. He was watching it. I was in the room but missed it.
A strange week followed. Everything came to a standstill. We watched the adults as they sat glued to the television I don't remember if the coverage was 24/7 that weekend, but it was close.
My cousins and I took turns laying on a bed posing as to how we thought JFK was positioned in his casket. The big question was did he have his hand over his heart. Kids latch on to the strangest things. We were no different.
My oldest cousin saw Oswald shot that Sunday morning. She got to skip Sunday School for some reason. We felt slighted because we missed the excitement. “Why does she get to have all the fun?” What can I say, we were just kids.
I do remember it was the first time in my life I grasped the finality of death. Until then, death had been an abstract idea, something I had not experienced up close and personal.
I had just turned three years old, and remember it. I was at my mom’s friends house (Mr. and Mrs. Brown) as they watched me from time to time. They had a T.V.
I also used to get 1 of the Twinkies in the package after my lunch when I was there - the other half with Mr. Brown as he would come home for lunch. They also had a screened-in porch, and that is it for my memories of Mr. and Mrs. Brown’s house!
I wonder if thinking about JFK and looking at my Hostess Twinkie I thought “well - at least I’ll ALWAYS have Twinkies”.
As I got older I could never understand how my old man hated JFK so much. (”He was assasinated Dad!”). He hated FDR even more (”But Dad - he ended WWII!”) I wish my old man had explained things to me back then, although in college I figured out why he dislike them so much.