Remembering JFK's assassination is easier if you were alive then

The Union Leader, Manchester, NH ^ | 11/17/03 | JOSEPH W. McQUAID

[dasboot]

Kindergarten:
The teacher, crying, wheeled in the black-and-white with the rabbit ears, and we all watched. We never needed counseling. The cartoons were gone for two weeks.

[Skwidd]

When Kennedy was assassinated, I was -11 years, 4 months old. Of course, some of the people who work for me were babies or a twinkle in Daddy's eye when John Hinckley Jr. took his shot at fame; yet another piece of history I had to explain to the Playstation Generation.

[Kerberos]

"When Kennedy was assassinated, I was -11 years, 4 months old."

Eight years and 1 month but I still remember it as if it happened just a few years ago. It was somewhat like 9-11 in that the world just came to a stop for awhile.

[Adder]

6th grade...math class around 2-ish.
Rode the bus home and found Mom in tears, the TV on and Walter Cronkite. Always Uncle Walter. We channel surfed over the 3 channels looking for scraps of new news. Dad took me to the store for the paper. A remembrance that I kept for years and have since lost[dammit!].
We were eating dinner Sunday and watched LIVE as Oswald was shot.
I'll never forget the immediacy of those days...of being involved in history intimately. We were all a part of it.
It was similar to the 9-11 tragedy. Everyone just for a while realized they were AMERICANS first. All else was put aside.

[Grut]

21-year old college boy; I got the impression that a lot of people were getting off on The Drama of it All.

[MEG33]

I was in Dallas.Devastating.I recall exactly where I was and what the conversation was as soon as I could share the horror with someone.It was an attack on America.

[leadpenny]

I was a soldier in a tank battalion in Munich, Germany and, yes, it was a friggin' long time ago.

BTW, the Bavarian authorites decreed that for 30 days there would be no juke box playing, no loud talking, and no dancing.

[MEG33]

Amazing.Thanks for sharing.

[coincheck]

I was four, my dad was on his first tour in viet nam, all i remember is my mom crying. coincheck

[geege]

"2"......cried because grandma was crying per mom.....

[leadpenny]

We were having a company party at the EM club at Will Kaserne. There was no instant Radio/TV commo from the states and it was seven or eight o'clock when the Company Commander stopped the band and said the prez had been shot. The folks in the kitchen had a shortwave radio or something. He said until we find out what has happened that the band could continue. About a half hour later the party stopped.

[billorites]

I was rehearsing for our 3rd grade Thanksgiving pageant when the story broke.I was dressed up as William Bradford and had just said, "Greetings to you, Squanto. Greetings to you, Samoset."

Then the teacher hustled us back to homeroom where the principal spoke for about half an hour over the intercom.

I remember listening to him while staring at the Pilgrim buckles my mother had made for my shoes.

[Renegade]

Junior-High School -Study Hall--Having a hottie tell me how to bake a chocolate cake ( had an ulterior motive ) Next thought- --Will we have football practice this afternoon? ----We Did !

[RobFromGa]

I was 18 months old and I still remember I was reading a classified report about the Cuban Missile Crisis and I was just about to call up Bobby with something that the two of them had overlooked, and my cribphone went off- I knew something was terribly wrong.

I answered it and you know the rest. They got another baby to handle future intelligence work and we ended up with the Vietnam War as a result. I could have stopped that.

[dakine]

4 weeks old, don't remember... 22 Nov is my son's birthday.

[PaulJ]

Fifth grade. The 24 hour TV coverage for several days was too much for me. Heard Oswald get shot live on the radio in the family car. I remember my father pulling over and cranking up the radio as the announcer screamed, "Oswald has been shot! Oswald has been shot!" And yes, it feels like yesterday.

[Amelia]

To find people to properly answer the "where were you when" story on JFK, Ed the Editor would have to start with people at least 50 years of age. Holy gray hair, Batman!

Not quite....

I was in 2nd grade. The teacher had sent me to the office on an errand. While I was there, the secretary answered the telephone and began sounding really upset. In a few minutes they sent a messenger to the classroom (no intercoms in those days), and the teacher told us.

We went to my Grandmother's for Thanksgiving that year. Nothing on but the news coverage - no Thanksgiving parades, no cartoons, just news. Only 2 or 3 TV stations in those days, depending on where you lived and if you could afford a TV that received VHF programming.

Oswald was shot on live TV. Everyone wondered what horrible thing would happen next.

[Amelia]

"Old people" remembering bump.

[jocon307]

"...all i remember is my mom crying..."

I was about that age, I guess I was 5. I never saw my mother cry like that again, and it was very confusing to me because my mother did NOT like JFK. But, as she explained, it was because he was "our" president. My two younger brothers don't remember it at all.