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Remembering JFK's assassination
is easier if you were alive then
The Union Leader, Manchester, NH ^
| 11/17/03
| JOSEPH W. McQUAID
Posted on 11/17/2003 2:34:22 AM PST by RJCogburn
NEXT WEEK is Thanksgiving. Where has the year gone?
This Saturday is the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Where have all the years gone?
When our editors were looking for "angles" for an anniversary story last week, I suggested the tried-and-true one.
"Ask some New Hampshire people where they were and what they were doing and thinking when they heard the news from Dallas," I said.
"Okay," said Ed the Editor. "We can go out to the nursing homes and other places where old people congregate."
Ed was only half-kidding. What he was really trying to do, without completely ticking off the boss, was to gently suggest that the percentage of the population that was alive when the President was killed is getting smaller. And he is correct.
It occurred to me later that in November of 1963, I would have considered the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt to be a part of ancient history, when in fact it had taken place just 19 years earlier less than half the time that has passed since John F. Kennedy's death.
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!
Instead, Ed liked another editor's suggestion that we ask kids at the JFK Coliseum what they knew of the man for whom that Manchester ice rink was named. I'm not sure if we are doing that, but I hope so. I think we should also ask the little tykes how to get to Idlewild Airport. (Hint: It's in New York City but it's not LaGuardia. BIG bonus points if you know who the Little Flower was.)
When Art Carney died last week, one of the McQuaid kids reacted like many other people.
"He was still alive?"
That's what TV reruns will do for you. Carney and Gleason and the original Honeymooners were shot back in the black-and-white 1950s and early 60s. And Carney had been retired for years. Still, it was nice to think of him again.
He was a fine comedian who overcame his personal demons and never complained about them. He was, like Kennedy, a World War II veteran, taking a bullet at the D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches.
For the record, I was just getting on the high school bus for home on a Friday afternoon when one of the upper classmen told us about Dallas. I knew I would never forget it. But I didn't know it would ever get to be so far back in history.
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: jfk; jfkassassination
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1
posted on
11/17/2003 2:34:23 AM PST
by
RJCogburn
To: RJCogburn
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.
2
posted on
11/17/2003 2:38:17 AM PST
by
dasboot
(Celebrate UNITY!)
To: RJCogburn
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.
3
posted on
11/17/2003 2:38:46 AM PST
by
Skwidd
(Fire Controlman First Class Extraordinaire)
To: Skwidd
"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.
4
posted on
11/17/2003 2:50:58 AM PST
by
Kerberos
(Socialism, it's not just a liberal thang anymore.)
To: dasboot
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.
5
posted on
11/17/2003 2:52:13 AM PST
by
Adder
To: RJCogburn
21-year old college boy; I got the impression that a lot of people were getting off on The Drama of it All.
6
posted on
11/17/2003 2:57:35 AM PST
by
Grut
To: Kerberos
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.
7
posted on
11/17/2003 2:59:25 AM PST
by
MEG33
To: RJCogburn
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.
8
posted on
11/17/2003 3:03:35 AM PST
by
leadpenny
To: leadpenny
Amazing.Thanks for sharing.
9
posted on
11/17/2003 3:05:28 AM PST
by
MEG33
To: leadpenny
I was four, my dad was on his first tour in viet nam, all i remember is my mom crying. coincheck
To: RJCogburn
"2"......cried because grandma was crying per mom.....
11
posted on
11/17/2003 3:12:21 AM PST
by
geege
To: MEG33; coincheck
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.
To: RJCogburn
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.
13
posted on
11/17/2003 3:20:29 AM PST
by
billorites
(freepo ergo sum)
To: RJCogburn
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 !
14
posted on
11/17/2003 3:25:45 AM PST
by
Renegade
To: RJCogburn
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.
15
posted on
11/17/2003 3:26:50 AM PST
by
RobFromGa
(The Bush Recovery Is In Full Swing....)
To: Renegade
4 weeks old, don't remember... 22 Nov is my son's birthday.
16
posted on
11/17/2003 3:30:18 AM PST
by
dakine
To: RJCogburn
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.
17
posted on
11/17/2003 3:32:32 AM PST
by
PaulJ
To: RJCogburn
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.
18
posted on
11/17/2003 3:32:48 AM PST
by
Amelia
To: Howlin; justshe; deport; RedBloodedAmerican; Southflanknorthpawsis; DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet; ...
"Old people" remembering bump.
19
posted on
11/17/2003 3:36:16 AM PST
by
Amelia
To: coincheck
"...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.
20
posted on
11/17/2003 3:37:29 AM PST
by
jocon307
(IMMIGRATION MORATORIUM NOW!)
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