And I will never forget this day. Every November 22 , I remember this is the day President Kennedy was shot and killed. And Jackie’s pink suit and pillbox hat.
Thank you for filling me in on the background as I did not remember that,
Racism the deep deep poison at the heart of our nation
Aye, a remember when for me too. I had just turned 13 and in grade 7. I was in school and the silence in the hallways upon leaving the building that day was deafening.
Deep deep sadness. For the telling of this story. Breathtaking and heartbreaking. And remembering the day, where we were and how it felt. Bewildered. And today, here we are. Bewildered, still.
Thankyou, Heather, for telling us this. I am reminded that I had seen President Kennedy only a month before, October, when he addressed students and faculty outdoors in the stands at our football field at the University of Maine. To think that he would be murdered in Dallas the next month was shocking to me at the age of 19. I'm sure that others who had also seen him at our campus that October day felt the same way.
I had been too young to vote in1960. If I had been old enough then, I might have voted for Nixon because my parents were staunch Republicans and had voted for him. Dad worked at a shipyard where U.S. submarines were built. He and many of the workers felt that if a Democrat would be elected, they would lose their jobs. Besides that, Kennedy was a catholic. By the time Kennedy was assassinated, I had learned a lot and changed my mind about what my parent had told me.
Then when the government covered up the details, the Warren Commission, I could not understand how they could do that, since there was too much evidence that showed Lee Harvey Oswald probably didn't kill the president, or that at least there had been others involved.
A couple of days ago, I watched the great film "Lawrence of Arabia" that came out in 1962. In the film, actor Peter O'Toole, who played the role of Lawrence spoke a line we all should remember: "There may be honor among thieves, but not among politicians." Lawrence was speaking of the British and French that were cutting a deal with the Arabs to create new states in the Middle East near the end of WWI.
The context of the politics behind the trip gave me pause to wonder whether LHO’s actions may have been racially motivated, or perhaps he was hired by someone who was.
That was the saddest day and long weekend of my young life, and the loss is as painful to relive today as it was to live through it in real time 61 years ago.
On Fridays, we would don our wool uniforms adorned with medals earned for scholarship or good deeds or editing the yearbook. In the afternoon, we child soldiers would present ourselves in formation and hold a "pass in review" to anyone who would watch. The parents, we thought, were proud. We were hot. It was what we did at the San Antonio Academy (SAA) on Fridays in San Antonio, Texas when we were kids wearing uniforms.
The Day before, Thursday, November 21, 1963, was exciting for this 13 year old. Mom, usually a stickler for my not missing classes, asked if I would like to see the President of the United States in his parade through the city. Mom and Dad had known the Kennedys as we were transplants from Massachusetts. My Dad had been an assistant attorney general there. After leaving public service, he had met with the President's father at the Hyannis compound to discuss business dealings. The parade route would pass within a mile of our home just up Devine Road, down Hildebrand to Broadway.
Positioned at the Broadway side of Incarnate Word College, we awaited the President's motorcade. Seen at some distance, it seemed to be moving quickly. But, as it approached where Mom and I were standing, it slowed to a crawl. Someone with a bouquet of flowers had stepped from the crowd to approach the long, black Lincoln. The license plate read "GG 300." The bouquet was handed to a smiling Jackie. The President looked our way with his joy.
I carried a 13 year old's excitement into the following day. We had finished our fish sticks and canned, watery turnip greens and gone to our first afternoon class, Spanish for me. It was early afternoon on a warm day in south central Texas. Our headmaster, Col. W.T. Bondurant Jr., in an anamoly, entered the classroom. He weaved his way around the school desks to the back of the class where I was seated in my preferred spot. He solemnly leaned over my desk and whispered, "we will be adjourning classes and hold a memorial on our parade ground; the President has been shot."
As student battalion commander, it was my duty to assemble the student body into their assigned "companies" on the field. It was then my duty, standing at the front of the student military "staff," to announce to the students that our President had died. It took all the self-control I could muster not to have my confidence fail me and for their student leader to become a mewling child. I thought - the President would not want that.
Thank you for this! This was one of the only times I have never seen or heard any mention of Kennedy's murder on November 22. I was a senior in high school when it happened and it's seared into my memory. When I was a senior in college, Robert Kennedy was murdered, along with Martin Luther King. So many horrible memories that should not ever be forgotten.
like most that were alive that day I will never forget. We were on the playground; I was in 4th grade. The teachers announced we had to go inside there was an emergency. No one knew what had happened. We had grown up with air raid drills and the vague threat of an attack. but wwII was not long before and all its atrocities were known by all of us kids. A short time later we were all sent home. When we turned on the television then we knew what had happened. Although we still do not know the truth of the whole story.
The only day that comes close in comparison is 9/11. Another attack rooted in rasism. Racism related to religion is also a poisin that destroys the heart of intelligence. Racism is the poisin that recently steered the election.
I was in 7th grade. The nuns rolled a TV into the classroom and we watched the news together. Meanwhile they prepared to send us home early. It was solemn.
And yet we continue to coddle and protect "militias" https://www.britannica.com/event/militia-movement. They couldn't be as bad as foreign terrorists https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-the-rise-of-domestic-terrorism-in-the-homeland. I am sure our incoming president with his "international" relationships will tilt the balance. I find it interesting that USA is working hard to stem the flow of Fentanyl from foreign sources, they should do what they can, but is was fine for well over a decade to get Americans addicted to OxyContin https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/what-led-to-the-opioid-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/. which was the worst drug crisis ever in America, and it was legal. Don't worry, the Sacklers are doing okay, still attending parties and celebrating holidays with friends and family. Did I get off track? Nope, we see history repeating itself every generation with militias, racism, and the rise of fascism. A friend asked me as to why the government (Biden) did not step in during the threat of the east coast dock workers strike and make them work. Sad, he did not understand what collective bargaining was or when the government controls wages and salaries and forces people to work, you no longer have a democratic government or capitalism. It is not his fault for ignorance, it is the intentional dismantling of teaching civics and actual cause-and-effect history that crate ignorance and make unbrainwashing and violence against those that simply want justice for all so difficult to counter.
Thank you, I was 5yrs old and was watching TV with my friend in her home on LI. The news interrupted and her mother started sobbing and yelled at me to go home. I remember being very confused and my mother had to console me. But for good reason she wouldn't let me turn the TV on. Smart parent.
Thank you for honoring this tragic event on its anniversary. I was a senior in high school in Washington, D.C. and will never forget those long days up to and including the funeral. He might have gotten us out of Viet Nam and saved 50,000 lives that were wasted by the military industrial complex. The eevent may have been another CIA maneuver.
Thank you, so much. I was around 10 yo
And I will never forget this day. Every November 22 , I remember this is the day President Kennedy was shot and killed. And Jackie’s pink suit and pillbox hat.
Thank you for filling me in on the background as I did not remember that,
Racism the deep deep poison at the heart of our nation
Aye, a remember when for me too. I had just turned 13 and in grade 7. I was in school and the silence in the hallways upon leaving the building that day was deafening.
Yes it was as if time stopped..
Deep deep sadness. For the telling of this story. Breathtaking and heartbreaking. And remembering the day, where we were and how it felt. Bewildered. And today, here we are. Bewildered, still.
Thankyou, Heather, for telling us this. I am reminded that I had seen President Kennedy only a month before, October, when he addressed students and faculty outdoors in the stands at our football field at the University of Maine. To think that he would be murdered in Dallas the next month was shocking to me at the age of 19. I'm sure that others who had also seen him at our campus that October day felt the same way.
I had been too young to vote in1960. If I had been old enough then, I might have voted for Nixon because my parents were staunch Republicans and had voted for him. Dad worked at a shipyard where U.S. submarines were built. He and many of the workers felt that if a Democrat would be elected, they would lose their jobs. Besides that, Kennedy was a catholic. By the time Kennedy was assassinated, I had learned a lot and changed my mind about what my parent had told me.
Then when the government covered up the details, the Warren Commission, I could not understand how they could do that, since there was too much evidence that showed Lee Harvey Oswald probably didn't kill the president, or that at least there had been others involved.
A couple of days ago, I watched the great film "Lawrence of Arabia" that came out in 1962. In the film, actor Peter O'Toole, who played the role of Lawrence spoke a line we all should remember: "There may be honor among thieves, but not among politicians." Lawrence was speaking of the British and French that were cutting a deal with the Arabs to create new states in the Middle East near the end of WWI.
The context of the politics behind the trip gave me pause to wonder whether LHO’s actions may have been racially motivated, or perhaps he was hired by someone who was.
That was the saddest day and long weekend of my young life, and the loss is as painful to relive today as it was to live through it in real time 61 years ago.
On Fridays, we would don our wool uniforms adorned with medals earned for scholarship or good deeds or editing the yearbook. In the afternoon, we child soldiers would present ourselves in formation and hold a "pass in review" to anyone who would watch. The parents, we thought, were proud. We were hot. It was what we did at the San Antonio Academy (SAA) on Fridays in San Antonio, Texas when we were kids wearing uniforms.
The Day before, Thursday, November 21, 1963, was exciting for this 13 year old. Mom, usually a stickler for my not missing classes, asked if I would like to see the President of the United States in his parade through the city. Mom and Dad had known the Kennedys as we were transplants from Massachusetts. My Dad had been an assistant attorney general there. After leaving public service, he had met with the President's father at the Hyannis compound to discuss business dealings. The parade route would pass within a mile of our home just up Devine Road, down Hildebrand to Broadway.
Positioned at the Broadway side of Incarnate Word College, we awaited the President's motorcade. Seen at some distance, it seemed to be moving quickly. But, as it approached where Mom and I were standing, it slowed to a crawl. Someone with a bouquet of flowers had stepped from the crowd to approach the long, black Lincoln. The license plate read "GG 300." The bouquet was handed to a smiling Jackie. The President looked our way with his joy.
I carried a 13 year old's excitement into the following day. We had finished our fish sticks and canned, watery turnip greens and gone to our first afternoon class, Spanish for me. It was early afternoon on a warm day in south central Texas. Our headmaster, Col. W.T. Bondurant Jr., in an anamoly, entered the classroom. He weaved his way around the school desks to the back of the class where I was seated in my preferred spot. He solemnly leaned over my desk and whispered, "we will be adjourning classes and hold a memorial on our parade ground; the President has been shot."
As student battalion commander, it was my duty to assemble the student body into their assigned "companies" on the field. It was then my duty, standing at the front of the student military "staff," to announce to the students that our President had died. It took all the self-control I could muster not to have my confidence fail me and for their student leader to become a mewling child. I thought - the President would not want that.
One day I hope to run into you on the street and say thank you for your work in person.
What could have been!
I was 9 when JFK was assassinated. That civil rights history and the martyr he became shaped my early political awakening. How the country has changed, some for the better and some for the worse. https://jimbuie.substack.com/p/60-years-ago-today-jfk-was-assassinated
Thank you for this! This was one of the only times I have never seen or heard any mention of Kennedy's murder on November 22. I was a senior in high school when it happened and it's seared into my memory. When I was a senior in college, Robert Kennedy was murdered, along with Martin Luther King. So many horrible memories that should not ever be forgotten.
like most that were alive that day I will never forget. We were on the playground; I was in 4th grade. The teachers announced we had to go inside there was an emergency. No one knew what had happened. We had grown up with air raid drills and the vague threat of an attack. but wwII was not long before and all its atrocities were known by all of us kids. A short time later we were all sent home. When we turned on the television then we knew what had happened. Although we still do not know the truth of the whole story.
The only day that comes close in comparison is 9/11. Another attack rooted in rasism. Racism related to religion is also a poisin that destroys the heart of intelligence. Racism is the poisin that recently steered the election.
I was in 7th grade. The nuns rolled a TV into the classroom and we watched the news together. Meanwhile they prepared to send us home early. It was solemn.
And yet we continue to coddle and protect "militias" https://www.britannica.com/event/militia-movement. They couldn't be as bad as foreign terrorists https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-the-rise-of-domestic-terrorism-in-the-homeland. I am sure our incoming president with his "international" relationships will tilt the balance. I find it interesting that USA is working hard to stem the flow of Fentanyl from foreign sources, they should do what they can, but is was fine for well over a decade to get Americans addicted to OxyContin https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/what-led-to-the-opioid-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/. which was the worst drug crisis ever in America, and it was legal. Don't worry, the Sacklers are doing okay, still attending parties and celebrating holidays with friends and family. Did I get off track? Nope, we see history repeating itself every generation with militias, racism, and the rise of fascism. A friend asked me as to why the government (Biden) did not step in during the threat of the east coast dock workers strike and make them work. Sad, he did not understand what collective bargaining was or when the government controls wages and salaries and forces people to work, you no longer have a democratic government or capitalism. It is not his fault for ignorance, it is the intentional dismantling of teaching civics and actual cause-and-effect history that crate ignorance and make unbrainwashing and violence against those that simply want justice for all so difficult to counter.
Thank you, I was 5yrs old and was watching TV with my friend in her home on LI. The news interrupted and her mother started sobbing and yelled at me to go home. I remember being very confused and my mother had to console me. But for good reason she wouldn't let me turn the TV on. Smart parent.
Thank you for honoring this tragic event on its anniversary. I was a senior in high school in Washington, D.C. and will never forget those long days up to and including the funeral. He might have gotten us out of Viet Nam and saved 50,000 lives that were wasted by the military industrial complex. The eevent may have been another CIA maneuver.
Wow that is still so sad. Metaphorically that wound never healed.
I’m with you here and on Facebook. Any more places I should follow or subscribe?