Friday, November 22, 1963, fifty-seven years ago is one of those dates that all Boomers remember exactly what they were doing. It was six days before Thanksgiving and I was sitting in third-grade class at Gresham Park Elementary School. Around 1:30 p.m. Mr. Cole, the principal, came over the intercom in all of the classrooms and announced that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas. I remember the classroom went silent. A skinny girl who sat behind me with flaming red hair named Elizabeth Reed began sobbing uncontrollably, tears running down her cheeks. Miss Pack, our teacher, sat at her desk and wept softly. She was a young, blonde woman in her early twenties who sang folk songs to us while playing her baritone ukulele. She only taught at Gresham Park that one year. The silence was broken about ten minutes later when Mr. Cole came over the intercom again and told us that our parents had been contacted and school would be let out at two o’clock. Jackie was in her sixth-grade class at Sky Haven School, three miles west of Gresham Park when the news was announced. A girl started sobbing and ran from class into a restroom. Jackie followed her into the restroom and comforted her. We were all just a bunch of kids, but we were old enough to realize what had happened.
On Monday, November 25 all schools were closed, as were most businesses, so that we could watch the President’s funeral on television. I still remember seeing the flag-draped coffin on a horse-drawn caisson moving slowly down the street and JFK, Jr. stepping forward and saluting his father’s casket as it passed by. It was his third birthday. My mother worshipped President Kennedy and had been stoic to that point, but lost it when that happened.
Momma was born in Texas and grew up in Dallas. We visited our family there the following summer and went to Dealey Plaza, where the assassination took place. I remember seeing the circles painted on the fifth and sixth-floor windows of the Texas School Book Depository building and the X painted in the middle of Elm Street where the bullets struck. There is an X in the middle of the street to this day. We have home movies of the building, the grassy knoll and a large spread of flowers bearing the words, “Lest We Forget.”
Lest we forget, indeed. Let us heed the words spoken by our 35th president more than sixty years ago but so relevant today.
“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
I remember that day like yesterday! Everyone crying. When I got home I’ll never forget my mama crying like a death in our family. Since we were Catholic she was so proud of him! Sad day for sure. Never will forget!
JFK was what the country needed right then. Like all of us he was a flawed human but his intentions were honorable.
(Full disclosure, We Are ALL Flawed!) Telling the world we were going to send a man to the moon…and bring him back, what a challenge
It changed the world. An astronaut with whom I sailed on Seabourn Cruises said he feels it probably saved the world from nuclear annihilation as it let the Soviets know we could triumph. The astronaut was Wally Schirra.
Great post Jimmy. I was at Meadowview fourth grade.
Thanks Mark… Walter Schirra was a childhood hero and one of the greatest. President Kennedy filled the country with hope and optimism for the future. In an instant, it was all gone. – J.