Not giving up that most of us that were alive Nov 22, 1963 can recall what it was like that day. To keep the thread here, it's NOT on politics or policies....for those craving to push those buttons, go to FHo Politics and post on the original thread and not spoil it for the rest of us. In advance - thank you. My memories of it was a belated birthday party seeing horses drawing his flag-draped casket on a small TV into Arlington Cemetery and asking?: "Who's JFK?" A year later in the 1st grade, finally figured it out. The skyline of Dallas has changed. The metro area has grown from one to six million. Parkland Hospital became one of the best trauma centers in the nation as a result. It's more Midwestern than Southern in culture now, but it's still pro-business/anti-government. Texans (at least in Dallas) have a watered-down twang - Kennedy's accent is archaic up in New England. This was the first breaking news event as we know it....the media was on 24/7 recapping, adding updates (if any), with speculation.
It was not the first national news story I remember, I have confused memories of the Cuban Missile Crises. But I think it was the first national news I understood.
I can remember a girl in my 7th grade class crying hysterically when they announced it over the intercom. We moved our daughter to Dallas several years ago and visited the book warehouse where Oswald supposedly fired the shot. There is an X on the road where Kennedy's limo was at the time of the shooting.
I used to think, How can old people remember where they were and what they were doing when JFK died. I was born in 1962 so that is why I did not. But when I was about 13, I remember hearing that Elvis died and I still remember what I was doing. Not so much the date. Now We have the Murry building bombing in Oklahoma City. April 19, 1995 (Went to help as a fireman ) and of course 9/11. What I wish for now is to not have any memories of stuff like that.
^ this was one of those terrible days along with Pearl Harbor, Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11. The days afterwards were different. Someone told me that was the real start of the 60's as we knew it. From MLK's I have a Dream speech thru Watergate was a decade of turmoil - Vietnam, civil rights, generation gap, start of environmentalism, it was a country that seemed on the brink of civil war. Fortunately we survived all that and hope we can overcome today's challenges with our economy.
I was in school in Hampton when JFK was killed. My Da was an operations guy in the AF during the Cuban thing... It was a very big deal in our home... On a personal note... not too long after... The next POTUS, Johnson, shook my hand in San Antonio, he was a tall fella.
I was 5 and the only thing I remember was my mom crying, kneeling down to try and explain to me and my twin brother that the president was shot and died. I didn't fully understand it then and don't recall watching the funeral on TV until years later. I do remember when RFK was assassinated - that was traumatic to watch and I remember being very sad at the time.
I was 9 years old and in school when it happened. Everything stopped. Teachers turned on classroom tvs and they let us go home early (your mom was actually at home in those days). There was concern about nuclear war (in those days we worried about anything causing a nuclear war ). There was concern about instability in the government. It was the day the US lost it's innocence.
