On Today's Date

[Deleted]

November 22,1963. Where were you?
Although,many may be too young to remember,on this date U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
I was in 4th grade. It was almost time for school to let out and all the nuns were weeping. An assembly was called and we were told the news. I remember wanting to rush home to my mother. It was the longest,quietest bus ride home imaginable.

[Deleted]

I was in 4th grade, too. The teacher came and whispered the news to me at recess before the general announcement was made.

I had no understanding of politics in those days and I merely foolishly exulted in the idea that a really major event had happened that would probably close the school the next day (I was right.). I was the same idiot about hurricanes, always hoping that they would hit our town just so that the school would be closed-damaged-destroyed.

[bixaorellana]

Why would the teacher have singled you out for the news, Kerouac?

I think for Americans in our age group -- Casimira, Kerouac's, & mine -- this event was sort of our "Pearl Harbor". That is, just as people from our parents' generation tend to remember where they were when they heard that news, this event is our benchmark.

I was in the library at the school in St. Francisville, La. (primary, jr., & hi -- now closed). Was there an announcement? I don't remember, just the long frozen moment of disbelief broken by some nasty peckerwood kid saying, "Thank goodness!"

[Deleted]

The teacher singled me out because she thought I was more mature. She was wrong.

[rikita]

i am trying to remember, but somehow i just can't think of where i was and what i was doing...

[auntieannie]

I wasn't there yet, but I know that it did touch my parents. My mom had recently moved back from the US to Switzerland. She was newly wed and pregnant with my sister. It was interesting to say the least to go to the cinema with my parents when Oliver Stone's film JFK was shown at our local.

[bazfaz]

I was working in an ad agency in London on the night that JFK was assassinated. By a horrible instance of Murphy's Law, the agecy was holding a party that night when the news came in. The agency was American owned and a lot of Americans were at that party which simply fizzled to nothing.

[happytraveller]

I was behind the moon.

[bixaorellana]

What a strange memory to have, Baz ~~ to be simultaneously a part of that history & yet at one remove. Your story took on a sort of movie-still reality in my mind.

How charming & appropriate for you, Happy!