November 22, 1963: Death of the President: Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.
Here are a few of my happier memories of 1963, from a 2006 post on this blog.
8 comments:
As the comments on the 2006 piece indicate, I read it but nine years later I was happily able to read it again as for the first time. Sometimes being a geezer has its up side.
I remember November 22, 1963 (my junior year in high school) for one reason of course. I was getting ready for my birthday on Sunday, as an uncle was taking me to see the New York Giants play at Yankee Stadium. And yes, the game went on, and yes, we went. The Giants lost to the St. Louis Cardinals. Just before leaving for the subway to the game I walked into the room where my mother was watching television in time to see Jack Ruby shoot Oswald.
I've read fiction as well as non-fiction about that day (I recommend both NOVEMBER 22 by Bryan Woolley, 11/22/63 by Stephen King). For me as for most people of my generation it was the Day It All Started to Go Wrong.
And keep off my lawn!
Sometimes I think it's been downhill ever since. The King book is way too long for me, but I might give Woolley's a try.
I thought you were the one who recommended that one. You definitely need to read it.
I was born on August 3rd, 1963 - same day that the Beach Boys released their "Surfer Girl" single.
In October, some pop group called the Beatles played outside the UK for the first time (not counting the Hamburg days) - in a high school auditorium in Karlstad, Sweden. A friend of mine swears he was there.
I was a senior in high school. It was during an adanced biology class that our teacher, George Simonian, got a call to turn on the classroom television. It was an unreal situation and I'll always be thankful to George for the way he handled it while the class watched a sad piece of history unfold.
I was in the equivalent of second grade in England at the time. I remember our Head Mistress (principal) gathering us in an assembly to tell us about the "dreadful news from America," but I was none-the-wiser. Years later, I read Bruce Hornsby's* memories of that day: he was in the upper-elementary grades in a school in Virginia. When the news came that the President had been shot, Hornsby said many if his classmates began to cheer and say, "Great! Now Nixon can be President!" Hornsby then said it was at that moment he realized he was "different" from most of his classmates.
/*Of Bruce Hornsby & the Range/"That's Just the Way It Is" fame.
Following a discussion on the Dorothy-L listserv (mytsery fiction) about, I would up writing something here (http://signsofchaos.blogspot.com/2015/11/and-what-rough-beast.html) about it. The thing I remember most clearly was someone saying, in the school cafeteria on the following Monday, "Well, it's abut time someone shot him."
It's hard to remember, now, how unpopular JFK was even nearly 3 years after his inauguration in a lot of the country. (For a taste, http://www.dallasnews.com/news/jfk50/reflect/20131012-extremists-in-dallas-created-volatile-atmosphere-before-jfks-1963-visit.ece) And it was more than just Texas. I grew up in Indiana (where Nixon got 55% of the vote, and, if you exclude the Kennedy landslides in northwest Indiana--or, the Chicago suburbs, as the Gary area was treated then--and now-- and the inner city parts of Indianapolis, probably close to 60%), and anti-Kennedy attitudes were common, and often fairly violently expressed. (Indiana being, of course, the home of the founder of the John Birch Society.) I think we tend to forget all of that these days.
When my great-uncle heard that Kennedy would be appearing in Dallas, he said, "He'd better not do that. Lyndon Johnson will have him killed."
Post a Comment