It was quite cold that day in northern Illinois. I was 9 years old.....in the fourth grade. At about 1pm, Mr. Glover, our school principal announced over the PA system that President Kennedy had been shot and died. We left school early that day. Seems like we were glued to the black and white TV for the next few days.
That was fifty years ago......soon it will be Friday Nov. 22, 2013.
Sooooo.......where were you that day, so long ago?
I guess it helps to be an old buzzard like me to remember this......
sparks
Same for me I can't remember what grade; it would have been sixth grade I think .... It was announced over the PA system..... I could not understand how - or why. I remember it was cold and a there was frozen snow in the play ground. Just about as cold and bone chilling as the news. My folks were for 'JFK all the way'. That was so weird the next couple days Jack Ruby live on TV killed Lee Harvey Oswald....... Dad sat there watching and yelled "That son of bitch has a gun." I never seen the gun dad did. We watched the live coverage of everything as well.
We were living in Pensacola, FL and I was 6 years old, I can remember the whole family watching the BW TV, no cartoons were shown out of respect for JFK for many days.
Many theories but one thing is for sure, America lost a visionary and gained an entitlement society, it truly changed the course of our nation forever!
I was 11, living in West Los Angeles, CA. Similar to the others, the president's death was announced on the school PA system.
The 1960 election was the first presidential election I was aware of. My family was for Kennedy, and my neighbors were for Nixon.
I remember the fear at the Bay of Pigs crisis. You could buy a portable bomb shelter on Wilshire Blvd. One of our neighbors dug up their front lawn and built a bomb shelter. I've often wondered how that went as the house sold over the years... "Special bonus basement rooms..."
Crazy times. JFK's death was out of the blue for most of us. In retrospect, Johnson turned out to be a better president than I though when he was president.
I was older and far more politically aware when I was watching the 1968 RFK primary election returns (still in West LA) when suddenly he was shot as well. It wasn't such a surprise, and helped make me far less hopeful of any politicians or political promises.