Where were you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where were you on November 22, 1963?  I remember being on a school bus.  I was in 6th grade and my classroom was in the old high school on Church Street. (The elementary school hadn't yet been built so from K-6, we were scattered.)  I think possibly school might have been dismissed early and I was sitting on a bus behind the high school waiting for the "big kids" to board.  I remember a lot of tears and seeing the teachers' faces filled with sorrow. I never remember a lot of joviality with teachers in the 60's.  They were all neatly coiffed and dressed (suits and ties) and generally were all business.  You might get a pat on the shoulder for a job well done and a smile on your birthday but beyond that, it was formal and proper. That day was different.

We all spent the next few days around the TV in the den. We'd watch over and over the grainy replays of the fateful drive in Dallas and the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald.  More than anything, I remember being dressed for church and still poised in front of the TV while others were dressing.  I watched Lee Harvey Oswald being lead somewhere and right before my eyes, a man (who we learned later was Jack Ruby) lunge forward and kill him....right there on live TV on Sunday morning.  We missed church that day!

I watched as John-John saluted his father's casket and Caroline stood proudly by as the big sister.  I remember thinking that all the dignitaries looked my Great Grandpa and his senatorial cronies.  I think it was the long winter coats and the formal hats that made them appear stodgy and political.

It's a bit surreal that it was 1/2 a century ago....a generation.  We have lived through 9 more presidents, more assassination attempts, wars, terrorist attacks and weather related disasters and survived....at least most of us but there have been only 2 times that people have dwelt on the fateful question, "Where were you ....?"  November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001.  I hope the question remains mute for our remaining years but that it becomes an integral part of our children's American history lessons.

It appears that much of history is still a mystery!