President John Kennedy was assassinated. I was in study hall in high school when the principal made the announcement. At the end of that class period, all students were sent home. The busses were called in early for the students who needed them. We were out of school for four days that were mostly spent watching the news on TV. The only other comparable time I can remember that impacted almost everyone in the country was the 9/11 attacks. A few older players may remember Pearl Harbor, but I’m just a little too young for that.
Do you have memories of those times that you can share?
I was in Boonton, NJ then. A small town of about 12,000 then, in the north-central part of the state, about 15 miles from Morristown. Its big “claims to fame” are the Morris Canal (part of the Erie Canal network) ran through it, the Jersey City Reservoir, and that many of George Washington’s cannon were forged there in the then-booming business of iron work.
The original town of Boonton was pre-Revolutionary War* and is now under the waters of the Reservoir, LOL. So, it’s fair to say “Boonton is all wet.”
There’s a very informative novel about the Revolutionary War period in that area called “The Scouts of '76” by Charles Willis, a descendant of the book’s POV character, Russell Willis, who at age 13 was one of the youngest official soldiers in the Continental Army. He married at 14, and lived a long and fruitful life. Many of the family names mentioned in the book are still well known there. I personally knew the woods around the Tourne (a small local mountain mentioned in the book) well, since we lived about 2 miles from it and I hunted all through that area as a boy…
I was in the 3rd grade in California. Our teacher, an Australian living in the U.S. on a work visa, was devastated, almost unable to speak. The principal moved classroom to classroom making the announcement that the President had been shot. We were shocked and scared. Our parents came to get us and we went home where we stayed for several days, watching TV. I remember crying my eyes out over John-John saluting the casket. To this day, it all comes flooding back when I hear this piece of music: For Those in Peril on the Sea.
I do remember this. I was in 7th grade. We’d moved from the small country village on the eastern side of California to the huge city of Long Beach, CA. I didn’t know anyone, I hated the school, hated the house we were living in (cramped and ugly), felt angry at my parents for dragging me there. I was so deep into my own misery that the announcement over the public address system that our President had been shot just came as one more bad thing about our move to Long Beach. Where we used to live, the President never got shot. (Maybe just a little self-involved at that point.)
I was in John F. Peeler elementary school in Dallas. I remember the announcement over the PA while between classes. Everyone was scurrying down the halls and at that very second, the scurrying stopped and it got completely quiet.
Funny thing is, we didn’t get out of school, and it happened less than 5 miles from us.
I was 9 years old, and even in the UK the event had a huge impact on my family. My parents were devastated (and they were Conservative (Republican)), and it seems from a distance of 57 years that our whole country was first in shock, and then in mourning.
It remains the first thing I remember that wasn’t UK-based. The next were the moon landings, which everyone was tuned in for, and the Vietnam war which filled our news channels night after night, seemingly for most of my teen years.
Although I wasn’ t even planned at that time, my mother once told me about the paralyzing feelings they all had while watching the news on that day. She remembered this very well and became sad and frightened immediately. She was seven years old.
I have only whitnessed this by documentations and its still chilling to see what is actually possible in a negative way, when there is someone who promises change.
Note: The killing spree continued, as we know, with Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King jr. and Malcolm X…
Was in Anchorage, Alaska in 7th grade when announcement was made about the Presidents assassination. Remember tears and cries from the class and the teacher. Classes were let out early. Shortly after this event the Good Friday earthquake struck the next year. At the time it was a 8.9 magnitude which has been upgraded to 9.2. In my life have been in 6 earthquakes, including two in California, especially the '71 or '72. Remember the moon landing as the drill instructors piled 4 squads into a quanset hut to watch and we got a slice of pizza and a soft drink yeah at MCRD San Diego. May God bless us all.
I was in 4th Grade in Chico California. I remember watching it on TV (black and white) and sometimes the news was fuzzy until someone went outside to turn the antenna
Was in the 8th grade and the magnitude of his death and the days following changed Thanksgiving that year and seemed to reverberate thru high school …right up to when his brother was killed in 1968
at MCRD San Diego. May God bless us all.