The question of the century...Where were you on 11/22/63?
I wasn't here yet but my dad was in the Army. On 11/23/63, the day after, he and 3 others were in a jeep driving to a memorial service for JFK. The weather was terrible, rain and sleet and the jeep was in a bad accident. The three other guys were thrown out of the jeep but he was crushed inside. In order to get him to the hospital, they had to take part of the jeep with him in the ambulance. The ambulance gets halfway to the hospital and gets into an accident! He finally gets to the hospital with the jeep still attached. Both of his legs and his feet were crushed. Spent 6 months in the hospital recovering. Then hitch-hiked back to NJ, from Baltimore, with both legs in casts, on crutches.
The silver lining is that the day after the accident, his unit got shipped out to Vietnam. Dodged that bullet, so to speak.
To the day he died, if the weather was bad he had trouble walking.
Posted by Raymond Chapman (Member # 361) on :
I was in my freshman year at college and was working for the maintenance department of the university. That day we were picking up pecans from under the trees in front of the administration building. Someone had a transitor radio and we heard the news.
Since Jeanne and I lived in a small apartment without a TV, we went to the laundromat (called washeteria then in Texas) and saw the coverage on their TV.
Posted by cheryl nordby (Member # 1100) on :
Hi Kimberly. Well I was 9 so I must have been in 4th grade. I remember hearing the news and crying with my best friend. It seemed as though the world had suddenly become a terrible place in my eyes and my classmates.
Posted by Wayne Webb (Member # 1124) on :
I don't remember because I was only two years and seven months old at the time. My Mom tells me that every time I saw him on TV, before it happened, I would excitedly say "there's pesident kendy, there's pesident kendy".
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
I was in 6th grade math class, one block from where I now live in a suburb of Dallas. My father's office overlooked the motorcade route and he had his telephoto set up to get some pictures. Instead of the motorcade, he got pictures of the activity at Parkland Hospital, which was also visible from his window.
Stated the newspaper the day before, in detailing all the Secret Service security preparations: "Even the flowers the President sniffs will be safe." Oh, that it were so.
Posted by VICTORGEORGIOU (Member # 474) on :
Korea
It happened during the night and we got it on the radio while getting out of bed.
For those of you too young to remember JFK, there has not been a president since then with his charisma. You just can't imagine how exciting it was, in his State of the Union address - "Man on the moon in ten years" - Electrifying!
Posted by Kimberly Zanetti (Member # 2546) on :
I'm a FIRM believer in the concept that everything happens for a reason but you have to wonder what our world would be like if he hadn't died when he did.
Posted by Deb Fowler (Member # 1039) on :
That day remains clear as a bell in my mind. I was attending a strict German Lutheran school here in Rockford, Illinois, in 5th grade, 10 years old..sitting in 2nd row from the window, about 5 seats back. The weather was overcast that day and remained such for a few days, ironically. Our teacher was called out of the room and returned in a short time. I will never forget the look on his face. Sadly, he wiped his eyes and told us the news and asked us for a moment of silence in prayer. When we were dismissed, it was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Parking lots, streets, etc. For three days, it was the same home since Mom had the news on tv for a few days. My dad was on a business trip in Wisconsin. After two days, she finally turned on cartoons for us. It was because the whole world stood still those few days. Yes, I do wonder how things would be if he had continued to be President. And, he would be about 75 years old today, wouldn't he? I didn't know much about the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missle crisis, but we were informed quite a bit in school about Communist regime and what it meant to be able to worship freely in our country and the price many paid for it.. we were never allowed to forget that. As an adult, I took a tour along that route when I was visiting Dallas on way to Clear Lake to visit my uncle and aunt.
[ November 23, 2002, 08:13 AM: Message edited by: Deb Fowler ]
Posted by Robert Beverly (Member # 1907) on :
Heads
I remember it well....I was 5 years old living just south of Dallas and I could not understand why everyone around me were all crying and so upset!...It was the most eery sight....not something a child should be exposed to!...especially when even after all of these years, people flock to dealey plaza to remember what those mean Texas folk did back in 63....
Posted by Robert Larkham (Member # 2913) on :
I wasn't even a twinkle in my old man's eye yet. Born 6/25/67
[ November 22, 2002, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Robert Larkham ]
Posted by John Lennig (Member # 2455) on :
Walking back to 1st year sign class,lunch break, San Diego City College, Mr. Maple's 1st year Sign Class. We all just went home....very sad.
John Lennig
Posted by Amy Brown (Member # 1963) on :
I didn't arrive until 1971!!
Posted by Troy Haas (Member # 472) on :
I was -3 months old.
Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :
I was one of those thet were working "to get a man on the moon in 10 years". At work, we were all wondering what would become of the Space Program.
I was working on the Rentry Heat Sheild and Escape Tower insulation.
Our Computer was as big as a house and took a week of making punchcards to get any information out of it!
Posted by Mike Languein (Member # 319) on :
Everybody seems to have an alibi here - except me.
Let me guess, Si - it wasn't a MacIntosh ?
[ November 22, 2002, 10:55 PM: Message edited by: Mike Languein ]
Posted by Wilson Ardmore (Member # 3230) on :
I was 23 at the time. I hired in at "Donovan Outdoor" as a signwriter about 5 months earlier. I was getting ready to go out on a job and the news hit me right in the gut. Just a few minutes later, a fellow worker mentioned that he hated JFK and said he was happy about it and would like to shake the mans hand that did it. I had to pray for that man's stupidity to be squelched and for my own well being to keep from kicking him in the nuts. It was the ****s for awhile and the next hero would be a long time coming. That was one of the coldest days I've ever spent in Peoria, IL and unforgetable with out a doubt. Sleep well John....
Jack Wills (usin' Ardmore's network)
Posted by Bob Burns (Member # 268) on :
I was sitting at a soda fountain in WoodRidge N.J.,sipping a cherry coke or somethin', listening to Walter Cronkite on the store radio, spilling the bad news!
[ November 23, 2002, 12:17 AM: Message edited by: Bob Burns ]
Posted by Jeff Ogden (Member # 3184) on :
I was alone in my dad's sign shop listening to the radio when the bulletin came on the air. One year out of high school, I was just stunned by the news, especially when the reports started sounding fatal. Who ever heard of such a thing! The whole day just seemed to come to a stop, and I remember standing in the hayloft door upstairs and just staring for a long time (shop was a converted barn).
Looking back, I guess the whole, relative tranquility of the 50's, pre-WalMart era, sort of came to an end on that day. Nothing was sacred anymore, when someone can dare to shoot the president. People just didn't DO stuff like that back then...at least not in my 18 year old view of the world!
I don't think any world event has registered such a shock and lasting impression as that day did, until the WTC plane crashes. That day I was also listening to a radio at a sign shop, and one of the first things that struck me was that this was of the same magnetude of the JFK assasination, and that this would be another day I would never forget.
It's funny how I can remember almost every detail of that day in '63...you know, like what all was around me in the shop when the news broke, what the weather was like, what I was wearing, etc.
Posted by vance galliher (Member # 581) on :
what a time to come of age...22 years old...lived in dallas.......but and at the time i was camping on padre island .....off the coast near corpus christi, working with a winter carnival traveling around south texas..........sleeping on the sand by the gulf of mexico when i heard the news .......packed up and went home........
[ November 23, 2002, 01:24 AM: Message edited by: vance galliher ]
Posted by Steve Purcell (Member # 1140) on :
I was just a little kid out on the school playground.
Suddenly, teachers were crying, and a kid started shouting "kenny's dead! Kenny's dead!"
We thought he was talking about one of our classmates, so we started crying too!
Posted by Don Hulsey (Member # 128) on :
Tamarack Elementary School. I was in the 6th grade. I had been sent to the principal's office. He was not in at the time, and I was told to wait. The secretary stepped out for a minute, when the phone rang. I was the only one in there(and a little over confident at the time) so I answered it. It was the school superintedents office calling to tell what had happened, and that school would let out early that day. I had them hold while I called the principal on the intercom. I wanted him to take the call, because I knew he would never believe me, and this was too important to miss.
I was old enough to realize that this was a very tragic event, but young enough to be glad that I got out of there without a spanking that day.(They still did that back then)
Posted by Myra Grozinger (Member # 327) on :
I read all the posts – and just like Jeff Ogden says – there hasn’t been an event to stop every single person who heard about it dead in their tracks since then - until 9-11. I was a German teenager and I was sewing something for my mother’s birthday on Nov. 23. I was alone in my room, all alone in the house, with the radio on. I almost remember every breath I took from the first mention through to the announcement of death. I stubbed my toe badly jumping to turn up the radio. When I started crying I could not stop.
It had not been long since JFK’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech at the Berlin wall. Our whole country adored him and set great hope in him as a powerful courageous ally in a terrible time of re-construction.
I’m with Victor celebrating the charisma of Kennedy - which is unequaled in any subsequent leader since. (Although Ronald Reagan had some of it in his own way). The fire, the eloquence, the original thought and courage in his speeches are something I dearly miss. I read the speeches sometimes on line, thinking that once we were blessed with someone who had an understanding of what really matters, and the guts to speak about it without fear of political consequences. I spent a lot of time, with reverie, in the book depository museum last year.
When I hear the superficial, repetitious, banal, carefully written and learned, gutless political rhetoric of today, I often think of Kennedy, and wonder if others see the difference.
I loved JFK. Now I better call my mother, it is her birthday.
Posted by Arvil Shep' Shepherd (Member # 2030) on :
My memories are just about as vivid as Jeffs..
I was standing at an Easel Hand Lettering Show Cards for a local Department Store in Winston-Salem NC...(I worked for Flay Willard Neon Sign Co) When I started paying attention to what the announcer was saying on the Radio.....This was devestating News...I was already at a low point in my life..
I was going thru a Divorce.(after ten years of marriage)..and leaving two little children , that I would not get to see every day..and I was concerned if I was making the right decision....
Both these memories are a permanent Scar in my brain !!!!!
On the other side I can see the Humor in Steves Post.........."Kenny is dead"........."Kenny is dead"......
Shep'
Posted by Don Coplen (Member # 127) on :
3rd Grade....Akron, Indiana...grassy knoll behind the playground
Posted by Steve Shortreed (Member # 436) on :
7th grade at St. Francis School in Kitchener, On tario. We had just returned to the class after lunch when the announcement came over the school intercom.
Who will ever forget the images we all saw on our b&w tvs the following days? The arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald and his murder, the funeral, the horse without a rider, and little John Jr, saluting the casket as it went by. Powerful stuff!
This past Spring, Barb and I finally got to visit Dallas. Alton Gillespie joined us on a tour of the grassy knoll and 6th floor Museum. The area was smaller than I had always imagined, but nothing much has changed since that day. I'll see if I can't dig up some photos.
This is the exact spot we all think the real fatal shot came from.
Alton stands on the spot where the fatal shot struck Kennedy. Alton was lucky he never got ran over in the process.
This small plaque is all that indicates anything even happened at this spot.
The grassy knoll. Conspiracy types gather here everyday.
Behind Alton and Barb, you can see the Dallas Book Depository building.
[ November 23, 2002, 10:35 PM: Message edited by: Steve Shortreed ]
Posted by FranCisco Vargas (Member # 145) on :
I think I was around 12 years old, All the schools were notified about the sad news of JFK and they let everyone go home from school. Later on in the news Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. it was pretty heavy news during that time.
Posted by Eric Barker (Member # 2972) on :
I was a sophmore at Northside Highschool in Roanoke, Virginia. We were in art class and our teacher, Mrs. Harris gave us the news. She turned on the radio and we all listened until we went home early.
Posted by Jackson Smart (Member # 187) on :
I was 18 years old. Sitting on the back steps of the classroom having a smoke. I was attending disbursing school at Naval Center San Diego. I remember hearing it on my portable radio, then going inside and telling everyone else.
Sad day indeed...but not any sadder than any other day where we think that violance will solve our problems....and we continue to keep this type of thinking alive and well on this planet... Posted by bill riedel (Member # 607) on :
In my 30's and just about getting over the death of my father a couple of weeks before. It was much like having a wound opened up.
Posted by Steve Burke (Member # 2674) on :
I was still 6 years away-
I found a website once that posted pics of Kennedy's skull X-ray and autopsy photos- it was shocking. It is hard for the mind to comprehend the power and violence of that bullet. I only hope he went quick.
People can say all they want about his immorality and supposed ties to the Mafia, but...to die like that and never have the people responsible brought to justice is a travesty.
This same website implied it was Giancana who ordered this.
I still think there were two shooters. The video is grainy, but still he recoils back. I saw woman being interviewed last night on TV and she was in the car with him, and she maintains she never heard a shot from the front, but the video (to me) says otherwise.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)