<p>So John F. Kennedy’s assassination was 47 years ago today. Hearing about it from my kindergarten teacher is one of my earliest memories. So odd that now I can see the site from my office window and that I drive down that street 5 days a week.</p>
<p>A few years back I asked our older/retired partners if any of them were out on the streets that day. To a man they said that they couldn’t be bothered to go outside to see a Democrat!</p>
<p>I was four. I have two memories of the time–seeing John-John saluting (and my mother’s reaction to that: tears) and that Captain Kangaroo wasn’t on at the usual time. I also remember a vague sense of unease–just knowing that all the adults were upset and something that I couldn’t understand was going on.</p>
<p>I will never forget that day. I was in the 6th grade and our teacher was crying as she told us that the President had been shot. I think we all loved Kennedy- Democrat or not. I wasn’t in Dallas then, though.</p>
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<p>I was in Illinois at the time. The 3rd grade teacher came in and told our teacher and then our teacher started to cry…I was 5 and I’m pretty sure it was my first awareness that there even *was *a president…I felt so weird because the teacher was so obviously sad but I wasn’t.</p>
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<p>That’s what my sister remembers…home from school and nothing on TV but that.</p>
<p>I remember it too. I think I was in about first grade and we all got sent home from school and I recall having a babysitter over the house and the TV was on non-stop and she was crying and we were all watching it.</p>
<p>My youngest was in kindergarten when 9/11 occured…I wonder if she’ll have similar thoughts/memories when she is an adult…everyone being very upset but her not quite getting it.</p>
<p>I was also in 6th grade and the principal, Sr. Mildred came to our door and was crying. It is an image I will remember always.</p>
<p>Missypie, I also had a kindergartner when 9/11 happened. There was a huge dispute among the moms because some parents thought we shouldn’t tell the kids. The sadness was everywhere, though, and there was no avoiding the news, even for a child.</p>
<p>I was in 4th grade. Someone in the principal’s office switched the radio on over the intercom (I imagine by accident) and we heard a garbled, excited voice repeating several times that the president had been shot. We looked at our teacher, stunned, and she looked back at us the same way. She ran out of the room (probably down to the office to tell them to shut off the damned intercom) and came back telling us to stay calm because the president was being taken to the hospital. A hour or so later, the principal came on the intercom with the sad news.</p>
<p>It’s an unforgettable memory for me. I remember what I was wearing, and what the teacher was wearing, as well. </p>
<p>Another indelible memory is coming home from church school a few days later to find my mother in shock over having seen Oswald shot on live television.</p>
<p>I was in 10th grade and was on my way to a funeral in Sacramento when it was announced on the car’s radio. I wanted to hit the glass and break it. I was devastated. I will never ever forget.</p>
<p>Greetings:</p>
<p>I wasn’t born yet (sorry), but my mother was in college at Muskingum at the time. She says she was walking across the campus when someone ran up to her and cried, “The President’s been shot!” She says her first reaction was, “What? The President of Muskingum has been shot?” She also says that she was knitting a sweater for her brother for Christmas, and the sleeves practically went down to his knees because she was so distracted by the television coverage she didn’t count her rows…</p>
<p>I had a newspaper route for a very conservative tabloid called the Washington Daily News (“a Scipps-Howard paper!”, my boss used to say with pride). I had to deliver the understandably late edition that day. Its extra-large headlines said simply: JFK SLAIN.
I thought that was a horribly insensitive way to put it. I did my job that day and quit soon afterwards.</p>
<p>…an exciting and wonderful dream – shatttered.</p>
<p>We were Baptists and I don’t think there was a Catholic church in a 20 mile radius. Seeing bits of the Roman Catholic ceremonies was exotic to all of us. My parents would be mortified to be reminded of it now, but they and pretty much everyone in our area were pretty anti-Catholic. Very odd to think about that now.</p>
<p>in Mrs. Perrin’s 7th grade English clasrroom . . . furtive teacher discussions at the front of the classroom, them a general announcement that the President had been shot, followed by piped radio/TV commentary giving us the news that he died</p>
<p>an absolutely awful day because of the assasination of our President, made even more so in restrospect because the ideal that government could effectively reflect a common, shared interest for us all also died that day</p>
<p>I was in 3rd grade. We had a telephone intercom system that the teachers could use to talk to the office. Mr. Miguel picked up the phone and we watched him freeze in place. School was cancelled, but we weren’t told why. I went home to find my mother crying.</p>
<p>I was sitting in the living room later, watching the non-stop coverage. My parents were in the kitchen. I saw Ruby shoot Oswald. I ran into the kitchen to tell my parents and they, of course, thought I was confused about what I had seen.</p>
<p>Missypie and SiliconValleyMom – I too had a kindergartner when 9/11 happened. The images of the plane flying into the Trade Center were on TV, all the time. He asked me if there were kids on that plane. I didn’t know what to say – “I hope not” or “I think so.” I just said I didn’t know. Then he was on to something else. I was in the city that day. Neither of my kids were worried about me, because they knew I worked in midtown.</p>
<p>I was 16 months old when Kennedy was assassinated, so I don’t remember anything.</p>
<p>Ooh I’m old, now wearing my pants legs rolled! I was in 7th grade in an inner city middle school which was immediately dismissed for the day over the P.A. system. Basically just: Go Home. It was before the days of psychologists lining the hallways to help students with traumas.</p>
<p>I walked my usual route home, solo as always, but angry/frustrated/tearful. I thought I was alone in my feelings until entering the house to find both my parents had come home from work midday, which they NEVER do. They were lying on their bed, watching our only TV and crying so I joined them. That’s how I knew it was important.</p>
<p>If you’re ever in Dallas, the Sixth Floor Museum is really nicely done.</p>
<p>Yes. The Sixth Floor Museum is definitely worth a visit if you’re in Dallas.</p>
<p>Which brings up a story. </p>
<p>I was in Dallas for several weeks on business. I took some time off one weekend to visit the Sixth Floor Museum. When I got back I told a (much younger) co-worker that I had been to visit the Texas School Book Depository on Dealey Plaza. </p>
<p>She said “Oh, was it interesting seeing all those old school books?”</p>
<p>3rd grade. My father was a journalist and my mother had worked on JFK’s campaign (I shook his hand when I was four). I was at a Quaker elementary school, and after they told us “The President has been shot, we are going to Meeting to pray for him”, we sat in the Meeting House as, one by one, parents arrived to take home their children. </p>
<p>Finally, it was just me and the Head of School. It was hours later by then. Then a friend’s mother came and said I was going home with her. I spent four days at the friend’s house (I was there when Jack Ruby shot Oswald on live TV–we were watching). I didn’t see my parents until after the funeral.</p>
<p>(My father spent the four days at the newspaper–my mother joined him, to help cover the story. She had worked as a reporter as well–at that point she was free-lance.)</p>