52 Years Ago Today

The mind is truly an amazing thing. I can't remember what I did yesterday afternoon, but I have vivid memories from 40 and 50 years ago with no problem at all. Think of all the billions of thoughts, memories and feelings our minds contain, and it is a wonder that we can retrieve anything at all.

Today is November 22, 2015 - 52 years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. And yet, I remember it like it happened yesterday. I was 8 years old, in third grade at Thomas Edison School in Morton Grove, Illinois.  My teacher was Mrs. Stevens. She had blonde hair and wore it in a bob, which was popular back then. I liked her as a teacher, but she had some interesting ways to discipline us. If we talked to our "neighbors," she would put tape across our lips. If we were chewing gum, she would make us stick it on the tip of our nose. She would spray us with water and smack the tops of our hands with a ruler. There were others, but I only remember these - probably because I was at the receiving end for all of them.

Of course, there were no rules back then as to how the teachers could discipline us, and some of them really did take their liberty. I had one teacher in junior high school, whose name was Mr. Zavada. For some reason, we thought he was really weird and loved to terrorize him which caused him to lose his temper to the extreme. One day, we figured out that if you threw a coin up to the ceiling, it would stick - I don't know what kind of ceiling that was, but it would actually stick up there. So most of us (naughty) kids, threw any change we had up to the ceiling when Mr. Zavada's head was turned as he was teaching at the blackboard. It became so hilarious that we all started giggling louder and louder until he turned around and then up to see what all the laughing was about. He went into a rage and threw a couple of the boys across the room, along with their desks. I think all he could do was leave, because he was too flustered to know how to handle the situation. We all probably got into trouble, but I'm sure we all felt it was worth it, just to see all the coins sticking out of the ceiling.

We were all sitting at our little, blonde desks on November 22, 1963, when over the loudspeaker, the principal announced that President Kennedy had just been shot and died shortly after that. Mrs. Stevens started crying and we sat there silent, not knowing what to do or say. After the announcement, we were all sent home early that afternoon, to watch on our little black and white television sets, the news which kept repeating the same thing over and over. In fact, this whole scenario played out every day and every night on the television in our living room. Everyone was riveted to their televisions or radios, watching and listening to the news. Even as young as I was, I remember the heavy darkness that seemed to engulf the entire country. Everyone in the world, it seemed, was in mourning. The Dallas police quickly found the man responsible, Lee Harvey Oswald, and then, a day or so later, right in our front rooms on live TV, we all witnessed Jack Ruby shoot Oswald dead. I think everyone was just stunned - to watch an actual murder right as it happened. It was surrealistic and people could not believe what was happening. My parents, like everyone else, were very upset by all of this, but it wasn't until I saw the funeral that it really struck me in a personal way.

The president's funeral was a long march down Pennsylvania Avenue in a procession with servicemen on horses and his lone casket being pulled down the middle of the street. Mrs. Kennedy, her children and the president's family walked down the avenue following the casket. This took a very long time, as it seemed to go very slowly. I don't remember where they were standing, but Mrs. Kennedy and her two children were standing on a corner in front of a building and her son, John, stood there saluting as his dad's casket passed by. That brought tears to my eyes. He was probably too young to understand all that was being done that day, but I was old enough to know that he had just lost his father, which made me really sad for him.

The assassination, the capture of Oswald, the killing of Oswald by Ruby and the funeral, all played out on TV day after day like there was no end to it. In fact, there really wasn't, because every year, documentaries, and many conspiracy theories, are televised about this very place in time and you can still feel the exact way you felt 52 years ago, as well as remember where you were when you heard the news that day. That's how much of an impact it had on everyone back then - and still does today.