Forty years

Our junior high school band was looking forward to a “guest shot” at tomorrow morning’s high school football game.  We’d been outside, trying to figure out how to play our instruments while marching, hopefully even to march in some semblance of order and lockstep.

As we filtered back into the practice room, putting away our instruments and gabbing about whether we’d be able to perform without making complete fools of ourselves, the principal’s voice came out from the overhead intercom.  I don’t recall the precise words—was it announced that President Kennedy had been killed, had been hit by gunfire, or merely that there had been shooting?—or the precise time of the early afternoon.  Suddenly all was silent in our room as we strained to listen for another announcement, for something that would help us 13-year-olds make sense of an event that was simply incomprehensible.

Assassination was something we learned about in our history class.  Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley ... those were names from long ago, part of the rollcall of presidential succession.  You didn’t hear about stuff like assassination on television or in the newspaper.

The bus ride home from junior high was fairly lengthy, something like 7-8 miles across our township.  I have no memory of it.  The next thing I do remember is being at home in front of the TV, seemingly around the clock for the next three days.  We watched fellow citizens file past the casket in the Capitol rotunda, we watched Oswald’s murder, we watched the funeral on Monday, we watched John-John’s salute.  My sister was in sixth grade, and reported that Mrs. O’Hara, who had always told her students that she’d grown up playing games with the Kennedys in Hyannisport, was devastated when she heard the news.

Thanksgiving came a mere six days after the assassination.  We had already planned a family trip from New Jersey down to Maryland to join relatives for the holiday weekend.  Turkey Day was, of course, a somber event.  While there, we felt dutybound to pay our respects at the newly-dug gravesite.  On a cold, cold morning, sunny but blustery, we waited for several hours, nearly tripping over still exposed gaspipes for the perpetual flame, for our chance to stand in front of that raw earth for a moment.

The shock hadn’t yet worn off when we stood there.  In many ways, four full decades later it still hasn’t.

Comments

I was at Arlington that weekend.  That killing set the stage for the remainder of the decade, I think.

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