Fifty Years

November 22, 1963.
Fifty years ago.  I will never forget the day.  The world was so very different then, yet somehow seems the same. 
It was a Friday.  I was a junior at Oak Park-River Forest High School in the western suburbs of Chicago.  I had a date to a school dance the next night, so Mom and I were going shopping after school to buy a new dress for me to wear.  I looked forward to all of that, but had to get through the school day first.

After lunch that day, I was sitting in Homeroom with the rest of Mr. Walwark's homeroom group.  Homeroom was the place to go for announcements, to get your edition of the school newspaper once a week, study, or whatever. Homeroom was only 18 minutes long, so some of us just visited.  Nothing special.  But then one of the Spanish teachers came in the room and whispered in Mr. Walwark's ear, then both of them went out into the hall.  I thought that was a bit strange.  It was equally strange when Mr. Walwark returned to the room and told us that there had been reports that  President Kennedy had been shot.  I gasped out loud, "You're kidding!"  He responded only with, "I wish I were."
There were no other details to be had.  In those days, there were no classroom televisions, and my school didn't even have a public address system.  Instead, there were telephones in each room that connected with the office.  We, as students, were essentially cut off from what was going on outside the school walls--and would be until we could get home.

There were no cell phones in those days, and no Internet.  Computers were only a faint glimpse on the horizon of the future; however, transistor radios were all the rage then.  They were small and portable.  They were also forbidden at school, although some students had them in their lockers.  At the end of homeroom, a few students could be seen flumbling with them at their lockers, trying to get a signal to find out what news there was, but we all went to our next class devoid of information. Our school was so large that it was impossible to know which students had even heard the initial report.  You can bet that the passing period was quite somber.  We rushed to class.

My next class was English with Mr. Anderson.  Normally a jolly fellow, Mr. Anderson wasn't smiling when we got there.  We were scheduled for a test.  I just wondered how well I could do on it with the worry about the fate of our nation on my mind, but I endeavored to do my best.  Then, in the middle of the period (around 1:00 PM), the hallway bell mysteriously rang.  I figured it was a signal of sorts and begged Mr. Anderson to call the office to find out.  He humored me but there was nothing on his face to indicate anything other than what the office supposedly said: the bell had been a mistake.  Please disregard. 

After English, I think I had one more class, although I simply don't remember it--then the mile walk home.  By this time, the news was everywhere: President John F. Kennedy was dead.  Shot and killed by a sniper in Dallas, Texas, and a suspect had been arrested.  The high school had decided to hold the dance the next night anyway.  (Our dances always had live bands.  If the dance had been canceled, the band would also have to be canceled, and it would have been difficult to get the word out to all of the ticket-holders without major problems.)  Thus, Mom and I, with our hearts not in it, went shopping after supper for the new dress.

That day, the United States of America was plunged into deep shock and mourning, similar to what happened to us on September 11, 2001.  People stayed home and were glued to their televisions.  Downtown Oak Park was devoid of shoppers, except for Mom and me, and the store clerks that were, like the rest of the country, huddled around a TV or two that had been set up in store aisles.  There was a pall over everything.  We quickly picked out an acceptable outfit for the dance, then hustled home where we, too, could be close to the television. 

We watched every horrid detail as it all unfolded over the next few days. The assassination of the accused assassin.  The President lying in state in the Capitol; the President in the cathedral in Washington; the President's coffin placed on a caisson and carried through the streets of Washington on its way to Arlington National Cemetery.  Military escorts.  Military band playing dirges as they marched forward.  Th riderless horse.  Drum cadences that are forever burned in my memory.  Watching the First Lady in all her dignity dressed in widow's "weeds", with her young children by her side, with the youngest saluting his father's casket as it moved past him.  And we wept, my mother and I.  My father had a second job at a milling plant and so was off making money.  My sister was off raising her young family.  My brother played on the floor near Mom and I, too young to really understand what was going on.  I don't remember the Saturday dance at all...

Sunday, the churches were full.  We sat around reading newspapers and watching TV.  A channel that we were not watching accidentally broadcast, live, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man arrested for the assassination of the president, by a sleazy nightclub owner who had weaseled his way into the crowd as Oswald was being transferred from one location to another.  The event was flashed onto the channel that we were watching as breaking news.  My mother, who never swore, said, "Well, I'll be damned!"  I just figured that we were good to be rid of him--that he just got what was coming to him--but Mom said, "No!  Now we'll never know."  And she was right. To this day, the conspiracy theorists among us continue to conjecture who REALLY killed the President, doubting all of the intelligence that was gathered and the whole federal commission that was assigned to investigate.  But we will never know for sure...

Everything was closed on the day of the president's funeral (Monday)--declared a National Day of Mourning--so we watched every event and cried unashamedly.  I hardly remember the Saturday dance at all...

The nation's flags were at half staff for a month, a sad reminder of the tragedy of November 22nd.  The rest of the world mourned with us, but...young as I was...I took it quite hard.  I had participated in a mock election in social studies class three years before, and Kennedy was my man.  I was a Civil Rights sympathizer and a believer that America is the greatest country on earth...yet we kill our presidents.  (And others just a few years later.)  It shook my faith in us, and still does.  It's one thing to be attacked by terrorists from the outside but quite another to be attacked by our own.  It took me a long time to get over the yhorrible events of that day and after. 

I still have the Chicago Tribune from that day.  It is folded and yellowed but still a testament to that day, so long ago....