When JFK was shot, mofembot's excellent diary, prompted my diary. Many years ago I wrote a piece about JFK's assassination, but that was in the days before the internet and blogs and newspapers don't have the ability to include YouTube videos. I've written short comments about this in years past on DKos and it was suggested then that I diary this. Part of my words below were previously published some twenty years ago and I've added videos.
Please join me below the fold.
Two earth-shattering events happened when I was a senior in high school. In 1963 the first event to impact my life was unbearably tragic, and I carry the sadness with me today. The second event, almost three months later in 1964, changed the world culturally and artistically.
By the fall of 1963, the US had either just sent or were contemplating sending "support troops" to South Vietnam; our teacher, who was also the principal, had introduced the subject to us in Civics class. I'd gone on a date with one who later died when the jeep in which he was riding ran over a land mine; we saw the movie "Bye Bye Birdie." Unbeknownst to us in our innocence that day, grief would visit us again in the not-too-distant future as our generation got the news of dead friends who were drafted and serving in Vietnam. For such a small school and community, we lost an inordinate number of people in Vietnam.
22 November 1963 - The Tragedy
JFK Assassination: The Fatal Three Shots
http://www.youtube.com/...
At our lunch break, I was walking to the lunch room to get in line. One of my friends passing the other way in the hallway said "Did you hear President Kennedy was shot?"
"Oh," I said, "I already heard that joke, only it was about Wallace."
I ate lunch in blissful ignorance, went to my English first period after lunch. The teacher had the radio on and we listened in horror, eyes as big as saucers. Some of the girls were crying silently, tears running down their cheeks. We were all stunned into silence.
When the bell rang, we went to history class where the teacher had the radio on and we all, again, listened in stunned silence. We knew this was a pivotal day in our lives. Although I'm sure none of us could have articulated it that day, the adulthood that would be ours the following spring had just come early, when we were still in high school.
I don't remember what the third period after lunch was or if we were sent home an hour early; my brain only retains all the important events of the day and week that followed. Most of the students lived in the country and had to be bussed home to the farms where we lived. JFK was killed on a Friday and the following week was Thanksgiving and would have been a short week anyway, so we got the whole week off.
At home, we sat the entire week watching the events unfold on the black and white TV we'd only acquired some four or five years before that. Out in the dingtoolies reception was not that great on antennas, especially if the weather was bad. Luckily, when we were not watching events live, there were re-runs after re-runs of every event. The day, then the week, are still indelibly imprinted on my brain. I still remember it all in black and white TV pictures.
We watched Walter Cronkite almost lose it on air when he announced the death of President Kennedy. We watched Johnson being sworn in on AF-1, with the sad and somber-faced Jackie next to him. That was difficult to watch. She was our fictitious Camelot queen and she was always stylishly decked out in beautiful clothing and her manners during interviews were impeccable.
Walter Cronkite announces death of JFK
[This is an extended version of what led up to those few seconds when Cronkite almost lost it on air.]
http://www.youtube.com/...
Walter Cronkite wasn't the only one on the air.
November 22, 1963 Reaction to President Kennedy's death.
[Chet Huntley and David Brinkley]
http://www.youtube.com/...
Newsclip on November 22, 23 1963.
http://www.youtube.com/...
Lyndon Johnson Swearing-in Nov 22, 1963
[Sorry, the sound quality is atrocious. I don't remember this horrible sound quality when hearing this on TV all those years ago.]
http://www.youtube.com/...
We watched Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby on live television.
Lee Harvey Oswald Assassination
http://www.youtube.com/...
Flashes of memory that either move in real time or slow motion or are still photos are vivid in my memory: President Kennedy's body lying in state, the lines upon lines of people walking by to pay their respects. Caroline standing by her mother like a little lady looking a bit lonely. Toddler John-John with his brave salute, not quite old enough to know what was going on. JFK's siblings with grief-stricken faces. The funeral march behind the caisson. The magnificent horse with the boots in the stirrups backward.
If we had Thanksgiving in 1963 with our usual family get-together, I don't remember it. What was there to be thankful for? We'd just lost our president and he was much beloved by many of us. My parents, both life-long Democrats, had voted for him.
Future years saw the Warren Commission, innumerable books about JFK's assassination, theory upon theory of lone shooter vs conspiracy. In the long run, all those theories don't matter as much as the death of the man himself. Jack and Jackie and their young family were such a refreshing change from the stultifyingly boring presidents and their mousey little wives and stuffy elected senators and representatives. Jackie was the epitome of grace, elegance, and style and she made renovations in the White House and led us on a televised tour of the place. We wept with them when they lost a child. Caroline and John-John became our surrogate children to 'oooh' and 'aaah' over.
The loss was unbearable.
Did we recover? Yes. One has to recover from grief and go on to having a life and to seek a purpose in life. The alternative is emotional and physical death. To be alive and to endure, one must adjust to losses in one's life and put one foot in front of the other until it feels normal again. Living is, by it's existence, optimistic.
For almost three months there was a gloomy pall over the nation. Then the second thing that marked my senior year in high school happened.
We began climbing out of our collective depression on 9 February 1964 when The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. Their music became the sound track of my young adult life and influenced culture and music all over the world for many decades. It still does.
My life was affected by Jackie's death, too. On 19 May 1994, when I was visiting my mother and had cleared out her flower beds, early morning TV carried the announcement that Jackie had died of cancer. About four hours later, Mom got the call that her aunt, youngest sis of Mom's mother, had died of cancer in another state. Eight days later, the day after the anniversary of my maternal grandmother's death, Mom died; it was three days before the anniversary of my dad's death and the death of his next youngest sister who was also my godmother.
In my old age now, every once in a while, I turn reflective..., and I wonder: How would life have been different if President Kennedy had lived, been re-elected, and had served as president for eight years? Would he have kept us out of a full war in Vietnam or not?
The Beatles' music would have still impacted our culture and our musicians no matter what. But..., how would life for us have been altered if President Kennedy hadn't been murdered?