I wonder if they still sell these things in Dallas? What are you going to write on it, "Wish you were here?"
Has it really been that long ago? I was in Dallas at the time, 5 years old, eating a bologna sandwich in front of the cartoons when it happened. I hardly remember it. My cousin remembers it vividly, as does my mother who worked at Parkland Hospital at the time (and is everlastingly grateful that she was off work that Friday).
I remember the day, because JFK made an overnight stop in Ft. Worth, my hometown, before going on to Dallas, and the citizenry gave him a pair of cowboy boots. I was in nursery school at the time, and they brought a TV in so we could see the ceremony at the airport; the cowboy boots made a big impression on me. I don't remember the assassination, though, although I remember that we were sent home early by a very flustered staff that day.
ReplyDeleteI vividly remember watching Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV on 24 November, though.
I'm afraid that all I remember of it is nothing but the funeral on TV all weekend. History didn't make much of an impression on this 5 year old.
ReplyDeleteI missed Jack Ruby's big moment, thank God. Though I do remember seeing Oswald on the TV wearing only white tee shirt and denying in a very flat calm voice that he had shot the president.
I was sitting on the couch with Daddy, watching TV, and Momma was in the kitchen cooking. When it happened, I yelled, "Momma, Momma! They just shot a man on TV!"
ReplyDelete"They did?" she said in that voice we use to humor kids.
"Oh my God, honey," my father clarified, "They just shot that Oswald fella!"
I remember because my parents were so upset by it, but I don't think that the murder itself made much more of an impression on me than if it had been a cartoon.
I was away at boarding school in Vermont, in French class, when an unruly student who had been asked to leave the class and cool off by walking around the building a few times, burst in with the news. Where and how he heard about it is a mystery to me, but he must have had a portable radio. (Students were not allowed to have radios.) Needless to say, none of us, students nor teacher believed him, and thought he was just making an outrageous excuse to come back to class. I also remember that weekend, because students were invited to go to a neighboring farm to watch the coverage on television. I was 15 years old at the time.
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