November 22nd

Probably less than 20% of my Facebook friends can relate to this – but I can recall exactly where I was on Friday, November 22nd 1963 @ 2 o’clock in the afternoon.  I was sitting in my seat in the 3rd row of my 6th period English class in high school.  Mr. Lattimore was my English teacher.  And if you are in your 50s or older – I have no doubt you also know where you were at that exact, same moment. I was a high school freshman back then. I can also recall exactly how the news unfolded – in little pieces of information announced over my school’s public address system by our school principal, Mr. Beale.  First our principal announced that President Kennedy had been shot. An image came immediately to my mind of a photo I once viewed of the President McKinley assassination. But nothing more was stated by our principal.  Minutes later he came back on the public address system and announced that President Kennedy was dead.  That was an even greater shock.  I thought to myself, how did someone get into the White House to do this?  I was unaware that the President was in Dallas that day. Finally, seconds after that, our principal clarified his communication with the information that the President had been shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.  The entire class was stunned.  A few minutes later the bell rang to end 6th period.

I recall that later my 7th period Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Gottlieb, explained to us the rule of succession of the Presidency and what she knew about President Lyndon Johnson.  I remember one classmate wanted to know if Jacqueline Kennedy was still First Lady.  A strange concern indeed.  But all of this was so very new to us. Some classmates were unaware of the Vice President's name. We were dismissed after 7th period and I walked into Hempstead village to get a haircut.  Walking along the street in the village I saw people just standing or sitting outside listening to radios in stores or in cars.  No one seemed to be in a hurry to go anywhere.  I recall thinking that it looked the same as photo images I had seen of people reacting to news about the Pearl Harbor attack before I was born.  After my haircut my mother drove by to pick me and my brother up to take us home.  I can still recall thoughts and sights and sounds and black-and-white TV images that transpired over the next four days.  Images of Mrs. Kennedy exiting Air Force One with blood stains on her suit and of Robert Kennedy meeting her at Andrews Air Force Base; The murder of Lee Harvey Oswald which I witnessed on live TV; The Lying in State with closed coffin in the White House East Room, Mrs. Kennedy kneeling to pray at the coffin; the Funeral Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral and the cortege that carried the coffin to Arlington National Cemetery.  Only one other event has been so indelibly imprinted on my mind.  That would be the attacks on the WTC on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath.

Where were you on November 22, 1963?