I was in English class in tenth grade. The announcement came over the school intercom. Our wonderful teacher looked at us and said something about waiting to see. She did not try to go on with the lesson, but allowed us to talk of other things. Then the announcement came that the president was dead. We all bowed our heads, and some of us…
I was in English class in tenth grade. The announcement came over the school intercom. Our wonderful teacher looked at us and said something about waiting to see. She did not try to go on with the lesson, but allowed us to talk of other things. Then the announcement came that the president was dead. We all bowed our heads, and some of us cried. I have to say, my Dad was a rabid Republican. He and his father would argue loudly after Sunday supper, while all of us sought to be elsewhere. He did not like JFK. My mother went along with him, I suspect because she did not care either way and it was easier. He was the Republican county chairman, and we all worked along with them on mailings and phone calls and handing out literature.
That day, I realized how harmful my father's approach was, that could lead to an assassination. They let us out of school early and I walked the mile home in the drizzle. I lived near the Soo Locks, and there was a freighter in the river that was blowing its horn at regular intervals, like a tolling bell. I thought about how the president's family was broken, and how the promise he showed as leader was extinguished. I didn't cry, but I felt grief and fear for the future.
We did not have a TV at home, but turned on the radio and got the news that way. Our family grieved, and I don't remember any discussion or talk that was celebrating the end of the Kennedy administration. At my Grandma's house that weekend, we watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald right in front of us. My Dad and Grandpa did not have a fight that day.
I was in English class in tenth grade. The announcement came over the school intercom. Our wonderful teacher looked at us and said something about waiting to see. She did not try to go on with the lesson, but allowed us to talk of other things. Then the announcement came that the president was dead. We all bowed our heads, and some of us cried. I have to say, my Dad was a rabid Republican. He and his father would argue loudly after Sunday supper, while all of us sought to be elsewhere. He did not like JFK. My mother went along with him, I suspect because she did not care either way and it was easier. He was the Republican county chairman, and we all worked along with them on mailings and phone calls and handing out literature.
That day, I realized how harmful my father's approach was, that could lead to an assassination. They let us out of school early and I walked the mile home in the drizzle. I lived near the Soo Locks, and there was a freighter in the river that was blowing its horn at regular intervals, like a tolling bell. I thought about how the president's family was broken, and how the promise he showed as leader was extinguished. I didn't cry, but I felt grief and fear for the future.
We did not have a TV at home, but turned on the radio and got the news that way. Our family grieved, and I don't remember any discussion or talk that was celebrating the end of the Kennedy administration. At my Grandma's house that weekend, we watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald right in front of us. My Dad and Grandpa did not have a fight that day.