TheBanyanTree: The Day the President Died

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I was in third grade when the principal announced over the loudspeaker that
President Kennedy had been shot.  Then a few minutes later, he announced
that President Kennedy had died.  We were stunned, but went on with our
school day.  When I got home, my grandmother and mother had the TV on and
were watching the news.  We spent the next few days as a family living in
front of the TV.

Back in 1963, people didn’t watch as much TV as they do now.  1960s TV was
for entertainment.  Families gathered around the TV – and there was usually
only one TV in a household – as they did in the past for storytelling or
listening to the radio.  Many times, my parents were doing other activities,
like jigsaw puzzles, sewing, embroidering, knitting, etc. while watching TV.
TV wasn’t the center of the universe like it is now.  And, there was no
cable or satellite TV.  We had four channels and that was it.

So, it was a big deal that my family was living in front of the TV back in
November 1963.  There was an EXTRA to the newspaper as well.  In 1963 there
were two editions to the daily paper, a morning edition and an evening
edition.  My parents got the evening edition and on the day President
Kennedy died, there was an EXTRA (like “Extra, extra read all about it!”).
EXTRA editions were very rare and only occurred for newsworthy events like
the end of World War II.

We watched as Air Force One brought the President back to Washington, DC.
We watched as Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President.  We watched as Lee
Harvey Oswald was assassinated on live TV and his story died with him.  I
kept watching TV to get a glimpse of Caroline Kennedy, as she was just a
year younger than me, and I tried to imagine what she was going through.  I
loved watching for John John, because I had a baby sister of my own.  I
watched Caroline when she and her mother visited the President’s coffin as
it lay in state and they tucked their gloved hands under the flag that
covered it, as if to get closer to him.

I watched the funeral on TV.  We had the day off from school.  Back then,
children generally didn’t go to funerals, they were adult only affairs, but
on TV, I could participate in the pageantry and tradition and the elegance
of that funeral.  People dressed for occasions  back in 1963 and it’s
difficult to imagine any man wearing a tux now for a funeral, even a state
one.

My grandmother kept the editions of Life and Look and Time covering the
assassination.  In fact, she kept the magazines covering Bobby Kennedy’s
assassination, too.  They’re now in my custody, carefully wrapped in a
plastic bag and kept in my office cabinet.  They’re in good condition after
40 years.

I last took them out when John Kennedy Jr. died.  I wanted to look at the
pictures that were taken when he was a toddler and was visiting his father
in the Oval Office before bedtime.  I wanted to see that picture of him
saluting his father’s casket as it passed by the White House.  John Kennedy
Jr. was like my little brother.

I was too young to understand the politics of this event.  I was too young
to care about conspiracy theories.  I was too young to appreciate what the
assassination meant to our country.  At the age of eight, I just understood
that my President had been killed and two children who were my age had lost
their father.  In my young mind, I compared President Kennedy’s
assassination to the assassination of President Lincoln.  It was a terrible,
terrible thing.

November 22, 1963 was the 9/11 of my youth.  It was the event that changed
our calendars, on how we looked at our world.  I heard on the news the other
day that President Kennedy was the last president to ride in an open
limousine.  I’m sure there were many other changes to protecting the future
Presidents because of this assassination.

40 years.  It seems like just yesterday when I was eight years old and life
was so simple.  The shots that were fired from the Book Depository changed
everything.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!
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Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, "I'm going to snow. If you have on
a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway."

* Maya Angelou