Where Were You, 11/22/63.

[Ron Bulman]

Many who remember have passed.  Many more will in the next few years.  Memories of the time are relevant to perspective of it.  The question has been has been recognized as interesting since at least he 70's.  People remembered where the were when they first heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor starting US involvement in World War II.  The JFK Assassination.  Then 9/11.  It was an important day in history.  I know the subject's been broached inadvertently in relation to other posts/topics on JFKFacts a few times but not on this site that I remember.  For the sake of posterity and perspective I'm curious.  I've read Joseph McBride's account in his fine book, which he could repeat here.  Dan Hardway, Larry Hancock, Dr. Wecht, Douglass Caddy...?  The reports of the rest of us are equally important.  Bless the memory of JFK on this day and his work.  He obviously influenced us all or we wouldn't be here.  Best regards, Ron.

[Michael Clark]

I was born in 1969. My mother told me her story. She was out in front of her apartment in Zanesville Ohio, with my 4-and-1 year old brothers when a woman came outside, crying and screaming that that JFK had been shot. I do not know how I never got my father's story. PLEASE COLLECT THESE STORIES FROM THE LIVING!

[Rob Couteau]

Hi Ron, I'm glad that you posted this question. My parents took me to see JFK campaign where we lived in Gravesend, Brooklyn, in 1959. I was about three years old, so I don't remember it. On Nov 22, 1963 I was in the second grade when an announcement came over the loud speaker that JFK was assassinated. Our second grade teacher was a crabby, grumpy old woman who never smiled, named Mrs. McNamara. She burst into tears and ran out the room. We all had the impression that she didn't want us to see her in an emotional state, out of control. The following year, just short of my eighth birthday, when Bobby Kennedy ran for the Senate, he also campaigned in our neighborhood. My mother and I were waiting right up front at the speaker's dais, and when he finally appeared I was nearly crushed by the surging crowd. So I darted under the raised wooden platform, where I listened to the remainder of the speech crouched down, just inches below Bobby Kennedy.

Edited November 23, 2017 by Rob Couteau

[David Andrews]

I was four, and able to see all the coverage on TV, mostly CBS.  I was down with a cold the night before, and so woke up very late on Friday and came downstairs to see a revision of reality.  I missed by a year the primal experience of hearing the assassination announced in school, and being sent home early.

In high school, probably in December 1974, our Social Studies teacher took us to see Mark Lane give a presentation at Niagara University.  Lane only spoke for the first half of the evening, giving general background on the assassination, the attempted coverup, and the struggle to get the truth out.  The second half was a discussion of the mechanics of the ambush, conducted by a younger man with a mustache and long, dark hair in ponytail.  That part drew more questions from the audience, and lasted longer in memory -- it certainly inspired my later reading.  Does anyone know who Lane's co-presenter was?  However involving was the second half, I'm sorry now that I can't source Lane's presentation for information.  Does anyone know if there is a record of that speaking tour?

Edited November 23, 2017 by David Andrews

[Joe Bauer]

I was 12 and in the 7th grade.

I was out playing basketball in P.E. Class.

Sunny day here on the California Coast ( Monterey Peninsula. )

Fellow 7th grade student John Norman ran out to the field and basketball courts yelling "they shot the president!"

Our P.E. teachers immediately ordered us inside to shower and dress and to go to our home rooms.

Once there we were told the news. Teachers were crying. We were all released to go home the rest of the day.

We kids didn't know what to say about what we were hearing and I remember we all just kind of kept to ourselves during and after this upset school time.

I walked home alone through our small downtown. It was absolutely quiet. No cars moving. Not even bird sounds. Very eerie.

My mom was watching TV when I arrived home. She barely spoke.

My super violent alcoholic step-father eventually came home from work around 5:30 PM and after he poured his vodka even he said rather incredulously  ... "They shot that bastard."

He hated Kennedy. He'd get drunk every night and watch the national TV news and whenever Kennedy's name came up he would regularly go into a bulging eyed, red faced, spittle spewing rage and yelling loudly, call JFK a commie, jew,  queer and nxxxer loving SOB for what seemed like the entire newscast and even after.

He'd often drunkenly accuse our terrorized mom of wanting to sleep with JFK and then knock her around until he passed out in his big lounge chair.

But even he was a little more subdued that weekend.

My greater shock was watching Jack Ruby shoot and kill Oswald on live TV right inside the Dallas Police Department building where 70 armed officers were present just two days later.

 That scene ( more than reading about the JFK murder and even seeing Oswald on TV ) immediately made me suspicious of the whole event of Kennedy and Oswald being killed within two days of each other. I just could not grasp how Ruby could get to Oswald with all that security and after hearing about 10's of thousands of death threats against Oswald reported on every TV news and in every paper and on the radio.

I thought no police department could be that incompetent. Right inside their own building!

Edited November 23, 2017 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Bulman]

I turned seven three weeks before.  I walked home from Gust elementary two blocks to Irving St. in Denver for lunch.  Mother had a small transistor radio on in the kitchen as I ate, unusual, past news time.  Someone called, she sounded excited.  I went back to school and nobody was there but my teacher at her desk.  That is the eerie part about this to this day for me.  She was crying and told me to go back home, they're was no more school today.

No cartoons on Saturday morning.  All news on the 2-3 channels available in black and white all weekend.  I don't remember Ruby shooting Oswald or John John saluting in it but I do remember the funeral in black and white as well.  The parade of death.  I remember asking why the horse with the empty saddle had boots facing backwards in the stirrup.

Somewhere in all of it I remember hearing about Irving Texas, where my grandparents lived.  And I discovered many years later Lee Oswald spent his last night not incarcerated on earth.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6696014,-105.029818,17z

Edited November 23, 2017 by Ron Bulman

[Paul Brancato]

I was 15. All Bronx HS of Science students were sent home. I turned on the radio and heard early reports, such as a motorcycle cop racing up the embankment. Two days later my family were all watching when Oswald was shot. My dad flipped. So did I. My parents subscribed to the National Guardian, which published Mark Lane's first article in late 1963. I went to see Mark Lane speak twice when he began his investigation at the request of Marguerite Oswald. I'll never forget the debate I attended at Manhattan center between Lane and Melvin Belli, in which Belli got so frustrated he stormed off the stage. His parting words were 'if you can't trust the FBI who can you trust'?

 

[Steve Cearfoss]

I can’t remember.

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Steve Cearfoss said:

I can’t remember.

Bush couldn't either.  He was reportedly 90 miles away in Tyler and cut his campaign speech short due to news of the assassination.  He spent the night before in Dallas.  As did Nixon who first said at the airport, no, wait it was in a taxi.  Howard Hunt's story was a little questionable.

[Steve Cearfoss]

My response was a feeble attempt at humor ala Hunt and Nixon. Mea culpa

[Roger DeLaria]

I was born in 1971. I'll have to ask my mom, I know she was in college at the time. My dad passed away 2 1/2 yrs ago, so I can't ask him. Dad was a career man in the Air Force and met Gen. LeMay once.

[Ray Mitcham]

In Liverpool, I had just arrived at the bar where I worked part time, when we heard the dreadful news on the radio. The bar immediately fell quiet, and a Catholic customer said a prayer for JFK' soul.

[Kirk Gallaway]

Remarkably a lot of this is like Joe, I was 12 soon to become 13, about 80 miles north of Joe on the SF Bay peninsula.

.

I was in the 7th grade and  the last person coming in from the playground of a mid morning recess,when I saw the whole class was milling around and my home room teacher was the only home room of 7 that had a radio and we were all listening when a friend who I know to this day informed me Kennedy had been hit in the head and LBJ had been hit in his body as well. Probably a half hour later we heard JFK died.Some girls were crying, everyone was stunned.

 

Call it the loss of innocence but I've never seen such a mass stunning after any such event in my life. I never thought an incident as 911 was really that unexpected. The people who would compare those 2 events obviously didn't live during the first. The American public at that time was not at all aware of all that we were doing in the world.

Later,we heard of the apprehension of Oswald, and his alleged Communist connections. America didn't talk much about itself at the time,but we had just been through the Cuban Missile Crisis and the first thought of the repercussions that could ensue form the  Russians or Cubans could getting  involved in the Assassination of our President was a thought that no one wanted to entertain.

 

But I remember thinking there was a lack of continuity in the reporting about the apprehension of LHO. There was never an assassins profile, we hadn't heard of that vague profile given of the man in the window the TSBD, and the next thing we know, some guy had been apprehended in a theater after shooting a policeman. It did seem to me, that after shooting the President,an a assassin would try to keep a lower profile than to shoot a policeman 10 miles away.and why there? Had there been a chase directly out of the place where the assassination was committed? If there had been, which we know there wasn't, how come we hadn't heard about it? Then it just seems  like divine good fortune that this guy who shot the cop just happened to work in building that people were now saying was where the shots came from and owned this rifle they recovered! It seemed really fishy to me but I voiced that to my friends but  we  pretty much  thought when more details were released it would all come together. But in that next week, subsequent accounting by the major networks of the sequence of events that happened, none of the randomness of these events were explained.

 

Oswald's appearance didn't conjure up any sympathy. That late recess, there were about 5 of us 12 year old boys wanting to become men talking about how we'd like to exact justice on LHO,  a   friend of mine talked about getting a dagger and starting at his throat , coming down the center of his torso driving the dagger deeper and deeper. Just tough talking young boys!

 

I do remember either a clip or an account in those next few days, was it from Bringuer that LHO had come to their organization  offering his services to help the Anti Castro forces, only to find Oswald a few days later in the street distributing leaflets for FPFC. I remember thinking that was strange. But it didn't seem like the public wanted to digest it too much further.

We were all watching when LHO was murdered by Ruby. I think the general consensus was that this Dallas must be the craziest , loonville place on earth.. All these stupid f-cking men running around in their cowboy hats!

 

 

 

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

Kirk, yes, very coincidentally similar JFK day experiences.

You were in the Bay Area just an hour and 1/2 drive from my location, exact same school class age.

I really don't recall any discussion between the kids at my school. Just silent, sad and even insecure shock. No talk of slitting Oswald's throat or disembowling him. I don't remember hearing of Oswald until later in the day well after we left school and went home.

I also have never seen since 11,22,1963, such a collective sadness.

I think that JFK and his beautiful young wife and even his children had become America's family. One of such youthful vigor energy, looks and hope it was contagious. 

JFK had really captured America, especially the huge baby boomer generation. He was so many positive things.  I remember feeling excited about our country in so many ways.

When JFK was slaughtered in such an inhuman, animalistic brutal way within inches of his blood soaked wife's face, everything that so inspired us about him and where we were headed as a nation and a society was OBLITERATED in one shocking day.

It truly absolutely traumatized us all.

The inspiring, attractive, hopeful energy of JFK was instantly lost and we were left with the opposite regards shifty, beedy-eyed, hound dog faced and ears, good ole boy Lyndon Baines. Who was from the state where JFK was killed! A state that everyone had bad and suspicious feelings about for a long time.

Things have never been the same since nor come close to what we had under JFK.

I still feel the loss.

 

Edited November 25, 2017 by Joe Bauer

[Hugo Langendoen]

I have been born in 1973. My parents have vivid memories about the time they heard the news. 

Over here in Holland it was 7.30pm when the president was shot. First news came at 8pm in the television news. The tv was not so well developed as in the United States. I believe there was only one tv channel in The Netherlands. At 8pm anchorman Fred Emmer opened the news with the statement that there had been a shooting. Then the tv continued the regular report for a while. The radio had more news. 

My mother was deeply moved by the Assassination. She made a scrapbook of the events with clipping from Dutch newspapers. When I found that book in the mid 1980’s I started to be interested in the topic.