How Many Forum Members And Visitors actually watched Jack Ruby Shoot Oswald On Live National TV?

[Pamela Brown]

7 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Pamela, you and your family were eating Swanson TV dinners in front of the TV at that hour?

Early lunch?

Must say your family had class. Swanson had some real gourmet selections back then.

I've been eating foil tray TV dinners all my life. 

I consider myself somewhat a microwave meal gourmand now at the ripe old age of 72.

Stouffers is consistently good.

Their meat lasagna is a favorite.

Marie Callender is fairly good.

Banquet? Hard to pass on their 10 dishes for $10 specials.

I've pondered having a JFK assassination anniversary talk event here in Monterey/Carmel, CA. from time to time.

We have an older age and fairly well off demographic here. I am sure many lived through the event.

I would think the State Theater on Alvarado would be a good venue for this?

Or the Lecture forum or drama theater at our Monterey Peninsula Junior College?

The Sunset center in Carmel is nice but very expensive.

Our local Hyatt Regency hotel has great convention meeting rooms.

I know several regular members here live in Calif. Kirk, Jim Di, Joseph McBride.

Wouldn't be hard for them to get here.

I wouldn't speak. Just coordinate others to do so.

Wish I had the big bucks. Enough to pay our members to speak and arrange and pay for their transportation and lodging and meals.

I think our speakers would love dining at such fine Carmel restaurants as "Casanovas", Clint Eastwood's "Mission Ranch" with a view of Carmel Bay, or "Terry's Lounge" in Doris Day's ( now passed on ) hotel..."The Cypress Inn."

Monterey has a fine restaurant called "Tarpys" as well.

Oh well...maybe I'll win the Lotto soon and we could make this happen.

 

 

My parents were originally from South Dakota, so their idea of 'class' might have been a bit tacky...

But yes, it was Swanson TV chicken dinners that day while we watched Lee Oswald shot.  That was horrible.  I don't think I've eaten one of those dinners since.

Carmel is gorgeous.  I was there a long time ago. We went to Napenthe for one evening...

[Joe Bauer]

On 6/14/2023 at 5:43 AM, Pamela Brown said:

My parents were originally from South Dakota, so their idea of 'class' might have been a bit tacky...

Pamela...seriously, I did not mention the word "classy" with any purposeful "making fun" intent regards your family eating Swanson TV dinners while watching the incredibly shocking Oswald murder news on national TV that day.

I was raised in a fatherless, on welfare home. Even though our mom cooked most every dinner for my 6 older brothers and I for years, by the time I was a young teenager most of my older brothers had joined the service as it was the only option for them to get out on their own and making it.

By that time and with a stepfather who stopped allowing regular meals to be cooked for my remaining 3 brothers and myself, we frequently ate when and in whatever way we could, always when Frankenstein was away on his day job.

Hence an occasional 30 minute heated TV dinner that we would sneak into the freezer of our refrigerator.

I never went to one restaurant until I was maybe 17 or so with the exception being our oldest brother ( out of the kindness of his father role taking heart ) taking us 4 youngest brothers to one in downtown Chinatown in San Francisco when I was about 6 or 7.

To this day, my next oldest brother and I still remember that event as one of our most cherished memory ones.

Years later, on my own as a young man I wasn't into cooking except maybe eggs. That is when I regularly began buying TV dinners.

And honestly, I loved em!

I was the opposite of a picky eater.

As a child in elementary school the few times I got to eat a hot school lunch instead of my typical peanut butter sandwich and banana bag lunch, I felt as indulged as if I was dining at Spagos!

Just some real life background sharing to verify my sincerity regards my respect for TV dinners back in those days.

Your family dining on Swanson's TV dinners while watching the Ruby/Oswald news was no unclassy thing.

In fact, I was amazed at how delicious those new food preparation concept meals were!

I can still taste the fried chicken, corn and little chocolate cake ones. Mmmmm.

And the crumpled up foil containers made wonderful throwing balls for what ever game purpose a childlike young man could imagine.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

On 3/18/2023 at 7:14 AM, Paul Brancato said:

Me neither. My dear departed dad talked or wrote to every relative and friend of his, and letters to the editor of all major newspapers and his own local rag claiming we had just witnessed a Coup and we should all get out on the streets and try to stop it. 

Bravo to your dad Paul.

That took courage!

[Ken Davies]

 My family in the Great Lakes area of Canada all thought that Ruby "rubbed out" Oswald, like Bogart, Cagney, Raft, and others did in the movies.  He was silenced before he could talk.  Mob style hit by Ruby, BUT the mob did not kill JFK.  Lots of talk about who the new president was, and how JFK was killed in the new president's home state.

[Anthony Venturella]

Joe,

As a child, I was watching it live in the kitchen with my Grandfather on his portable black/white television in Galena, Kansas. I was eating scrambled eggs he made for my breakfast. He was a city policeman and deputy sheriff and couldn't believe the break down in security that allowed a prisoner to be shot. He knew this didn't add up; I've been following the case since.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Anthony Venturella

[Joe Bauer]

12 hours ago, Anthony Venturella said:

Joe,

As a child, I was watching it live in the kitchen with my Grandfather on his portable black/white television in Galena, Kansas. I was eating scrambled eggs he made for my breakfast. He was a city policeman and deputy sheriff and couldn't believe the break down in security that allowed a prisoner to be shot. He knew this didn't add up; I've been following the case since.

Exactly AV.

Most every American with a brain felt the same suspicion.

Maybe 50 to 75 MILLION ( or more ) Americans!?

I've mentioned before how I don't think a book has been written that fully and adequately captures the true depth of American societal shock, trauma, let down and mistrust toward their own government that Oswald's brutal murder and Ruby's improbable access into the Dallas PD building to whack Oswald in the midst of 70 armed police security fostered in their consciousness.

The power of that live event on the minds of millions that watched it was improbably and impalpably profound. To an unprecedented even epic degree.

JFK was brutally slaughtered live in front of 100's of eyewitnesses.

Oswald was brutally slaughtered live in front of "10s of millions" of eyewitnesses!

That fact made this an amazingly powerful impact event.

I was watching NBC's live TV coverage of the Oswald transfer and murder.

The second it happened on scene reporter Bob Pettit instantly and breathlessly shouted out the following words that I will never forget...

"HE'S BEEN SHOT...HE'S BEEN SHOT! LEE OSWALD HAS BEEN SHOT!"

If I could write I would expound upon my proposition that the true power and effect of that event seen live on national TV upon our entire society needs to be much more thoroughly examined and reflected upon. 

In my opinion...we were all traumatized much more than we realized...then and now.

NBC TV reporter Bob Pettit's shocked shouted words would be the title of such a book.

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Joe Bauer