Remembrance and reflection: November 22, 1963

When your age is still in single digits, your priorities are different. 

My first priority, on that leaden, drizzly late autumn Friday would, under normal circumstances, have been to rush home after school and pick up the remaining copies of the coming week's edition of TV Guide I still had left to deliver to customers on my route (they hired kids to do that at four cents a copy back then; the new ones came out on Wednesday but some folks preferred you to bring theirs by a day or two later) and get them out, hopeful of avoiding that really scary black dog up the block that I was sure would devour me if I ever gave him half a chance.  Then back home, dinner, perhaps a late-night television movie if anything good was on, but off to bed right afterward so as not to miss the highlight of the week-"Fireball XL-5" on Channel 4 the next morning. 

Normal circumstances ended, however, about two hours earlier as we sat in the school auditorium watching the sixth-graders putting on a play-which I couldn't identify or describe for you now to save my life-when our principal strode onto the stage, stopped the performance and announced something I couldn't make out at first (microphones and amplification were reserved for very special occasions and this wasn't considered to be one).  Amid the resulting gasps from those sitting closer to the stage who had understood what he had said, I leaned over and asked a classmate who had heard the principal as well, and who filled me in: 

"President Kennedy's been shot!"

We were directed back to our classrooms; our teacher had already managed to procure a radio, tuned to the old Mutual Broadcasting Network, by the time I returned.  We simply sat in stunned silence as the story unfolded:  the governor of Texas had also been wounded and was in serious condition…the president's condition was unknown…he had been shot in the head…the gun was a .30-30 rifle…a Secret Service man had also been killed (these last two items, of course, would later turn out to be false)...a Dallas police officer had been shot to death (this one was sadly true)…

Then the time rolled around for those of us who had begun studying instrumental music earlier that year to make our way to the gymnasium, where that class was held.  No practicing scales that day, though-a radio was set up there as well.  The official announcement that Kennedy had died was just being repeated as I reached the door.  Some of the older students began weighing in on what that would mean; if things went as they did with our school "elections" the loser-Nixon-would now be president.

I am almost ashamed, even today, to admit that this made perfect sense to me at that moment.  I had only a vague concept of who the president was and what he did; in those days you really didn't get into studying government and the Constitution before junior high.  Pretty much all I remembered of the election by then was the schoolyard ditty we repeated over and over-come on, how many of you recited it, too?  "Kennedy, Kennedy, he's our man!  Nixon go to the garbage can!"  Lyndon Johnson?  Who was he?

Once I got home I turned on the TV and decided to wait for the evening newspaper to arrive-does anyone else recall getting both the Kansas City Times in the morning and the Star in the afternoon on weekdays?-before finishing my TV Guide route.  "PRESIDENT IS SLAIN FROM AMBUSH" screamed the black banner headline, over a story printed completely in italics-something I don't remember the Star or Times ever doing again.  If memory serves, I didn't start out with my TV Guides until after dark, having watched Air Force One's arrival back in Washington and President Johnson's first, halting words to the nation, along with the steady stream of details from Dallas on Lee Harvey Oswald.

No "Fireball XL-5" that Saturday, of course, as the networks continued with their nonstop coverage after having done so throughout the night-something almost unprecedented at a time when most television stations around the country (and all three of them in Kansas City) regularly signed off for at least a few hours nightly.

We were in church on Sunday when Oswald was shot, so I didn't see that live.  The endless replays of the moment, however, were no less gruesome.

School was canceled on Monday so we could watch the funeral and burial.  One of my most enduring memories, alongside those of the somber cadence of the muffled drums as the cortege made its way to Arlington and the strains of what I later learned was the Navy Hymn-which still takes me back to that weekend whenever I hear it-was my mother hoping out loud that the lowering of the casket would not be shown, as that might be too much for her.  (It wasn't, at least not on NBC.)

I understand now that I really was too young then to get it.  Grasping the loss to the nation would come only with an understanding of how the government worked and the president's role in it.  Being able to relate to bereavement, however, would take much longer, as I would not experience a death in my family until after I had grown to adulthood.

So what to make of it all now?  I will not waste time addressing any of the conspiracy theories; there is nothing new to say for or against any of them and thus no one's mind will be changed.  Better, I think, to reflect on the world of half a century ago and how Kennedy perhaps helped start us on the path to where we are today.

On the day he died, a pre-recorded television message from him was supposed to be relayed to Japan-the nation his daughter, ironically, just became our ambassador to-via satellite.  Live satellite television is something we take for granted now, but the first live commercial broadcast from overseas was, I think, still a couple of years in the future.  It was Kennedy's push for technological advancement-in particular the race to the moon-that spurred the revolution in electronics that among other things, eventually transformed the black-and-white console television sets with their vacuum and cathode-ray tubes upon which we watched that caisson and heard those drums, into today's big-screen solid-state Internet-smart full color TVs that are really more computer than receiver.  It also ultimately led to the establishment of ARPANET, which evolved into the medium through which you now read these words, along with the myriad means by which that medium can now be accessed. 

In short, we should celebrate the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as his family has long urged, rather than to continue commemorating and mourning his death.  Perhaps among the books and documentaries bound to be produced as the centennial of his birth on May 29, 2017 approaches will be several examining my premise above.  At least I hope so.

When your age is more than halfway to triple digits, your priorities are different.