It is November 22, 2012, forty-nine years to the day since president John F. Kennedy was gunned down, allegedly, by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. I was in the eighth grade at Douglass Elementary/Junior High in Boulder at the time. It was a Friday, and we were all on our way into the cafeteria for lunch, when I noticed a couple of teachers looking very distraught and even crying. It became known very quickly to the rest of us what had happened. Televisions weren't as pervasively available at that time, especially in schools, but some of us were allowed to crowd around a 20" black-and-white TV in the library to keep tabs on the unfolding event. I'll never forget Walter Cronkite on CBS News reporting, and with visible sadness, removing his glasses and looking into the camera and saying, "From Dallas, Texas, a flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at one PM, Central Standard Time, two-o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago." And you could tell that he, Walter Cronkite, the standard for all news announcers of his time, was having extreme difficulty holding his emotion in check.
That whole weekend was filled with nothing but sadness and curiosity. We had learned so much about this man and his family in a relatively short time, from his campaign in 1960 against Richard Nixon, through the famous televised debates before the election, and the emergence of "Camelot in Washington": his infectious charm and Bostonian accent, the elegance and allure of First Lady Jackie, daughter Caroline, son John-John and the tragic birth and death of baby Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, delivered by emergency C-section on August 7, 1963 and died just two days later of respiratory distress syndrome, the touch football games at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, the handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis (and the earlier Bay of Pigs invasion). Only 1,038 days in office, but so many memories, flooded our consciousness on TV, in the newspapers and on the radio as we, as a nation, processed the tragedy. Jack Kennedy was truly the first "media savvy" president, and so it became that his life and death had never before, and not since, been so covered and reported upon.
Then, on Sunday, I was watching TV at my grandmother's house in Brighton. We were all getting ready to eat and I was waiting for the NFL game of the week on CBS, but the broadcast was pre-empted by coverage of the Kennedy Assassination. No football on television, though commissioner Pete Rozelle ordered all games to go on as scheduled (probably so as not to let terrorist Lee Harvey Oswald "win"). Bachan (grandmother in Japanese) was tending to my jiichan (grandfather), who was bedridden and had been since his stroke a few years earlier. My sisters, mom and dad and maybe a few others were in my grandparents' house on First Avenue that day, waiting for some scrumptious food prepared by my bachan and assisted by my mom. When, there on CBS (channel 7 back then), I watched as those two police detectives were escorting a handcuffed and battered Oswald to an awaiting van to transport him from the Dallas police station to the County Jail, when a blur of activity, and a shot rang out, then lots of shouting and right there on Live TV, Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey right in the gut. That grimace as he was shot, forever framed in my memory. That look of shock and anger as the detective on the left in his cowboy hat as he realized that a dark-suited stranger had blatantly shot the guy he was escorting. I yelled out to everybody in the house that, "Somebody just shot the guy who shot Kennedy!" Amazing.
The State Funeral for President Kennedy on Monday was memorable, too. We were excused from school that day and we watched the whole ceremony. The veiled Jacqueline Kennedy and the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy walking down Pennsylvania Avenue from the US Capitol to the White House then on to St. Matthew's Cathedral, the old-fashioned WW I vintage military caisson upon which rested Kennedy's coffin, the spirited black stallion with the boots strapped to the saddle backwards to symbolize a fallen leader, the steady muted drumbeats as the funeral cortege wound past the million+ people who lined the streets, the bagpipe regiment flown in from Scotland, the Irish Military Cadets that joined in the procession along with the President of Ireland, the salute from John-John on the steps of the cathedral, the lighting of the flame at the gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery. Indelible, unforgettable images in black and white.
But, hey, today it is Thanksgiving 2012. We live in a remarkably different world today from 1963. One thing, though, that is constant: we celebrate in the present, as we remember the past, and hope for a bright future. I am thankful for so many things, but foremost on my list are my fantastic children, my heart-warming grandsons, my wonderful family and my great friends. Then, golf, the Yankees and baseball in general. Okay, thank you for the Rockies, too, though some would argue that Major League Baseball and the Colorado Rockies have nothing in common.
Cheers to all and best wishes for a Healthy and Happy Holiday Season!
