A friend forwarded a short article her brother-in-law wrote about his memories of the Kennedy assassination. It got me to wool gathering. First of all, it is almost unfathomable that I am old enough to remember something that happened 50 years ago. How can that be, when on lots of days I do not feel much older than I was the day the event occurred? Well, maybe a bit older, just to avoid those terribly awkward years as opposed to my present moderately awkward self.
So, some randomly to-the-best-of-my-ability-to-remember gathered thoughts.
I was eleven years old in the sixth grade. Mrs. Simpson was my teacher. It was my second year to have her. When in 5th grade, I was in a split grade with 6th graders. I think, academically, a split grade was advantageous to the lower grade, and not so much for the higher one. I learned lattice multiplication in the 5th grade as Mrs. Simpson explained it to the 6th graders. No doubt, I was supposed to be studying something assigned to us lowly 5th graders.
I remember three distinct times that I got into trouble in elementary school. The first time was in first grade when I talked during devotional, was asked if I wanted to go to the cloak room, thought I was told to, and spent quite some time there wondering if Mrs. McPherson had forgotten me. She had. Nancy saved me when Mrs. McPherson called on me to answer a question and realized I was not there. The second time was in 5th grade when I was talking as Mrs. Simpson worked a math problem on the board. She asked who was talking, and 3 of us were honest (stupid) enough to admit to our sin. She called us to the board, gave us a math problem to work as she walked behind us keeping up a constant monologue of chatter. This was to show us how difficult it was to work a problem in front of a class of disrespectful chattering students. She then sent us to our seats and began to work the very problem she had given us errant students. I turned to whomever was sitting next to me and said, "if she gets the same answer I got...." at which time Mrs. Simpson spun around and asked who was talking. I reluctantly raised my hand. The terrible embarrassment of that moment has blurred what came next. I still get that down-in-a-barrel, red-faced feeling when I think of it.
The third time was in sixth grade, the day John Kennedy was assassinated. When I was told that the president had been shot, I was in the workroom of the library cleaning up a mess I had left. My housekeeping skills have been fairly consistent throughout my life - pitiful! Apparently, when asked who had left the craft sticks in the giant jar of paste, I was the only one who confessed. Personally, I am fairly certain that even I did not leave that many sticks in the paste, but there I was cleaning the mess up when Mrs. Melin, the librarian, told me to go back to class. The TV's were on as we watched the breaking news of the president having been shot. If I recall correctly, school was let out early. It did not take an act of congress or God for schools to be dismissed 50 years ago.
There was nothing on the TV but coverage of the assassination. News came in about an arrest of a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. All sorts of information about him was being aired. We watched the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson as president. We caught glimpses of Mrs. Kennedy, still in the pink suit. We heard the doctor announce the time of death. It was like watching a train wreck. That was Friday. Saturday came. There was only this national event in any of the news. I learned much later that C.S. Lewis, a great man and favorite author of Christians around the world, also died November 22, 1963. On Sunday, I stayed home from church with my dad as I was sick with a cold. Daddy was in the kitchen as I watched, live on TV, Jack Ruby step out and shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. I shouted out what had happened and Daddy came running. It was only later that I understood that I saw live, in real time, a man being shot to death.
The world was going mad. The age of innocence for citizens of the United States was rapidly coming to a close. We did not know it that weekend, but trust for our government was in a downward spiral. The Warren Commission Report, for many, was one of the first nails in that coffin. Political officials from every level have been hammering nails into the coffin of governmental trust and ethics ever since. The funeral, even for an eleven-year-old (especially for an eleven-year-old) was a paradox of horror and pomp and circumstance. But, even the death of the president of the United States does not halt the rising and setting of the sun.
The day after the funeral, school commenced. It was the first event of national consequence that I hold in my conscious memory. Mr. Lincoln remembers well the Cuban Missile Crisis, but my only memory of it was a night of extreme disquiet, crying, asking my dad if the world was about to be destroyed by war. He assured me that it would not. I trusted him.
Later, in high school, I visited President Kennedy's grave in Arlington National Cemetery. I was a junior in high school, and neither appreciated nor understood the significance of all that I saw on that class trip to Washington D.C. I did grasp the reasons for the solemnity at that grave. Years later, I visited Dealy Plaza in Dallas. I went to the book depository. I looked out that window. I have read several books on these events. I once told Mr. Lincoln that when I got to heaven I was going to ask God who shot JFK. Mr. Lincoln assured me that it would not matter then. I am certain he is right.
So, on this, the almost eve of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I wish you a moment to reflect, and I wish you
blessings
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