General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: John Fitzgerald Kennedy 11-22-1963 Where Were You? [View all]Staph
(6,323 posts)We lived in West Virginia, but my dad had a job interview in New York City, so we had taken a long weekend from school. My mom was nervously driving the streets of Manhattan (and only once went the wrong way on a one-way street!). When we picked up Dad, he said that he had heard the craziest rumor on the way down in the elevator -- that someone had shot the President. We laughed it off, but then noticed crowds of people around open car windows and at the window of stores selling televisions (remember when stores would have televisions in the window!).
We turned on the radio, found a station. I remember sitting in the back seat with my two sisters. In shock. How could this happen? I don't really remember anything else from that trip, going back to the hotel, driving ten hours back home. I do remember bits and pieces of watching the funeral -- the black horse with the boots backward in the stirrups, all of the old men in black overcoats walking behind the cortege, John-John saluting his father. Photos of him saluting still bring me to tears.
(FYI - Dad didn't take the job. I was really happy - I didn't want to move to a place with such bad memories.)