November 22, 1963. Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot?

[BrklynLiberal]

I was in school and heard someone say it, and told them that I thought that was a terrible joke!!!!

It was my first experience with what I would call tragedy...

[Lasher]

1. Science class in high school. n/t

[flpab]

161. 4th grade, Mrs Hinson told us

I was watching tv with my brothers when Oswald was killed, that was creepy for a kid to see. We were stunned. My parents were out and we were freaking.

[mike_c]

2. elementary school....

They sent us home early. I remember the teachers sobbing.

[oldtime dfl_er]

29. Me too

My teacher was an Irish Catholic ex-navy man and he was shattered. Some of the kids in my class were giggling, which I didnt understand at the time, as I was devastated too.

[mcg]

191. I let out a nervous laugh when I was announced.

I let out a nervous laugh when the principal announced "President Kennedy has been shot." over the PA. I didn't understand why I laughed. A boy in the class yelled at me, he might have said "Don't laugh". He said his father worked for (or was friends with) Kennedy. I don't remember if I said anything, I think I was too shocked and confused to defend myself. I remember looking at him. My teacher might have said something to explain, I don't remember. I didn't know whether to feel guilty for laughing, but I knew I wasn't happy about it. It was very confusing.

I think my reaction was in part disbelief, I didn't want to accept what I heard, and partly it was too much to handle.

[drm604]

3. I was in my grade school classroom.

They sent us all home for the day.

[Stardust]

4. I was in school, too. Study hall. And they wouldn't announce it over

the PA system because they didn't want to upset us.

[Lebam in LA]

5. 8th Grade Social Studies class

Our principal came and told each class in person

[Joe the Liberal]

6. I wasn't even born yet. nt

[ThatsMyBarack]

190. Me, neither.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

7. REIVING A SCHOOL BUS TO THE GARAGE

PART TIME JOB, SOPHOMORE IN COLLEGE

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. I was in college, heading back to my dorm...

I picked up a newspaper (which I still have, BTW) and got back to my dorm. I was in shock.

I lived in a private Catholic dorm, and we had a chapel where Mass was said every day.

That day, it was a Requiem Mass, and it was standing room only. Many tears...

[firedupdem]

9. I wasn't born yet but growing up hearing my parents talk about

that and MLK used to send shivers through my body. I know how much he was loved.

[aquart]

10. Changing classes.

[hlthe2b]

11. kindergarten....

Yet, I remember it well. We were told the President had been shot by the teacher and immediately sent to recess. All the 4 and 5 year olds decided it must have been the new-- somewhat creepy-- janitor at the school. Of course given the conspiracy theories since that day, we probably weren't so horribly out of step... :shrug:

But, it has always disturbed me that George HW Bush claims not to remember where he was on that day. I was 5 years old, for God's sakes and I remember clearly...

[oldtime dfl_er]

31. Hasn't it been proven that GHW Bush

received intelligence about it? or something like that.

[hlthe2b]

32. Well, there are reports he was in Dallas...

credible reports, yet he testified later that he did not remember his whereabouts that day. Very suspicious, one would think...

[Omaha Steve]

81. Here is a photo on a web site of somebody (GHW Bush?) outside the school book

depository shortly after the shooting. It does look like GW Bush Sr. to me too. Found the photo. To blurry to tell for sure.

I was home sick from first grade at the time.

OS



http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/FbiMemoPhotoLinkBushJfk.htm

Dallas—March 23, 2006—TomFlocco.com—A November 29, 1963 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit memo unearthed in 1977-78 proves that former President George H. W. Bush was a member of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the recipient of a full briefing on the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 when Bush was 39 years old, despite his protestations to the contrary.


Additional evidence linking Bush 41 directly to the scene of the crime is available and is circulating the internet over the past few days in the form of a U.S. intelligence-leaked photo taken just after the JFK assassination at the door of the Texas Book Depository in Dealey Plaza.

The individual in the photo has the identical profile and hairline of a more youthful George H. W. Bush, standing to the left of the doorway of the building just after the assassination looking in the opposite direction of the authorities who were intent upon locating Lee Harvey Oswald.

The image of the elder Bush at the Texas Book Depository is authentic and can be verified by the intelligence operatives who took the picture and would testify if subpoenaed, according to U.S. intelligence expert Thomas Heneghan, who provided TomFlocco.com with the photo which was leaked to several others.

[BrklynLiberal]

101. Nothing could surprise me when it comes to the Bush family...

I guess I would be more surprised to find he was NOT involved.

[goclark]

104. Octofish has many excellent summaries on that subject

How could anyone be able to get away with saying they didn't remember where they were that day.

[The Hope Mobile]

123. Exactly. Not even remotely credible.

[defendandprotect]

138. It was a very powerful coup on our government ....we would have saved humanity/planet ---

It was a trio -- JFK -- Pope John IIXXX -- and Kruschev

ALL quickly gone --

[barbtries]

163. he was in texas

http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/dead_kennedys/161963.html

http://question911.blogspot.com/2006/06/going-out-on-limb.html

this thread has a picture of the document linking george bush to a report of an assassination threat on 11-22-63
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3029417

[Speck Tater]

12. In the barracks in San Antonio TX doing my ironing. NT

[likesmountains 52]

13. 5th grade music class...the teacher was called out in to the hall. When she came back she

sat at the piano and started playing some sad music. She told us that the president was dead and we were sent back to our regular classroom, and then home early on the bus. Of course, in those days most of the kid's moms were at home to receive them in the middle of the day.

[MO_Dem]

14. Ninth grade science class

Sad time.

[Flubadubya]

143. Ninth grade shop class...

I was 14 at the time.

[csziggy]

15. Elementary school - they called all students into the cafetorium and announced it

[goclark]

16. On my way to class at USC

Students were walking around campus like an ordinary day.

Then time just stood still when we heard the news that passed from student to student like a human chain.

I was about 3 feet from the bookstore.

I remember it like yesterday.
Everyone was in shock and we were all crying.

[napi21]

17. At work at my desk. I remember you couldn't make any calls

because all the phone lines were jammed! I remember thinking, maybe it wasn't too bad, and praying that God would save him. My prayers weren't heard that day. I still cry when they replay the tapes from that day, and the tapes of his funeral.

[kiva]

18. I was at home for lunch from grade school.

My mother turned on the TV, and that's when we heard the news.

[Mugu]

19. I was on the playground during 1st grade. We were send home early. n/t

[Mari333]

20. 6th grade english class hebron indiana n/t

[FLyellowdog]

21. Heard it on the radio on my way back to school...

a friend and I had made a quick trip home to pick up some 45s to play during band class and when we told our band director about the assassination, he scolded us for telling such a horrible joke. It certainly was horrible, but sadly, no joke.

[ananda]

22. 10th grade class in Catholic HS in Oak Cliff .. Dallas

About 1:20 they announced over the intercom
that Kennedy had been shot. Everyone went
to the auditorium which doubled as a chapel.
I sat next to a classmate and we prayed the
rosary together hoping he'd make it.

Then it was announced that he had been killed
and school was dismissed. We all wandered
around the hall, some of us dazed, some
crying. It was just unbelievable.

After that, I and my parents were glued to
the tv watching the footage. Somebody with
the Knights of Columbus had been downtown and
shot footage of the event and had a lot to say.

I bought the Look and Life magazine special
editions and the Dallas Morning News, which I
still have.

All the events that unfolded around the
assassination, before and after, were so surreal..
particularly what happened to Officer Tippett
and the way Jack Ruby killed Oswald.

Even before, the news had reported arguments
in the White House about wanting Kennedy to
travel in a car with a bulletproof bubble, but
he refused. So sad.

And I will never forget the way Jackie Kennedy
reacted as she climbed over the back of the car.
Nobody should ever have to go through something
like that. That she survived with her wits
intact is pretty remarkable, and she truly raised
those kids with class.

Sue

[madrchsod]

walking through my school cafertria on the way to lunch

i wondered why many of the girls were crying and then i heard the principal repeat the news....

[NOLALady]

23. In the cafeteria.

It was during Lunch at High School. We were in class when they announced his death over the PA. It was the end of innocence.

It rained that day. I walked home in the rain. Somehow I didn't want to ride the bus. The people on the street also seemed to be walking slowly, dazedly in the rain with faces wet with tears.

[SeattleVet]

24. Home - I was sick that day and on the couch watching TV

The picture went blank, there was some confused chatter, and the "SPECIAL BULLETIN" screen came up on CBS in NY. In the background you could hear "Someone shot the President". After about 15-20 seconds they came on with the bulletin.

I was in 4th grade.

[sandnsea]

25. First grade walking to mass

The ladies came out of their houses screaming and asked us all to pray for the President. I was terrified that my little prayers were supposed to do something for the President of the United States.

[EFerrari]

41. 2nd grade on the playground and all our nuns burst into tears.

We prayed for a while standing at our desks and then, went to Mass when the death was confirmed. A terrible day.

[Art_from_Ark]

26. I was at a neighbor kid's house

and his mother was talking to my mother when the telephone rang, and then neighbor kid's mother answered it and almost immediately shouted "Oh, my god!" and she had such a shocked look on her face Then she said "The President has been shot!" I had no idea what a President was in those days, but I knew that something bad had happened. Later, I remember watching the funeral on TV and seeing little JFK Jr. who was close to my age and hearing the word "caisson".

[elleng]

27. Sophomore college

political science class. Went home to Cleveland with classmate, for Thanksgiving and mourning that weekend.

Fresman year had Cuban missile crisis.

So my class/generation experienced some crises together.

[Qanisqineq]

28. I wouldn't be born for another 10 years

(almost exactly). My parents were only 8 and 12 at the time. To be honest, I've never heard them mention where they were when they heard JFK was shot (I assume in school) or how they felt.

[oldtime dfl_er]

34. You should ask them

Anyone who was over the age of five or six remembers that day pretty clearly. They might surprise you with an interesting story!

[WolverineDG]

120. They still might not say anything

my friend's dad lived near Pearl Harbor & would NEVER say anything about what he experienced on 12/7/41.

dg

[Doctor Cynic]

30. Both my parents weren't even conceived.

[all.of.me]

33. In PE on the playground with Mr. Pinto. 3rd grade. Gray day. nt

[Andy823]

35. Junior high school

I was in mechanical drawing class in Tucson Arizona.

[crazylikafox]

36. 9th grade. Don't remember which class.

They made announcement over loudspeaker that the President had been shot & was in hospital. I was concerned, but it just didn't occur to me that he would die. With new medicine, I thought they could fix anything.

We went to our last class, & it was announced that he had died. We all just numbly filed out & got on our schoolbuses for the ride home.

We we were glued to the TV screens all weekend. While we were eating Sunday dinner we watched Lee Harvey Oswald shot live on TV.

[nancyr]

37. Standing in front of the refrigerator....

getting stuff out to fix for lunch. Taking care of my toddler and newborn baby and waiting for my husband to come home to eat. It was raining. It was unbelievably horrifying.

[Graybeard]

38. U.S. Army Hospital, Ft. Gordon, Georgia.

I was injured in basic training and was in a wheelchair in the ward when the announcement came on the TV. We all were stunned. For the next few days we watched everything unfold, the capture of Oswald, the swearing in of Johnson on the plane, the murder of Oswald (live). And then the funeral in D.C.

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

199. That Day

I was in 4th grade at Grovetown Elementary School just outside of Fort Gordon. My dad had gone to Korea the month before. The principal came on the PA and announced the shooting and left his tv playing. It was on NBC and a Clorox commercial was playing. Then Robert McNeil came on and announced the death. We were dismissed shortly thereafter and I ran a mile home. My mom was ironing clothes and asked why I was home early. I told her and she turned on the tv and there it all was.

[ChazII]

39. Field trip to our local zoo. n/t

[petersjo02]

40. Cleaning up the lunch dishes after feeding my

college-student husband and our 2-year-old daughter. I was 21. Had the kitchen radio tuned to WHO radio in Des Moines with Jack Shelley doing the noon news report (about 12:45). I can still see the scene even now as though from the point of view of an out-of-body experience--like a snapshot in my mind. We moved about in stunned silence for days afterwards. Just total shock that such a thing could happen.

[alittlelark]

42. I was gestating.

[EFerrari]

43. My brother was born Nov. 4 and my poor mother was so devastated

she had to switch him to formula. It was exactly as if someone in our immediate family had died.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

44. At my sister's house, on leave from the marines.

I sat glued to the TV for days.

[TygrBright]

45. In school.

The Principal came in and and turned on the radio.

They sent us home early.

My mother was in the living room, crying. It was her birthday.

It must never happen again.

succinctly,
Bright

[saracat]

46. First grade I think. I remember the nuns let us out from school early.

I walked home and my parents told me. we watched TV for days it seemed.

[emilyg]

47. We were at Ft. Dix.

[tularetom]

48. In a hydraulics engineering lab at Cal

My wife was in the hospital having just given birth to our daughter two days before (today is her 45th birthday). She knew nothing about the assassination until I got out of class 2 hours later drove there and told her about it.

[Bigmack]

49. Corporal of the Guard at a small Marine base..

in Japan.

A buddy at the radio shack brought us the word in the guard shack. We were stunned... and uncharacteristically non-profane. No dark humor.

Japanese holiday, so we had to raise our big holiday flag, and then lower it to half staff.

Damn near touched the ground. I'd have lost a stripe.

[Art_from_Ark]

66. Yes, that would have been a holiday in Japan

Kinro-kansha no hi-- ironically, Japanese Thanksgiving. That event also marked the first time that TV news was broadcast live via satellite to Japan.

[Bigmack]

50. Corporal of the Guard at a small Marine base..

in Japan.

A buddy at the radio shack brought us the word in the guard shack. We were stunned... and uncharacteristically non-profane. No dark humor.

Japanese holiday, so we had to raise our big holiday flag, and then lower it to half staff.

Damn near touched the ground. I'd have lost a stripe.

[marlakay]

51. Second grade, they lowered the flag

and my parents cried for days. I didn't understand other than it was bad real bad. A few years later when his brother died I was a bit older and my parents were watching the news about it and I paid attention.

[sakabatou]

52. 24 years before I was born.

[sutz12]

53. Elementary school...5th grade, I believe...

They walked us all over to the 6th grade class that had a TV. We watched a bit of the news. The teachers were all pretty quiet, and I guess they were crying.

I don't really remember if we went home early, but we didn't really have any more class work that day. It was pretty surreal for an 11 year old.

[RushIsRot]

54. In the Army at Ft. Bliss, walking to another electronics class.

El Paso, TX

[Waiting For Everyman]

55. 8th grade field trip to Luray Caverns VA, from Baltimore.

We went into the caverns in the morning, and life was normal. We emerged from the caverns' darkness into the sunlight a few hours later, and the future we might've had was gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2_V4XxvI2E

[BrklynLiberal]

99. Very moving statement...

[underseasurveyor]

56. I had just turned four the month before

and I know we were living in Santa Monica, California and I don't remember the assassination or who or what a Kennedy was but I do remember my mother crying and crying for days and days and not understanding why. Of course I know now, but I do remember vividly walking into the kitchen and seeing my mom sitting at the the dining table sobbing uncontrollably and asking her, mommy what's wrong.

[KharmaTrain]

57. Watching Bozo Circus...

I was home for lunch when my mother came in to tell me that she thought she had heard something had happened to the President. I then headed back to school and on the way I ran into the the "neighborhood liar" who asked me if I had heard that Kennedy had been shot down in Texas. The first image I had was of JFK riding in a stagecoach with sagebrush rolling around and some mean dudes with black bandanas riding along side and shooting at him. I didn't know what to believe until I got to school and saw my teachers screaming and crying in the hallways, I knew something bad had happened. We were all called into an assembly and told the President had been shot, they turned on the school TV and we saw the reports that he had died.

To say the next couple days were surreal was an understatement. All the teevee channels had wall-to-wall coverage (the first time that ever happened) and even though I was a hearty 7 years old at the time, I can still remember that day and that weekend very clearly.

[doc03]

58. In 10th grade Biology class when they announced

he had been shot. The next period when I was in Geometry they announced he had died. The Republicans absolutely hated Kennedy I remember a Repug's kid saying they finally got the SOB.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Eighth grade math class

just after lunch.

[Crunchy Frog]

60. I think I was in a shopping cart.

I had no awareness of the event, since I was only about 10 months old.

[old mark]

61. In high school, at a study hall, sitting with a friend and a nun,

talking about the new Honda 50 cc motorbikes. We were in the lunch room, and the nun just pointed out that 50 cc's was about the volume of a salt shaker. She was fascinated that these things coula actually move with such a small power source.

Announcements were made over the speaker system, and the day got horrible after that - I don't remember much of the rest of the day, but I remember seeing all the craziness that followed on TV, including Oswald being shot by Ruby in the Dallas PD.

The entire period was the strangest I have ever experienced - it was like being in a bad movie or having a long bad dream, but it was very real.
I was a sophomore in high school, had long for the day DA hair, and liked surf music.

mark

[47of74]

62. That was not quite 12 years before I was born...

But November 22nd is my mom's birthday, so it wasn't probably much of a 17th birthday for her.

[Cleita]

63. I was at work.

My roomate called me. She was able to have a radio at work. I told my boss, who told his boss. Soon the head of the Dept. brought in a TV set that was only used for the world series every year and we all watched. It was tragic. When I left work, a guy who worked on the block gave me a kitten that he was going to take to the shelter that he found. I named the kitten Kennedy. He lived to be seventeen before I had to put him to sleep because he got cancer.

[BamaGirl]

64. Nine years before I was born

My mom has always talked about that day tho. She says she was in 7th grade and they were told during class. My dad is 10 years older and heard at work.

[JDPriestly]

65. I was a university student visiting a classroom in the university

experimental school (I think that's what it was). I was required to visit a certain number of classes in order to pass an education curriculum requirement. The students were informed by their classroom teacher, and I heard about it with them. The horror, the shock was just overwhelming. We all kind of went into a state of panic and grief all at once. I will never forget it.

I will never forget where I was on that day. I can see the classroom as clear as day after all these years. Three other days I remember almost as vividly. The day that the Russians marched into Prague in 1968 (I was in Munich in the presence of a lot of Czechs), 9/11 and Obama's victory. But the most vivid of my memories is of Kennedy's assassination. It marked the loss of innocence for the United States. It heralded a new era of skepticism and division in the country.

Until the mysteries surrounding Kennedy's assassination are fully explained, we will not regain our trust in each other. The deaths of the two Kennedy brothers and the unexplained circumstances surrounding their assassinations placed a kind of curse on our country.

[BrklynLiberal]

97. Yes. Robert Kennedy's assasination was also a heart stopper.

I remember it was June 1968. I was already working by then. It was truly a nail in the coffin of our innocence.

[bdamomma]

149. oh my god, that was a horrendous event, he could have been

President, California Primary was it? sad very sad

[HubertHeaver]

67. In high school freshman English class.

We found out because some boys had skipped PE class and were in the parking lot listening to the radio in one of the boy's car. They turned themselves in to the coach and told him the news. He informed the principal who turned on the office radio and patched it through the school's intercom system.

[Jack Rabbit]

68. In a sixth grade class room

El Dorado Elementary School, Stockton, California.

The news was announced by our teacher, Mr. Chance.

[silverojo]

69. I was over a year away from being conceived

But it's no less a horrible, tragic event to me. You can't watch that footage, and not recoil in horror.

[JSK]

70. I was home from school, sick that Friday

sitting on the couch watching "Pete and Gladys." A news bulletin interrupted the program; Walter Cronkite announced that Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. I turned to look at my mom; I will never forget the look on her face. She rushed to the phone to call a friend and all the circuits were already busy. Shortly thereafter, Cronkite told us the president was dead.

We were glued to our black and white TV for hours, watching Jackie escort the casket back to DC, LBJ's speech, the absolutely horrifying site of seeing Oswald murdered on live TV Sunday morning, and of course, the funeral on Monday, a national day of mourning. Everything changed forever.

It was absolutely incomprehensible that such a thing could happen. I have tried to explain to my kids the magnitude of our shock and horror. I don't think that anyone who didn't live through it could understand what it was like. People compare it to 9-11, but I think the Kennedy murder was much more shocking. Events today may shock, but they don't surprise. We have been desensitized by so much horror over the last 45 yrs. It really was the end of innocence.

[BrklynLiberal]

96. I agree. The endof innocence. It just was incomprehensible that something like that could happen H

I also remember sitting in front of the B&W TV for days...seeing little JFK Jr salute as his father's casket went by pulled by the horses.

[Hardrada]

71. I turned 19 that day. I was a college sophomore and was up in

the student newspaper office looking out on campus. I had just finished an article I felt rather smug about and then I saw people running on campus (unusual) and soon heard the news on television and have not been smug since. Enormous shock and then the first snow of the year came down that evening.

[Crabby Appleton]

72. 9th grade drafting class

[Hekate]

73. On my way to 9 a.m. Science class in high school. I also thought, "Bad joke."

Our teacher gave us the news as soon as he got it. We didn't have intercoms in our school, so notes were run from the school office.

It was pretty shattering...

Hekate

[regnaD kciN]

74. Second grade classroom in L.A....

[TexasObserver]

75. English Class. Ninth grade.

[ProfessorGAC]

76. At Home

I'm younger than you. So, i was only in 2nd grade.

But, i was home sick that day. My mom was talking on the phone with a friend of hers and i was in our little TV room (a small spare bedrooom across the hall from the kitchen), She had "As The World Turns" on the TV.

They broke in with the bulletin, and she yelled to me "What did they just say?" I told her they said the president had been shot.

She said "Amy, i've got to go." She hung up, told me to come on, and we went to the living room to watch the bigger TV.

We spent about the next two hours glued there.
The Professor

[Skittles]

77. Peterborough, England

I was six and remember very little about it

[MissMarple]

78. Ninth grade English class. The principal came in to tell us. It was very dark and raining outside.

I'll never forget it. Ever. ..unless I get the oldtimers thing....

In time, many things are lost.

[elizm]

79. 6th grade math class when Principal made the announcement. nt

[lamp_shade]

80. 11th Grade... catholic school. Mother Superior came in to each classroom and

announced it. All classes were dismissed. When we got to our favorite hangout, the owner had just hung up the phone and was crying. We knew. The new few days will be with me forever.

[12string]

82. 11/22/63

sitting on the swings at recess.3rd grade.

[NNN0LHI]

83. Second grade class when the principal knocked on the door.

When I seen his face I knew something was bad wrong. He called my teacher out of the room and she came back in trying to keep herself together to give us the news. A few minutes later one of the custodians came pushing in a huge black and white TV (they were all huge back then) on a wheeled stand so we could watch the news reports.

Most of the girls and some of the boys were weeping. I never had seen anything like that before.

Don

[Inspired]

84. It was on my 5th birthday.

I was home, like most year olds back then, wondering why everyone was so sad on my birthday. I don't remember exactly how I was told though. I just remember the sadness.

[Hubert Flottz]

85. Junior High School in English class.

The people in the office patched the radio news report on to the PA system in all the classrooms. My teacher was crying and very shaken. We all just silently sat there and listened as the shocking details of what was happening in Dallas developed and were relayed on the air.

[Lyric]

86. I was a little, undeveloped egg in my six-year-old mother's ovary.

The other half of me was still hanging around in Dad's genes.

[Berry Cool]

87. Too young to remember

I was barely two.

[RagAss]

88. Five years old.....walking with my mother, downtown shopping...

She was pushing the stroller with my sister in it. We came out of a store and noticed every car was stopped in the main road. Odd site. Radios on loud. Car windows rolled down. People gathered around the cars, listening. A woman in a red kerchief came over to us and told us the President had been shot. On that Sunday, I was watching television with my grandfather and watched the Oswald murder live. At five years old, I just figured thats how things were done in my country. In my kid's way of thinking, I kept waiting for years for someone to shoot Johnson.

You know what my mom bought me in the store that day? A toy gun that shot styrofoam balls. I'm betting now that I wouldn't have gotten it if we heard the news before we went into the store.

[RagAss]

128. P.S. - Five years later, my mother woke me up to tell me Bobby was dead !

[lostnfound]

89. A toddler in a playpen at my grandparent's house?

Of course I was too young to know what was going on. But bizarre as it sounds, I think there is some faint memory in there, a feeling that all of the grownups around me were suddenly distraught and in shock.

Perhaps it was even the Thanksgiving afterward that I feel.

[kedrys]

90. It was my second birthday

I vaguely remember wondering why everyone was so sad on what was supposed to be a happy day...

[RebelOne]

91. At home, taking care of my 1-1/2-year-old son.

[Jawja]

92. Mrs. Andrews'

7th grade class. Principal came to the door and whispered in her ear and she made the announcement and we all went to the "Multi-purpose Room" to watch TV.

[jules1962]

93. 13 months old then

Mother was giving me a bath and my 27 month old sister saw it on tv and told Mom that the President had been shot. Mom thought she saw something on a soap opera and said "Karen,don't say that". Little did she know. My parents said the whole town basically shut down for 3 days. Very sad.

[Le Taz Hot]

94. I was in my 3rd grade classroom.

An announcement came on over the P.A. system that the President had been shot in Dallas. My teacher's face turned ashen and we all just sort of sat in stunned silence. I'm not sure how much time passed but at one point they announced the President was dead. Everyone was sent home that day. I went home and for the next several days we were glued to the T.V.

[Beausoleil]

95. Third grade class

In Garland, Tx outside Dallas. Catholic school, big shock to all. There was an awareness throughout school that day that the President was in town, so it came as a bigger shock to us that he was killed there. I even remember what the weather in Dallas was like that day.

[Tracer]

98. Coming back from Canada ...

... with my sister and brother-in-law.

We stopped at the border store and being young, we were laughing and joking around.

As we went to the counter to pay for our purchases, the woman there said "It's a sad day for your country".

"What do you mean?" we asked.

Then she told us.

I can still remember the shock. It was like a physical blow.

[johnfunk]

100. I was home from kindergarten -- Mom was ironing...

... when she got a phone call and turned on the TV. She remembers that while she was waiting for the picture tube to warm up (ah, that advanced 1960s technology), CBS cut in with what had turned out to be their second bulletin on the shooting. Turns out their cameras were not warmed up in the news studio! My grandfather, an Irish union guy steeped in Democratic and New Deal values, was a political organizer -- he took the news very badly. So did Mom.

I still have flashes of memory from those days, particularly sitting upside-down in Dad's comfy chair reading "KENNEDY DEAD" in 96-point headlines on the front of our local paper. Yes, I could already read at about a fourth-grade level (one of the benefits of borderline Asperger's Syndrome).

[mnhtnbb]

102. 7th grade English class with Mrs. Sprinkle.

The PA system crackled to life and we heard the news announcement.

I went home and walked into the kitchen where my mom and grandmother were sitting. I asked if they'd heard the news and they said "what news?". I told them President Kennedy had been assassinated and my mother said, "It's about time."

My parents were both rabid Republicans. I alone in my house was glued to the TV all weekend watching
the events.

I mark that moment when I heard my mother's callous, hateful response to the news as recognition that I did not want to grow up to be like her. We never got along after that.

[ThomWV]

103. High School History Class - loudspeaker announced he had been shot, then dead

I was in a History Class at Wheaton High School, in Wheaton, Maryland. The first announcement came over the loudspeaker telling us that the President had been shot. A second announcement followed about 20 minutes later telling us he was dead. They let out school about an hour later and it stayed out for about a week and a half. I went to the Capitol with a friend and stood in line to walk past the casket. We were at the same friend's house, just sitting in the living room with the TV on when Ruby shot Oswald. Mr. Haynes, my friend's father, simply screamed it out - "They've shot him!". We were all stunned. Live goes on.

[PufPuf23]

105. Mrs. Hockett's 5th grade class

at Montair Elementary in Danville.

All classes were called by intercom to the cafeteria / multipurpose room where the principal addressed the school.

Then we watched the unfolding on TV as parents were called as school was cancelled for the day.

[deaniac21]

106. Stacking textbooks at the Texas Schoolbook Depository.

[Suich]

177. What??? n/t

[davidpdx]

107. Not yet born

I came along almost 7 years and 5 months after that.

[intheflow]

193. I was in utero, too.

Came out about 2 months later. But sometimes I wonder if it somehow affected me anyway, since I'm a progressive from a conservative family.

[graywarrior]

108. 9th grade English class

The principal came into the class to tell us. We all got sent home. I remember hoping it was just a flesh wound and that he'd be ok.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

109. I was on Mars

Many light years away :silly:

[MadinMo]

110. Mrs Sams' 5th grade class in Erwin, TN

A teacher came in and told her the news, they both began to cry. Soon after that we were all dismissed to go home.

My uncle died the same day and most of our time was taken up in going to the funeral in Missouri. We didn't have long sessions by the tv watching the news unfurl. In a way I wish I had experienced that part.

[erinlough]

111. 7th grade class with Mr. Mammel

I remember our room faced east with a window wall and so it was finally comfortable since the sun was overhead now instead of streaming in. It was mildly cold but not snowing in Michigan. Mr. Mammel met someone at the classroom door and came to the front to announce that the President had been shot. It was a Lutheran School and we were a republican area so I was one of the few students who ever stood up for the President. I remember being very angry and daring any of my classmates to say anything crass and cruel about what had just happened. I don't think anyone did and I know that the teacher would have stopped them. He then asked us to bow our heads for a prayer for President Kennedy. I wanted to go home to my Democratic parents who would understand how sad I was and I didn't want to be around my classmates who, earlier had said such cruel things about this president. I think it is the moment when I began to blame republicans for everything bad in the world......

[jpak]

112. Mrs. Mitchell's class

Another teacher burst into the room and whispered something in her ear.

She burst into tears, then told us what happened.

[bigwillq]

113. Not born yet (nt)

[bikebloke]

114. After getting off the school bus.

Some little kid was yelling, "Kennedy was shot. Kennedy was shot!" When I got home, the telly was on, and I saw what he was talking about. I was in third grade at the time.

[NJRick1006]

115. 7th Grade Gym Class

I was involved with "tumbling" on a gym mat on the Friday afternoon. We were all shocked at the news. About an hour later in "homeroom" it was announced over the PA system that President Kennedy had died.

[kpete]

116. I was at school

St Justin Martyr, Ca
at my desk,
we were stunned - they sent everyone home - my parents were in front of the tv.
I mostly remember silence...

I am still trying to recover,
peace, kp

[WolverineDG]

117. According to family lore

I was crawling around on my aunt's hardwood floor. Mom dropped me off there so she could go to a dentist appointment, got to the office just as they announced the shooting, then came back for me. She & my aunt watched TV & crying the rest of the afternoon together. :cry: My dad was at the office & was Officer on Duty that day. He sent the rest of the office home & stayed to man the phones until 5pm, crying in his office.

Please note: My parents were Republicans & hated the Kennedys.

dg

[snort]

118. 'i don't remember'

signed: George H.W. Bush

[TahitiNut]

119. "It's about time somebody shot that son-of-a-bitch!" (Comment overheard in November 1963)

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/517

[bdamomma]

154. sad very sad what a remark.

[surrealAmerican]

121. I'm told I was in the playpen in our living room.

I was a toddler and can't really remember.

[KansDem]

122. In the orthodontist's chair...

I was in fifth grade and was at my orthodontist having my braces worked on. The phone rang at the receptionist's desk and I heard her answer it. Then I heard her say something like, "Really?" or "Oh my God!" then she hung up the phone and walked back to the work area where the orthodontist was working on another kid and announced "The President's just been shot!"

Then there was silence...

[foxfeet]

124. Eighth grade science class.

Mrs. Mitchell answered a knock at the door, then hurried to the front of the room to announce, "The President's been shot!" She turned on the TV and we watched the news reports until we were all sent home early.

[LibDemAlways]

125. I was on a girl scout camping trip. The bus

pulled up to the campground and one of the girls noticed the flag in front of the ranger's office flying at half staff and asked the ranger what had happened. He explained that Pres. Kennedy had been shot and killed. The adults on the trip carried on as though nothing unusual had happened. It was all very strange.

[BrklynLiberal]

126. For anyone who has not seen this and wants to post their memories..

[MANative]

127. Too young to remember the actual day, but my first cognitive

memory is of my mother bawling her eyes out over the funeral procession. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the B&W television, and her sitting on the couch behind me in tears. I had just turned 3 years old. My family was very involved in Dem politics at the local level in MA (my grandfather was an elected official and knew JFK pretty well), and she had worked for Kennedy during his term in the Senate before I was born, and was inconsolable for days. To this day, she still keeps boxes of memorabilia, including personal letters from JFK and Jacqueline (who liked to be called - phonetically speaking - "Jakleen" not "Jakwalin" as is commonly done.)

[Blue_In_AK]

129. Mrs. McCafferty's fourth-period senior English class

at South Houston High School. I'll never forget that day as long a I live.

[PCIntern]

130. Fifth Grade - Quaker school

A real awakening...my 5th grade teacher was a former WAC and was so upset that she couldn't talk...she was just holding her hand over her mouth.

the third grade teacher practically jumped for joy. She was a young, mean RWer, anti-Semitic and probably racist, but there were no AA's in my class at that time. she hated me and she hated all the Jewish kids in the class...I'd never experienced that before and have never forgotten it. If I ever get a chance to se her, I'll tell her exactly what I thought of her.

Got home just in time to see the plane land in D.C. with the casket...

[Thothmes]

131. High School Sophmore in typing class

[livetohike]

132. Sixth grade.....my teacher was Mrs. Balla

The PA system came on with no prior announcement just a radio broadcast that the President had been shot. A little while later, our Principal came to the door and Mrs. Balla went out into the hall. She was crying when she came back into our classroom. She said, "Our President has died." We were all crying and then school was dismissed early.

When I got home, my Mom had the tv on and she was nursing my youngest brother who was eight months old. I remember it like it was yesterday. Kind of frozen in time. My Mom in the living room as I walked in the door. When my Dad got home from work, he had tears in his eyes. We had the tv on all day/ all weekend and watched in horror as Jack Ruby shot Oswald.

[lovuian]

133. I was in grade school

they announced it on the intercom

Very sad day

[psychmommy]

134. swimming in the uterus.

it was so pleasant and i wasn't really aware of the horrid things going on around me.

[a la izquierda]

135. Wouldn't be born for another 14 years

My mom was 8 and my dad 10. But I have a very, very weird story about Kennedy's assassination.
On November 22, 1993, it was Thanksgiving. Thirty years to the day after the murder. After Thanksgiving dinner, my family played trivial pursuit, as we always do. I kid you not, five or six questions came up about Kennedy.

By the end of the game, everybody was freaked out.

[DailyGrind51]

136. Going back to school after lunch, I was in the 7th grade.

[rebel with a cause]

137. Seventeen and working in a garment factory.

The boss would not allow anyone in or out of the factory that day, and did not tell us what had happened. The people that worked in the office knew but were not allowed to tell us. My sister who was 21 worked there also, and her boss told her about it.

When we got out of work, I was shocked to find the day darkened into an unreal early night. You could not see your hand in front of your face. When I got into my sister's car, she told me what had happened but I found it hard to conceive how it could be real. When we got home my mother was waiting at the back door for us, her face strained and her eyes red from a day of crying.

I still regret for not being there for my mother during those days, because she really had a hard time dealing with her grief. Then we saw Oswald killed as it happened on that Sunday morning.

But 1968 was the year that shocked my world more than any other. In April, Martin Luther King Jr. was assasinated. In May, my mother died suddenly. In June, Robert Kennedy was assasinated. Talk about heart break and life becoming a blur, that was the time for it to be so.

[fortyfeetunder]

139. Day off from school

1st grade. I recall being on one side of the house and seeing my mom looking at TV at the other side of the house when "As the World Turns" was interrupted to announce President Kennedy was assassinated.

The adults did not talk much but at that age I could read and consumed any newspaper my parents brought in the house. In DC at that time, Federal buildings were closed on the day of a President's funeral, and the schools were closed too, so we got to see everything on TV.

I saw the scene on TV where Oswald got shot and I asked my mother what happened, but she wouldn't tell me.

My teacher's husband was in the Coast Guard unit participating at the funeral procession. And the following year, we had a field trip to Arlington Cemetery to see the gravesite. It was still unfinished, but the eternal flame was there.

The funny thing is I was struggling to understand death at that age. I had learned about Jesus' resurrection, and was wondering if anyone was going to open Pres. Kennedy's tomb three days later to see if he was still there.

[TrogL]

140. In class

A teacher came to the door and told my teacher, who got all upset.

Pretty soon they brought us all into the gym to watch developments on TV.

[Faygo Kid]

141. Seventh grade, Mrs. Burgoyne's history class

I remember it like it was yesterday, and the days that followed.

I had forgotten that Saturday is the anniversary. Still the most astounding historical shock of my life, and that includes RFK, MLK and so much more.

[bdamomma]

142. I was 8

and my mom told me I was crying when I came home from school. I still hear the drums during the procession.

[orleans]

144. on the couch with my mom--watching it on tv.

she jumped up and called my dad at work--no one had heard about it yet. i couldn't figure out what was happening, why she was so upset & scared.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

145. At my Grandmas house

we were all stunned

[northernlights]

146. 5th grade classroom

Mrs. Price was called down to the principal's office. We all sat quietly staring at each other, wondering what was going on. Knew it had to be serious for a teacher to be called to the principal's office in the middle of class.

A few minutes later she came back, crying, and said, "Our president has been shot."

[1776Forever]

147. Typing class in Ohio. Thought our Principal was pulling a prank for a few minutes. Sad Sad Day.

President Kennedy was my hero. I had gotten kicked out of the Church I attended with my Mom where the Church handed out literature against JFK and Catholics. I didn't believe Jesus would have been for that so I wore my JFK for President Badge in to Church and they kicked me out. I never went back to a structured Church again and I never will.

[Chichiri]

148. A gleam in my mother's eye. n/t

[unblock]

150. you know, i was a very aware adult at the time, but i just can't recall where i was that day.

yikes!
channeling poppy bush there for a second!
that was freaky!


me, i was in utero.

[snot]

151. I was a l'il child.

[windoe]

152. First grade, I cried all the way home

I admired him and it really burst my bubble.

[yellerpup]

153. Gym.

Basketball practice, 9th grade. "The President's been shot." They announced that he had died during algebra class and they let us go home from school early. I remember that Walter Chronkite cried. The whole world cried.

[DemoTex]

155. Algebra 2

Griffin High School, Griffin, Ga.

[Celebration]

156. It was on the car radio when I left school to go out to lunch

We were allowed off campus to go to lunch. I was in the car with three or four friends and we heard the news. For some reason it didn't sound like he was going to die at first. So we heard the very first snippets of the report. By the time we got back to school it was all over the PA system.

We had just seen Kennedy drive by our school two days prior to that. All 1600 of us were on the school lawn. A person in English class remarked that it would be so easy to shoot him. Yes he was in a convertible. Our English teacher said Secret Service was everywhere and that couldn't happen.

In English class the day he died nobody said a single word about that, but we were all thinking it. Basically nobody said anything. We were just stunned. It was just stunned silence in school. It was hard to get through the day. We all just wanted to go home.

[lanlady]

157. in 1st grade

The PA announcement came that the president had been shot, and we were being sent home early. The moms were lined up on the sidewalk waiting to pick us up, all of them crying or in shock. Everyone went home to huddle around the TV, hoping for a miracle. When the official pronouncement was made that our president was dead, a collective wail of grief engulfed our Irish Catholic neighborhood. JFK was one of us, he was ours, and he was gone.

[spanone]

158. 7the grade....st. simon's grade school....english class

[barbtries]

159. third grade

classroom. Miss Gilliland had blue eyes that grew when she got stern, and in hindsight, when she was fighting tears. i stifled a laugh watching her eyes grow. over the next several days i remember there was nothing else on television. it was a few more years before i appreciated what a momentous and terrible thing happened on November 22, 1963.

[starroute]

160. First year of college -- on my way back from classes

I had gotten really depressed two nights earlier -- problems adjusting to college, plus general teenaged cosmic insecurity -- and was only just pulling out of it. It was a beautiful, warm day and there were still a few colored leaves on the trees, and I was starting to feel good about life again.

As I did, I noticed for the first time that one tree just outside the quad seemed to have the face of a little old man if you looked from the right angle. I stood there for a couple of minutes, thinking pleasant thoughts about Ents and not wanting to move on because I knew that the moment I did the illusion would be broken.

But eventually I had to go forward, so I did, and I turned onto the short path leading between two dormitories into the quad. As I reached the inner end of the path, a girl standing by a bike rack -- nobody I knew -- said to me, "Have you heard? The president's been shot."

I said, "Where?" and she said, "In Dallas" -- which wasn't what I had meant. And I walked to my own dorm on the far side of the quad with my heart sinking inside me and not sure what I would learn when I got there.

Events raced on after that, but there have been any number of moments over the past 45 years when I've felt as though reality took a strange sideways lurch at that moment when I turned to go into the quad -- as though somewhere there is a realer world than this one, a world where Kennedy was never shot and the promise of those years was fulfilled, a world of which we are the unhappy mirror universe.

One way or another, this is the world I've had to live in -- but I've always done my best to remember the world that should have been and to try to bring our own world back to the right path.

[mimitabby]

162. i was in school, they said the president was hurt

i think it was 6th grade (i don't feel like figuring it out) and then they sent us home.

[WCGreen]

164. First Grade, Sister Mary Anna, St. Clemens elementary school in

Lakewood Ohio...

Kennedy came through Lakewood while campaigning and spoke at St. Edwards High School...

I remember Mother Superior announced over the PA system...

[we can do it]

165. At Home Watching Cartoons with Grandma, I Was Only 4

[yardwork]

166. I was three years old. I remember watching the TV coverage.

I remember Walter Cronkite's voice, and a schematic diagram that one of the networks put up showing the route of the president's car. The diagrams looked like wagons. I had a wagon. I thought that the president had been killed while riding his wagon. I didn't know who the president was, but all the grown-ups were terribly upset for days. Then, just as things seemed to be settling down, something else happened on television and somebody was shouting "He's been shot he's been shot he's been shot!" and everybody was gasping and crying out again and it all started up again.

[tabbycat31]

167. 16.5 years away from being born

but my parents remember exactly where they were that day.

[Bryan]

168. I don't really recall; I wasn't in Dallas that week, though

I was doing some PR work for the American Committee for the Liberation of Cuba, and I was rooming with an old OSS buddy in Miami Beach. We had some great nights carousing and reminiscing about our days with the United Fruit Company. But I was not in Dallas that week.

[scarletwoman]

169. 9th grade, Hazel Park Junior High, St. Paul Minnesota.

They started playing a radio news broadcast over the P.A. system shortly after the first reports of Kennedy being shot started coming out. We just sat motionless and speachless in our classrooms, listening to the scratchy news coming out of the speakers. When JFK was officially declared dead, our prinicipal came on the P.A. and sent us all home early.

My new boyfriend and I left school together and sat under a tree and talked for awhile. I cried.

Then I went home, and my whole family -- my parents were lifelong Democrats -- cried together. I still cry every year...

:cry:

sw

[YellowRubberDuckie]

170. I wasn't even born yet.

However, that is one historical event that, when I learned about it and about JFK, I mourned for a man whose presence I never got to share. We have visited the 6th Floor Museum a few times, and the last time I was standing there, watching his campaign videos and watching him with his kids, and I had to leave. I sat out in the foyer in front of the elevators looking at the skyline of Dallas with tears running down my face. I cannot go to that place without getting emotional.
And when I found out that he talked down the Russian government and basically saved our asses, but still they killed him, I couldn't wrap my head around it.
Duckie

[womanofthehills]

171. Art School - Parsons School of Design

It was such a shock - we could barely believe it.

[carlyhippy]

172. I was in utero

Carly

[Alameda]

173. Stanford University.....and I remember clearly those first reports.

............it was all the grassy knoll...then....

[Festivito]

174. Crying elem. teachers sent us home, mom cried in the kitchen.

She sat, she never sat, head in hands, sobbing over that bright blue and yellow cloth surrounded kitchen table. I came in the back door, up the landing stairs. I remember it to this day like it was minutes ago.

I wonder why poppy Bush cannot remember where he was, when he heard. We know he was a leisurely hour's drive from Dallas some 45 minutes after the shots killed JFK. But, where was he that 45th minute before he phoned the FBI that day, giving them that fruitless lead of Mr. Parrot?

[kentuck]

175. I remember that we were on our evening break at school...

and a few of us guys were hanging around the fence, looking at the girls and talking bull, when Jeree, a girl in our study hall, said that the President had been shot. I never thought it was serious. Maybe a flesh wound or something minor?

Then we went back to study hall and a voice came over the intercom. It said that the President had been shot and that he was dead..... Silence...There was shock... It couldn't be true? Could it? Then as the minutes dragged by, we all came to understand that it was indeed true. This was not Abraham Lincoln - this was John F Kennedy, our President.

For the following two or three days, our minds were numbed by the experience. We watched LBJ as he said "let's get this plane in the air" or something similar. We watched as they brought Lee Harvey Oswald down thru the basement and as Jack Ruby lunged from out of nowhere and shot him, leaving even more questions about who shot our President. Then we watched the horse pulling the carriage down Pennsylvania Ave with the body of our slain President...There were more questions than answers.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

176. My mother was a teenager living in a country in South East Asia

She was not American and she had never been to America (and she never would in her lifetime)

Yet she told me in later years how much she loved President Kennedy and how she had cried when she had heard about his assassination. That's how much he was loved and mourned the world over

[RufusTFirefly]

178. I was four, almost five

I remember it powerfully for a number of reasons.

For starters, few things are more unsettling for a four year old than to witness grownups losing it. The illusion of security in a four-year-old's life is based on the supposed stability of grownups. Of course, as an adult, I realize that grownups are far from stable. But for the most part, we try to keep it together when we're around little kids. I remember a neighbor burst through the door in tears and cried "He's dead!"

I didn't fully grasp the implications of that statement, but there was one thing I did know. My favorite cartoons were pre-empted for a ritual that I didn't fully understand. That was a pretty big deal for me. At the time, I thought the 21-gun salute was a kind of check designed to wake up anyone who was mistakenly thought to be dead. I had visions of Kennedy opening the lid of his flag-draped casket and emerging energetically to tell everyone that he was fine, that it was all just a big misunderstanding. No such luck. I didn't realize that I was witnessing what could prove to be the twilight of American democracy.

P.S. If I was watching TV when Jack Ruby silenced Oswald, I don't remember it.

[Graybeard]

186. That picture of John-John still brings tears to my eyes.

What a tragic loss, both father and son taken away too soon.

[FarLeftRage]

179. Forty-five years ago...

I was playing at a friend's house, when he came outside crying...
He told me that his father had died... his mother called us both inside and said that the President had been shot. She was in tears.

I went home and found my mother was crying her eyes out and she had said that President Kennedy had been shot to death... and even though I was 5 at the time, I knew something terrible had happened.

[progressoid]

180. 5 1/2 months old.

[Cybergata]

181. 5th grade

Class at Salazar elementry school in Santa Fe, New Mexico with one of the worst teachers that ever existed on earth because she made sure that most of her students knew they were worthless crap. She was republican too, but was so in love with Jackie Kennedy after John was shot. She praised the fact that Jackie didn't cry. Man oh man being trapped with that witch during the worst thing that happened in my ten years of life.

[Canuckistanian]

182. Home in the afternoon from Kindergarten

My mom and I watching the soap operas. She was ironing at the time.

Then, the news bulletins started coming in......

I knew, even at 5 years old, that this was big news. I recognized Kennedy and thought he was a good man.

My mom stopped ironing.

[formercia]

183. Home room in High School.

I can remember it as if it were yesterday.

[Fla Dem]

184. Band Room in High School. Practicing for the Thanksgiving Day football game.

Another teacher came in and told our director. He then announced it to us. Told us school was closing and to go home. Got home and watched non-stop TV coverage. Saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald. We went ahead with the football game, but changed the program. No marching formations, just standing in the middle of the field playing patriotic songs. We closed with "Eternal Father Strong to Save". I could barely play because I was so choked up. The silence in the stands was deafening. A time burned in my memory.

[Cyrano]

185. Right in the middle of Times Square

I remember that traffic was pulling to a stop, people were standing still, and everyone was looking up at the electronic news headlines scrolling across what had once been the New York Times building at the south end of Times Square. I can never remember Times Square coming to an almost complete stop before or since. It was a moment frozen in time.

I looked up, read that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated and, as young as I was, I knew that an incredible tragedy had occurred and that the world had just changed. I was a kid, but I can remember that I was frightened. And I could sense that I wasn't the only one. Everyone was in a state of shock and no one knew what would come next.

What came next, to the horror of everyone huddled around their TV sets that weekend, was the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald before our very eyes. Anyone over the age of six or seven will never forget that weekend for as long as they live.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

187. I was in 7th grade at JHS 218 in Brooklyn. I was in my Social Studies class and

the Principal came into the room. He whispered into my teacher's ear and my teacher looked upset.

The Principal left and my teacher told the class that the President was shot in the head and school would be dismissing early. He didn't give any more details.

I don't think there was one student on the bus ride home (I lived nearby in Queens), that President Kennedy would die.

When I reached home, my Mom had the tv on, and it was announced the President Kennedy died.

[lunatica]

188. I was in school in Monterrey Mexico

The entire three or four days of the funeral were shown on TV with my best friend's mother being one of the people doing the simultaneous translations during the entire time. There were no commercial breaks and no other programming. Everyone in the world felt sorrow that day.

[NeedleCast]

189. Ovaries

[grannylib]

192. I was home with my mom, I hadn't started school yet, and I just remember hearing her screaming

I cried so much, it made me so sad to think of Caroline and John without their daddy. I am about the same age as Caroline, and I LOVED seeing pictures of her and her brother with their parents at the White House, or at the Kennedy compound, and I could not figure out why anyone would want to kill our president...he looked like such a nice daddy, and his wife was so pretty, and he had two little kids...
When you're four, that's about all the depth you can muster up.
I'll never forget my mom screaming.

[lib2DaBone]

194. Would Kids today even know or care about such an event?

.. I wonder.... would kids today even care if the leader of our country was shot?

If they didn't hear it from 50-Cent or X-Box.. what difference does it make?

Sarah Palin coldn't even name the continents and she was a media Icon.

[bumblebee1]

195. Probably at home with my mother.

I was two years old at the time.

[Rowdyboy]

196. 3rd grade, Very happy school crossing guard lady gave me the news....

The memory still nauseates me. I went home and asked my mother if we should be happy and she said no, we should be very, very sad.

And so we were.

[Initech]

197. That happened 17 years before I was born.

[Arkana]

198. Not even sperm and egg--my mother was 9, my father 17.

[demodonkey]

200. My father (the elementary supervising principal) came to my classroom door...

...He was looking very stern and called Mrs. Buchanan out into the hall. She came back in looking upset but didn't tell us anything. I went home terrified that I was in some kind of terrible trouble.

Our minister's son was on the bus yelling, "Kennedy's dead, shot in the head, hahhahaha!" He was a total jerk and I didn't believe it until I got home when my mother arrived from where she was teaching. She was weeping and told me that it wasn't that I had done something wrong, it was that President Kennedy had been shot.

That evening we went to the butcher shop as my parents had a side of beef that was being cut and wrapped. After that we spent the next four days glued to the TV.

[Rhiannon12866]

201. I was in elementary school, too, but remember many details of that horrible day.

My reading group got a special treat, were allowed to go to the school library alone, with the admonition that we were supposed to be quiet and not run in the halls. I remember running into my snotty younger brother there and, as usual, he pretended that he didn't know me. BTW, he grew up to become a self-satisfied super freeper who lives off my mother and still pretends I don't exist...

Anyway, apparently "Coach," the school gym teacher, had a period off and was listening to the radio in his office when he heard the news that the president had been shot. He immediately went to tell the sixth grade teacher who had a TV in his classroom. That teacher spread the word, which included the school librarian and that's how my classmates and I heard the news.

I remember that we immediately ran back to our classroom to tell our teacher, ignoring his instructions about walking and being quiet in the halls. He took off immediately to find out more and, as the news spread, all hell broke loose in my elementary school. Everybody was in a panic, not knowing what to do, just that this was a serious emergency, and we kids were confused and very scared.

They sent us home early, but it seemed to take forever, remember sitting on the floor in the gym, talking with my friends, waiting for them to organize buses, seemed like most of the school just sat there, waiting, and knowing that this was a really terrible thing, especially since the adults were so upset and in a panic.

I remember that the TV was on constantly at my house for the next few days and I don't know if I remember actually seeing the news or whether I think I do because I have seen the footage of Jackie, Bobby and the kids so often since.

But one thing that I am sure of is that I saw Lee Harvey Oswald shot on live TV. The movie "JFK," which I watched again last night, didn't get it quite right, because I remember seeing that additional horror and the camera showed him face on. That's when I learned the word "grimace," which they used to describe Oswald's reaction.

I think I watched this alone because I remember going to tell my mother and I remember her reaction. Both my parents are Republicans so I know that they voted for Nixon, but my mother, who was already distraught, said something like "what else can possibly happen?!" Republican or Democrat, this was a horrific and unbelievable thing to happen in this country, the darkest time most of us had experienced. No matter who anyone voted for, this was our president, an office that still commanded incredible respect.

As a kid, I didn't truly understand the repercussions, just that the world had changed for everyone I knew and was no longer the safe place I had known. As an adult, I've read and watched countless documentaries on the subject, trying to understand how and why, but have never found a satisfactory answer. It's been a wish of mine that this mystery would be solved in my lifetime, but most of the major players are gone, once hoped that Gerald Ford would come forward, but I'm not holding my breath... ;(