Where Were You?

Alot of my friends and I have been chatting this morning about where we were when we heard that our 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  It's something we always remember to talk about every November 22 but today is more special.  It is the 60th anniversary of the assassination.

Where was I?  I was five years old and a student in kindergarten. None of the class was allowed to leave school because there were fears that the Soviet Union would immediately send missiles our way.  School administrators did not want us to be injured or killed as we walked home from school. Mind you, I lived in a tiny suburb of Chicago that, at the most, is one square mile. It has always been hard for me to believe that any of us would have been in danger because we would have gotten home in 5 minutes.  The students were herded into a gymnasium and told to get into the tornado duck and cover position.  

My school day normally ended in mid afternoon but I did not get home until 9 pm.  The school secretary typed up releases from liability statements for each parent to sign so that the school would not be liable if those Soviet missiles were dropped on us on the way home.  I had never been outside after dark and the sky was incredibly dark at 9 pm.  I was afraid.

The next day my entire family was sitting in the living room watching TV coverage of the assassination.  I remember seeing Lee Harvey Oswald on TV stating that he did not kill President Kennedy and that he did not know who did.  He was then taken into the back of the police station in Dallas.  I think this news clip was a replay from the previous day but I am not sure.  Because I live in Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, I could not distinguish between the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Kennedy. We are taught at an early age that the 16th president was from our state and we learned a lot of Lincoln lore over the years.  On November 23, 1963 I remember asking my mother if Oswald killed Lincoln.  I also asked her if that was James Wilkes Booth on the TV.  I was then told to go into the kitchen.  I guess that is when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby.  I don't remember seeing him shot but I was definitely standing behind the chairs my parents were sitting in as they watched TV. 

This is my "where were you" story. I think that people my age have a fatalistic look out on life because we were raised to believe that the Soviets would drop a nuclear bomb on us and we would all die. Over the years as I have talked with friends about our childhood we all have said the same thing; that we would die before we were 40 because a nuclear war would happen.  It feels amazing to me that I am now 65 and am alive and kicking.  My siblings, who are 6, 7 and 10 years older than me, have a completely different perspective on November 22. However, the entire country was united in grief in a way that has never happened since then.  9/11 was close, but not the same.

So, my question for you is, where were you on November 22, 1963?