Fodaoson Loc: South Texas

I was in high school in civics class when it was announced over the school PA system that he had been shot.
It was in journalism class that the announcement came of his being dead.

Lonewolf

I woke up on a ship that had docked in the night in Japan and herd it over the ships speakers!

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

I was at my fraternity house at NYU in The Bronx, getting the place prepared for our Thanksgiving party the next evening. It was a spectacularly beautiful day in New York City & the northeast, in general. There were pr********ns going on for Thanksgiving festivities just about everywhere. The Modern Jazz Quartet was scheduled for the following evening.

Two brothers came in from the porch and one said, "Someone shot Kennedy." We stopped everything and tuned into WNBC 880 AM in New York. Chet Huntley was on the air, announcing that the president's wounds were serious. There was a background of commotion noise, which would be expected in such a disastrous situation.

Suddenly, the radio went silent for a few seconds. I said, "He's dead!" After a few seconds, Chet Huntley came back on the air and announced, The President of The United States is dead." We were stunned.

One pledge & I walked over to the campus. We each said that we felt chills going up & down our spines. It had been more than 60n years since William McKinley had been assassinated and Kennedy had seemed so full of life. FDR was the last president to have died on office.

At the campus, people were gathered around cars, listening to the news. One guy said that it had to be some c****e who'd done it. He was right. Lee Harvey Oswald was a c*******t.

I told some other people and one guy refused to believe it. He later told me he'd found out it was true.

I wrote this poem about it 25 or so years ago. I submitted it several publications and The Kneedy Library but was never able to get it published.



A PIVOTAL DAY



"Get the radio on. Kennedy's been shot!"
I’d phoned my mother. We still hoped not
the worst would be true. After all
the years since then I can still recall
what she replied to me and the way
she said it that long ago autumn day.
It still stands out like yesterday in my mind
and others all say the same, I find.
"Someone shot Kennedy,” a friend had said.
We soon learned it was in the head!
It was immediately after that,
we all turned our radios on and sat
down for the breaking news that so soon
would seem to end our youth. That afternoon,
after a pause, Chet Huntley's voice would hover
in the room and our minds as it came over
the radio. Chet Huntley said,
"The President of The United States is dead".
We stood in silence. Physically, we were fine
but like never before chills ran in our spines
as we walked around in horrid disbelief.
John F. Kennedy was our Commander-in-Chief.
He had a special place in our hearts.
We were like balloons shot with darts.
Our lives have been divided by that day
and after that everyone would say
the same. Good times would come after
but that day changed our laughter.
At the funeral the hymns were sung again
but we knew we'd never be young again.
More than a generation has now gone to its grave
and those who have come since are unable to save
memories they do not have. They can't perceive it
and I'm sure that they could not believe it
could happen. A half century later, it’s still
hard to accept that a madman could k**l
and deliver to eternity and the fates
The President of The United States.

EmilyD

I was in school...the principal came on the speaker and announced the President had been shot and had died. They let us out early so we could go home to our families. I remember the funeral procession like it was yesterday. Remember this?:

Dwight Logan

I was at Ruters Law Scool in Newark, N.J. I heard as I pulled into the parking lot. I went to the lounge where students were studying and told them about it.
They went through the school and told each professor. One professor asked "Who would want to k**l Dr. Gross?" He was president of the university.
The day berore President Kennedy went to Texas I called one of my friends, who was president of the state Young Democrats Club and asked him to call and adise that he not go.
He knew that I predicted many other events. Later thr Secret Service exonerated me.

billy a Loc: South Florida

Third grade...Ms. McHugh's class. I was sharing a book with another student,and the teacher came by to check our progress. One of her tears hit the book.
One of my first God moments.

Tug484

In algebra class.
It broke my heart when I heard it.

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

Third grade, I had just learned to spell "together" correctly... "to get her".

Tug484

That's the way I learned to spell it in third grade.

Dewey Dee

I was at work when the news broke. Such a loss to this country. And, I often wondered what this country would be like today if President Kennedy had served 8 years as our President.

billy a Loc: South Florida

Well...did ya ?

Idaho

In school - 6th grade. The announcement came over the PA system. We had 15 mins of respectful silence in our class. Lots of my classmate wept. Me too.

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

There was growing disenchantment with JFK's presidency as noted in the Time magazine issue for the very day of his assassination. Much of it was on college campuses which had been a stronghold for him. As William F, Buckley later observed, Kennedy's re-e******n was hardly a certainty.

Kennedy had very narrowly defeated Nixon in 1960. Political observers had said that if just one v**er in every precinct, or perhaps every other precinct, had switched to Nixon from Kennedy, Nixon would have won! Talk about narrow victories.

Kennedy forces were busy assessing the likely scenario in 1964. One of the reasons that he went to Dallas was due to Bobby's urging because he'd very narrowly won Texas in 1960 and it was felt Lyndon Johnson's presence on the ticket had made the difference. It was widely rumored that Bobby wanted Lyndon off the ticket which was why Johnson h**ed him.

Plus, Democratic Sen. Ralph Yarborough, a liberal, was causing a huge rift in the Texas party. The Texas Democratic Party was very conservative, almost Republican. Gov. John Connelly, a conservative, and who was wounded in the parade with Kennedy, was at loggerheads with Yarborough.

The Kennedy camp thought New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller & Michigan Gov. George Romney (Mitt's father) would have been the easiest opponents. Nixon's political ghost had been buried in tce 1962 California gubernatorial e******n which he had lost. There were rumors that Bobby had sicked the IRS on Nixon with an audit, in the middle of the campaign which was a huge distraction for him. Nixon gave his infamous farewell to the press with the 'you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore' statement.

JFK forces were most concerned with Barry Goldwater as the Republican nominee. A native Arizonan, he was bound to do very well in the mountain west and far west. He'd done very poorly in the west in 1960, an area that his campaign had assigned to Ted to co-ordinate. Every state Ted supervised, JFK lost in that e******n.

Nixon had taken California in 1960, which was reliably Republican at the time. With Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 & 1956 and Nixon in 1960, Republicans had started making inroads into the Democratic 'Solid South.' With the fracture in the Texas party and Lyndon Johnson off the ticket in 1964, Texas would be considered up for grabs, as would much of the South.

As it was, against Johnson as p**********l nominee in 1964 Goldwater took South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and his own Arizona. Many western states gave Johnson very narrow Goldwater against Kennedy.

Kennedy knew he would have had a tough re-e******n campaign and he and Goldwater were very good friends from their days in the Senate. Goldwater later revealed that JFK wanted to have their campaigns across the country from Air Force One, where the two of them would come out and address the crowds with their countering proposals. Kennedy would never have allowed the dirty, lying campaign that Johnson led. It would have been interesting.

okie don

I was in Army Barracks in Japan ('61-'64) when someone shouted in the door: " The president has been assassinated".
No one could believe it...

padremike Loc: Phenix City, Al

It was our first wedding anniversary. My last duty, prior to shipping out to South East Asia, was as an honor guard at a military funeral. I do not recall how we found out about the shooting but we knew out about it during the service. It was a tragic event and the entire nation mourned. When little John John saluted his father even the most hardened broke down.

Today, unfortunately, there are millions of angry & misguided progressives who would rejoice at the assassination of President Trump.