“It Felt Like the World Would Freeze”

PREFACE To give credit where credit is due, today’s blog title is a song lyric from the Dream Academy recording, Life in a Northern Town. Any words between “” (which are not identified otherwise) are the actual words my late mother wrote in her journal, dated 11/22/1963.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1963 2013: Even the passage of time has not diminished my intense feelings for and memories of this tragic day’s events in Dallas, Texas… fifty years ago. When that long ago day began, I could not even begin to fathom such deadly horrors, which is about what one would expect from any typical nine-year-young boy growing up in early Sixties, small town America…

The public schools, which my twelve-year-young sister and I attended, had scheduled parent/teacher conferences for this day (only for grades K-8). That meant we’d be spending the day at home with our fulltime, stay-at-home mom. Needless to say her two children were both overjoyed over the prospect of a long, three-day weekend. However, since dad taught high school science courses (within the same school system), he did have to report for work.  

Weather-wise… well… to sum it up in one word? Gloomy. True, temps were unseasonably mild (in the mid to upper 50^oF range), however, a daylong, steady drizzling rain fell from the dark bluish gray clouds; making playing out of doors not a particularly attractive option. But sis and I found our own diversions, anyway, and the morning wore on.

I ate my lunch shortly after 1 p.m., my dessert consisting of a glass of milk and a Hostess™ Finger (a cake made from the same recipe as their chocolate Cupcakes… only shaped like a Twinkie). By 1:35 p.m. (EST), just as I was taking the last bite of this taste treat, my sister rushed from her bedroom into the dining room repeating what she had just heard on her pocket-sized transistor radio. That was a news story… one, which defied believability. She exclaimed, 

“Someone shot President Kennedy!”

Mom quickly turned the kitchen radio back on. Mere minutes earlier, she had silenced it because of “the lousy music blaring forth”. My sister’s reportage was quickly confirmed. We all filed into the living room to turn on the TV. Even before the still warming up black and white screen lit up, we could hear the audio of a CBS News bulletin… already in progress. Within less than half an hour, Walter Cronkite was choking back his own tears to report.

“From Dallas Texas… the flash, apparently official… President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time… 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time… some 38 minutes ago.”

From that point onward, we were all in a state of shock; too much to even cry; too much to even put our feelings into words. The three of us could only sit in dead silence, “glued to the TV”. It all seemed so surreal; as if everything had gone into slow motion; the entire world was grinding down to a dead halt.

About an hour later, our next-door neighbor rang our front doorbell. He had stopped by to ask if we had heard the news out of Dallas and mom told him, “We knew.”

Around 4 bells, dad came home from work and joined his family to watch the ongoing reportage of the gory, blood spattered carnage figuratively spilling forth from Dealey Plaza unto our living room carpet.

As the afternoon continued to wind down, Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office with JFK’s in shock, grieving widow standing at his side; those ceremonies taking place aboard the Air Force One, makeshift, Inauguration Day platform. 

Glancing out the window, from time to time, I couldn’t help but notice how the dismal overcast had made the darkness of night arrive much earlier than what would’ve normally happened on a less inclement, late afternoon autumn day. The pale bluish grey hue from the TV images, flickering off the living room walls, became more noticeable.

I also found myself occasionally zoning out from the TV reports; going into this deep, stream of consciousness; recalling everything my young mind could conjure up about JFK.

I could remember Election Day 1960; sis and I standing with our parents as they waited to cast their ballots. It was the longest line I had ever seen; one, which snaked around the periphery of the entire high school gymnasium. Mom and dad both being educators, they were using this event as a teaching moment; instilling their values on how crucial it is for Americans to have a voice; maintain an active role in how their country is run.

Our folks had nothing but high praise for the Kennedy family; how their considerable economic wealth hadn’t tainted their altruistic and philanthropic nature. They loved what JFK and his family stood for; i.e., an America, which was not merely of, by and for the wealthy, BUT an America where every motivated person, regardless of their race, color, creed and station in life, could expect a fair shake to get ahead.

I thought back to how visionary our now slain president had been; how he presented a gutsy proposition; to boldly go where no one else would’ve dared venturing… to the Moon, no less; how his anything’s possible spirit was just beginning to ripple forth to each and every caring soul in our nation, including yours truly.

And I also knew of how JFK’s boldly go character had figured prominently into his WW-II service record. He could’ve easily used his bad back and/or his family’s influence to avoid military service but, instead, used that clout to GET INTO the military. As a lieutenant, he’d later go on to become a war hero for courageously saving his surviving crew from their attacked, sinking boat, PT-109.

While I was destined to grow up as a pacifist, I do believe a man, such as JFK, who as a Lieutenant, had served his country in wartime, had learned much from these destructive experiences. They made him a far more prudent Commander-In-Chief when it came down to go or no go decisions re wars; left him fully cognizant that going to war should always be dead last on the list of options. And I suspect that had JFK stayed home fifty years ago, he would’ve been far less likely to embroil the US in Vietnam than LBJ was. Just imagine what the Sixties would’ve looked like had no war protestors been needed!

I even flashed back on a televised Q and A session where, I saw a grinning JFK, standing behind his podium, using some humorous quip to get most of the press corps to chuckle along with him. Even at this young age my overall impression was that this leader was vibrant, brilliant, pleasant and optimistic.

Well… as my eyes refocused back to those then present day’s assassination reports I realized that fond memories of JFK were all that we had left and they were not enough to ease my anguish. Beyond that, my nine years of age just didn’t give me much else to draw on; i.e., to help me get a handle on how, anyone would even want to reject all the good the president stood for; how anyone could possibly feel such hatred; to the point where they’d use bullets not ballots to remove a president from office; that with the pull of a trigger, a man, so full of life, had been denied his life / cut down in his prime; how all of his noble ideas would soon be buried in the dirt with him.

Being among the first generation raised on the tube, of course, I had seen televised violence and death. But I was old enough to know the diff between playacting and reality. Yet, part of me wanted, oh so desperately, for the reports of President Kennedy’s assassination to be untrue or some wretched nightmare I could wake up from.

It was along about 5 p.m. when mom got up from her chair to get dinner going. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to her switching on the dining room lights. That early evening, we ate more out of habit than hunger. And we had no sooner consumed our meal than we all found ourselves drawn back to the living room to watch more of the somber, continuous, commercial-less TV coverage.

As the weekend went on and on and on, we all watched the endless procession, going on and on and on as mourners filed past JFK’s casket, lying in state beneath the Capitol Rotunda.

Two days after the assassination, a Sunday no less, as if Friday’s gun violence hadn’t already been enough, I became an eyewitness to the first ever nationally televised live murder. I watched the self-appointed judge, jury and executioner, one Jack Ruby, whip out a handgun to blow away JFK’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The question that instantly entered my mind was, “Now what?” Would someone else soon step out from the shadows to kill Ruby?

Well, the three-day weekend had been extended to four days when our school system announced that classes would be cancelled on Monday; so all could watch JFK’s funeral.

Monday brought a return of the sunshine and as we all watched the horse drawn procession en route to Arlington National Cemetery, I found myself putting myself in John-John Kennedy’s shoes; here that young boy was, on his third birthday, no less, saluting a flag draped coffin; watching his own father being buried. Considering his tender years, did he even fully understand? Sadness overcame me as I listened to the performance of Taps.

Back in my school classroom on Tuesday morning, I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret the intent of my teacher’s lesson. Her chosen upbeat musical selection, which she played on the classroom piano, was Deep in The Heart of Texas. This was either her way of saying that we kiddies shouldn’t be harboring ill will towards Texans OR she was so giddy with joy over JFK's death that her message was more like, “Don’t mess with Texas!”

In any event, I had done a lot of growing up that extended “weekend”. Overwhelming feelings that the US and the whole wide world would never be the same again, were impossible to dismiss. Those shots in Dallas, indeed, were heard around the world and the sounds have not stilled; still echo on and on, fifty years later. A “what if” question no one could ever possibly answer is…

What if JFK had played it safe by laying low on November 22, 1963? Well, had he lived on, I believe he’d have won reelection. His brothers Bobby and Teddy, both, could’ve easily succeeded him; each as a two term president.

A twenty-four year long Kennedy Dynasty would’ve never opened the bipartisan, Pandora’s Box of unacceptable character flaws exhibited by JFK’s successors; inclusive of LBJ’s saber rattling and war mongering, Tricky Dicky’s Big Brother bugging, Gerald Ford’s pardoning crooks, Jimmy Carter’s meaning well blandness, Ronald Reagan’s greed fueled labor union busting and Robin Hood in reverse tactics (Reganomics), George H. W. Bush’s drug and arms dealing to prolong Carter’s misery re the Iranian hostage crisis, Bill Clinton’s sexual addiction, George W. Bush’s ineptitude which left the US vulnerable on 9/11, his shredding of the US Constitution, his blood for oil Iraq war, war crimes / torture.

In other words, from November 22, 1963 onward, it’s as if we’ve all been forced to view this historical era as some grainy, analog black and white TV transmission. A Kennedy dynasty would’ve been akin to watching a crystal clear digital color HDTV transmission.

Oh, you may’ve noticed that I did not assess Barack Obama two paragraphs above. Well, due to the legislative gridlock, his hands are tied. Ergo, unless he declares Martial Law, dons his Commander-In-Chief helmet and rolls out the tanks / leads the charge to round up and make POWs out of legislative GOPee-ers, Tea Baggers and pseudo Democrats, he’ll never elevate lowercase america from its doldrums.

And to sum that all up in words, which the late TV journalist Walter Cronkite would've used…

That’s the way it was is, Friday, November 22, 1963 2013