Where were you when .............J.F.K. assassination

[observor 69]

Remembering Nov. 22, 1963
Where were you when... Newfoundlanders recall the news: J.F.K. assassination

KARL WELLS
Special to The Telegram

Many of you won't remember because you were either too young or not yet born. But I, like millions of others, remember hearing the news of U.S. president John F. Kennedy's assassination like it was yesterday.

With news of the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy in August, the anniversary of the death of his older brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, takes on special significance.

J.F.K. was the main figure of Washington's so-called Camelot era that also saw his brothers Robert and Edward rise to prominence. All three represented hope for a brighter future for the poor, the dispossessed and disenfranchised.

Each of them won the respect and admiration of people around the world, but fear and despair gripped us on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 with news of the slaying of the young American president in Dallas, Texas. Social anthropologist Elliott Leyton recently described the event to me this way, "America, the beast we had always admired and envied, turned and began the unthinkable process of devouring itself."

LINK

 

[mariomike]

I remember that day. I was in school and a teacher came into our room and said something to our teacher and they both burst out crying. They were quite inconsolable.

 

[40below]

In 1963, I wasn't even a gleam in my father's eye.

 

[Hawk]

It was lunchtime and I was at school choir practice. When we came up from the music room at 1:15, it was the talk of the hallways. I thought the girl that told us was joking - I just didn't believe it. Then our principal announced it over the intercom. In all classes that afternoon, we discussed the assassination, not geography or math or whatever. 

Hawk

 

[wildman0101]

i remember that day
i was 8 yrs old living down in ringoes nj usa
my dad was working there at the time.
being born in canada we travelled all over..
i remember the princible crashing into the room
and wispering something to our teacher,,,
she roared outa the classroom and roared
back in with a tv on a trolly
going crazy adjusting the bunny-ears
finally getting the local news on tv
in regards to the assaination,,, you couldnt
hear a pin drop. i was sitting there watching
all my classmates thinking holy smokes...
we all knew something terrible had happened
the teacher was crying,,, my classmates were
crying,,, i was crying
it was a terrible day for america
how the usa got through that day is beyond
me as i was just  a kid at the time..
i do know one thing and that is perserverance
we will make this world a better place
scoty b

 

[observor 69]

I was swore into the RCAF on Nov 13 1963.
Kennedy was assassinated on Nov 22.
I took the train to RCAF Station St.Jean on Nov 23.
Walked into the base snack bar on Nov 24, looked up at the TV and saw Jack Ruby, live on TV, assassinate Oswald.

 

[CFR FCS]

I was a 7 year old visiting my Grandfather at the Veterans Hospital in Lancaster (now Saint John West) NB. Everyone around us didn't believe it at first and many were crying when it was confirmed by the T.V. news.

 

[mariomike]

Walked into the base snack bar on Nov 24, looked up at the TV and saw Clayton Ruby, live on TV, assassinate Oswald.

Sorry to nitpick, but that was Jack Ruby. Clayton is a Canadian lawyer.

 

[Bass ackwards]

Out of curiosity, how do you old gummers (I was three and a half months away from being conceived when that happened  ) compare that landmark day with the one, eight years ago, when we were all glued to our television sets watching the twin towers come down ?

Wildman points out that even young school kids were crying back in the day. My experience on 9/11 was that school kids (and more than a few "adults") were saying "wow -cool!"

Am I correct in assuming that people back then were far more aware -"in to" so to speak- of current events and politics ?
Maybe even a little more compassionate ?

 

[Old Sweat]

I was a lieutenant in 1 RCHA in Gagetown and heard the news on a radio someone had on in his office. This was between 1400 and 1430 hrs Atlantic time, I think.

The impact of this event was like a sudden slap in the face - brutal, painful and quick - while 9/11 was an ongoing event, like a bad toothache,  that built during the day with item after item being broadcast. By 2001 we were used to the 24 hours news universe so it seemed natural to watch events unfold live and in colour. That was not the case in 1963.

 

[Shec]

Had just turned 10 years old and we had just moved to Winnipeg where we were staying with my Grandparents until our stuff arrived and we got settled into our new home.  I don't remember the assassination as much as I remember seeing Jack Ruby lunging out of the crowd of cops and reporters to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald, the coverage of which, narrated by Walter Cronkhite,  pre-empted Sunday night's Ed Sullivan Show.

 

[mariomike]

Out of curiosity, how do you old gummers (I was three and a half months away from being conceived when that happened  ) compare that landmark day with the one, eight years ago, when we were all glued to our television sets watching the twin towers come down ?
Wildman points out that even young school kids were crying back in the day. My experience on 9/11 was that school kids (and more than a few "adults") were saying "wow -cool!"
Am I correct in assuming that people back then were far more aware -"in to" so to speak- of current events and politics ?
Maybe even a little more compassionate ?

Re: JFK. I was nine years old. We kids were not at all traumatized by it. At least, not the kids I knew. If I recall correctly,they let us out of school early that day, and we were thankful for that. I know the teachers and adults in the neighbourhood were talking about it. You might say there was a "blanket of sadness" in the air.  I do recall that when Jack Ruby took care of Oswald, that we kids had a minor celebration.
The V.P. was immediately sworn in, the X-100 had a permanent transparent top installed, and the business of government carried on.
On 9/11 I was at work. We were in N.Y. Branson Hospital and the nurses were telling us about it. Then they responded us ( I was on "the bus" ) downtown to standby in the Financial District. 
Later, when I saw it on TV, I prayed thought the US would retaliate like they did after Pearl Harbor.

 

[Shec]

Thread Hijack

What do you fellow "old gummers" remember of the Cuban Missle Crisis 2 years before Dallas?

As an 8 year old I remember sitting with our heads between our knees in the school corridor  during an air-raid drill while my youthfully fertile imagination conjured up visuals of Spitfire-like piston engine fighters strafing the building.

 

[OldSolduer]

I was six years old and home sick from school on 22 November 1963. I asked my dad why the Flintstones weren't on. Dad told me President Kennedy had been assassinated.
23 years later, on 22 November 1986, our son Michael James Alexander Seggie was born.

Ironic isn't it? The dates are uncanny, or am I reading too much into this?

 

[observor 69]

The impact of this event was like a sudden slap in the face - brutal, painful and quick - while 9/11 was an ongoing event, like a bad toothache,  that built during the day with item after item being broadcast. By 2001 we were used to the 24 hours news universe so it seemed natural to watch events unfold live and in colour. That was not the case in 1963.

JFK and his beautiful cultured wife were seen by many as a Camelot family.

"Jacqueline Kennedy played the final song written by Alan Jay Lerner over and over again. It had been her husband’s favorite. The focus was on the ending lyrics: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” In the Broadway musical, King Arthur sings the lines as he is near death. Arthur’s Camelot was a place of “happy-ever-aftering.”

LINK

 

[mariomike]

Thread Hijack
What do you fellow "old gummers" remember of the Cuban Missle Crisis 2 years before Dallas?
As an 8 year old I remember sitting with our heads between our knees in the school corridor  during an air-raid drill while my youthfully fertile imagination conjured up visuals of Spitfire-like piston engine fighters strafing the building.

Sorry to nitpick, but the Cuban Missile Crisis was only 13 months before Dallas.
All I think I remember is an increase in Fire Dills. I don't recall any of the "Duck and Cover" ( and kiss your ass good-bye ) alarms.
It wasn't until years later that the world learned how perilously close we came to WW3. We can thank President Kennedy for saving us from that.
Although I have read that General LeMay told the President that it was "the greatest defeat in our history".

 

[Journeyman]

...the Cuban Missile Crisis.... We can thank President Kennedy for saving us from that.

I think you diminish the role of the Canadian Navy! Despite our govenment of the day doing a political duck-and-cover, saying "we're not involved," our Atlantic fleet put to sea, saying "we are."1

Clearly, it was the presence of our mighty armada that tipped the scales in this ill-conceived Russian adventure.


(Hey, I didn't start this thread hijack. Besides, on 22 Nov 63, I was minding my own business on a grassy knoll, and you can't prove otherwise  ;D )


------------
1. See Jocelyn Maynard Ghent, "Canada, the United States, and the Cuban Missile Crisis." The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 2 (May, 1979), pp. 159-184, amongst many other sources.

 

[mariomike]

...the Cuban Missile Crisis.... We can thank President Kennedy, and the Canadian Navy, for saving us from that. 

 

[mariomike]

JFK and his beautiful cultured wife were seen by many as a Camelot family.
"Jacqueline Kennedy played the final song written by Alan Jay Lerner over and over again. It had been her husband’s favorite. The focus was on the ending lyrics: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” In the Broadway musical, King Arthur sings the lines as he is near death. Arthur’s Camelot was a place of “happy-ever-aftering.”

“Now, I think that I should have known that he was magic all along. I did know it - but I should have guessed that it would be too much to ask to grow old with and see our children grow up together. So now, he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man.”
Mrs. Kennedy

 

[Redeye]

Great program on Discovery last night did a pretty good job of debunking the grassy knoll shot theory - though it didn't really mention anything about the magic bullet, or how an average shot with a carbine that wasn't zeroed property got three shots off in less than ten seconds.

I think you diminish the role of the Canadian Navy! Despite our govenment of the day doing a political duck-and-cover, saying "we're not involved," our Atlantic fleet put to sea, saying "we are."1

Clearly, it was the presence of our mighty armada that tipped the scales in this ill-conceived Russian adventure.


(Hey, I didn't start this thread hijack. Besides, on 22 Nov 63, I was minding my own business on a grassy knoll, and you can't prove otherwise  ;D )


------------
1. See Jocelyn Maynard Ghent, "Canada, the United States, and the Cuban Missile Crisis." The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 2 (May, 1979), pp. 159-184, amongst many other sources.