Fifty years ago today
Every generation has its defining “where were you when…” moment.
Eternal flame, JFK gravesite
For our parents or grandparents, it may well have been December 7, 1941.
For our children or grandchildren, it may be September 11, 2001.
For me — for my age group — for us, the Baby Boomers — it was November 22, 1963.
A Friday like today.
And fifty years ago today.
The day the world changed forever.
The day innocence died.
The day childhood ended.
I will never forget that day.
Its details are as sharp in my memory now, all these years later, as they were then.
I was a 12-year-old eighth grader at what was then Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in Edison, New Jersey. It was one of the few years of my school life when I didn’t have a sibling in the same school. My older sister was at Edison High School, my younger siblings at Stelton Elementary.
So I remember being alone.
I was in Mr. Lutz’s science class on the first floor. Each classroom was connected to the office by an internal telephone system. Usually, when it rang during class time, it was because a student had to be sent somewhere — the office, the nurse’s office.
But when the phone in our classroom rang just after 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, and Mr. Lutz stepped over to answer it, it wasn’t about a student’s whereabouts. It wasn’t usual for him to do what he did, stepping through the door out into the hallway. All he said that we could hear was, “What?!?” and “Yes, I understand.”
When he stepped back inside the classroom, his face was grey.
He looked at us. We looked at him. He didn’t say a word.
There was a connecting corridor between the science labs at the school, and Mr. Thompson — who had been my 7th grade science teacher and would be my 9th grade biology teacher — came through the corridor. Mr. Lutz stepped away to talk with him. We couldn’t hear what they were saying. But Mr. Thompson’s face, too, was ashen.
We didn’t know what was wrong.
All we knew was that something — something — was terribly wrong.
We were a room full of pubescent and pre-pubescent junior high schoolers. All of us 12, 13, 14 years old. Yet we were all strangely quiet. Strangely still. Waiting to hear what was going on.
The first general announcement came through a few moments later. And that is the first any of us knew that the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had been shot in Dallas.
The President. Our President. The youngest man ever to be President. The one with the children the age of our brothers and sisters. The one who had challenged us to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
We were told that nothing was known about the President’s injuries. We were told that we would be kept informed. We were told to gather our books and go ahead and change to our next classes.
And we were told — an entire building full of teenagers — we were told not to say anything as we changed classes. To remain silent. Not to speak.
I remember gathering my things. I remember getting into the hallway with my classmates. And I remember that I couldn’t — simply could not — remain silent.
I had a question I needed to ask, and only my classmates to answer it.
“Does this mean war?” I asked. Because it never crossed any of our minds, not for a minute, that it could have been an American who pulled the trigger.
My classmates didn’t have an answer, and teachers manning the hallways hushed us quickly.
The silence was oppressive — nothing but the sounds of footsteps in the hallways from hundreds upon hundreds of normally boisterous kids. That terrible silence made it so much worse than if they’d let us talk it out.
Down the hallway, out the door and across the outside walkway to the next wing. Up the stairs to English class.
Where we sat. Without speaking. Without being spoken to. Silent. And afraid.
Just after 2:30 p.m., we heard the scratching of the microphone that meant we were about to hear another announcement.
We were told that the President of the United States was dead. And that we were dismissed for the day.
On a bad day in horrible weather with snow and ice on the ground making footing treacherous, I could make it home from the junior high school in about 90 seconds. I think I made it home in about nine seconds on November 22, 1963.
The television was on in our house.
It didn’t go off for days. Not until the September 11th attacks was any event covered longer continuously by the media. Not even in 2001 was my family so glued to the news.
We huddled together, my family, as each member who’d been at work or at school arrived home. We spoke quietly, or not at all.
Whatever semblance of normalcy that existed came about because of my then-youngest brothers — small boys too young to understand that the world had suddenly changed. One of them only one day older than the little boy who would be photographed saluting his father’s coffin before those terrible days of non-stop news coverage would end.
And by the end of those terrible days we knew that the world would never be the same again. That Americans could kill other Americans. That police could not prevent deaths even of people in their custody. That no-one was really safe.
No, I will never forget that day.
Oh, in my years on this earth, there have been other days, for sure, both before and after, that are seared in memory as well.
When the Soviets turned the missile ships around outside of Cuban waters.
When Martin Luther King Jr. was shot.
When the Berlin Wall fell.
When the Challenger exploded.
But nothing like November 22nd, fifty years ago today.
I will never forget that day.
The day that childhood, and its innocence, ended with an assassin’s bullet.
Image: Courtesy of Tim Evanson, CC-BY-SA 2.0 license.
This reminds me of my daughter’s experience on Sept. 11th. It was her first week of high school. I was a baby, and I don’t remember the JFK assassination, but I was a teacher on the day the Challenger exploded. I was a technology teacher, and had filled the computer lab with middle schoolers to watch it fall from the sky. They cried in my arms, and I saw them all experience what you went through in 1863. It’s sad that each generation has a momement like this.
I can’t imagine what it was like trying to be the teacher, and the grown-up, when you must have wanted to cry with those kids.
I was in 6th grade. They brought us into the study hall where we could watch TV. I remember exactly where I was sitting. I remember how shocked & scared I was. Even our “toughest” teacher was in tears that day. That was my childhood’s end as well.
It was such an emotional turning point for so many of us, Nan.
I was in the 4th grade and didn’t fully understand what was going on. When I heard the President had been shot, for some reason I thought they meant the Principal of the school and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. I just knew that I, along with everyone else around me, was scared beyond belief that day. And for the many long days after that.
Beautiful post, Judy.
It’s the fear that I think we all remember most deeply, Debi.
And your description is why I am not really a baby-boomer, though I was born in the early 1960’s. I am too young to remember, although I was alive. When everyone asks “Where were you when JFK was shot?” – for many years I did not have an answer. I do now, although I was only a year and a half old. I know who was baby-sitting me (my future mother-in-law, actually). For me, it is something to watch on TV, a history event.
I am still very, very touched when hearing all of the stories.
See — you do have a story about this — the story of being touched by the stories of others. We all are so interconnected, and so affected by these tragedies.
I wasn’t alive when Kennedy was shot (sorry…) but I am struck by how similar the people wrote about feeling when Lincoln was assassinated. It’s truly remarkable how some events will touch generations forever, and others go by the wayside.
I do, however, remember the Challenger explosion and it forever changed my childhood and how I thought about life. And September 11.
I’ll be joining with the older folks around where I work in the moment of silence at 12:30 am CST when he was shot, because I think its important to keep reminding ourselves of significant events in our history like this.
Just as, earlier this week, we all took a moment and remembered the Gettysburg Address, though it was 150 years ago, we can all join together today in remembering — or observing — what happened 50 years ago.
What a wondeful post. I was a two months old when JFK was assassinated so other than the fact that I now know I was on my first trip to Wisconsin (from California) to meet all my extended family for the first time, and an aunt and uncle’s wedding was the day after the assassination, I knew nothing of the world around me. I do, however, remember late in 4th grade, the year of the 10th anniversary. My 4th grade teacher asked my class, all of us born in ’63, where were you when Kennedy was shot. I remember the kids laughing at her as though to say “you’ve got to be kidding”. I’ve documented family members memories of this day and of other historical events, their opinions, thoughts, etc. and have included it in my genealogy stuff.
Thanks for taking the time to document how the event impacted your family. I think that’s so important — to tell all of our family stories!
I know what it was like to be the teacher because I was teaching on September 11th. Fortunately I taught at a Catholic School. We took all our classes to church and prayed.
And I just sat there aghast watching.
I was in 3rd year university here in Canada, and came out of a class to find students milling around with profs in front of the huge main library. People were passing on the information as they heard it – oh, to have had cell phones back then! Students were calling their parents or friends at home to get updates and then immediately updating people, who told others, who told others. It was strangely quiet all through this news-passing time. Most of us headed immediately home, watching TV with friends and family. I remember being so worried about the civil rights advances in the South and hoping things would continue to improve for them. A terrible time to have one’s leader killed – not by a terrorist, but by a zealot/egotist. A terrible waste of a remarkable US politician (though quite flawed in personal ways). Still makes me get tear’y to watch some of the clips and newscasts.
I can’t bring myself to watch much, Celia. I wouldn’t have thought it would still be so terribly raw… but it is.
Your post was eloquent. I too remember that day. My teacher had to leave the classroom she was crying so hard. The assistant principal came in to tell us all to go straight home. At home my mother was crying and my dad came home from work in the middle of the day. That just did not happen. We were on the west coast so it was before lunch. When I was thinking about it this week I marveled that they could send all the students home confident someone would be there. On 9/11 my office didn’t close, kids stayed in school all day. I am greatful I was able to grieve with my family all of those years ago. It made me feel safer.
I wish I had had my family around on 9/11. I sure needed someone to hug…
I was teaching an 8th grade American History class that afternoon. I was certified to teach English or chemistry or math, but they needed another history class and it landed in my schedule. In the middle of my class, the door burst open and a young teacher rushed in, shouted: ” They have shot the president and the vice president and the governor. Oh, I think the world must be ending!” She ran off to spread the news to other classes. I looked at my students, and said to them that I knew nothing to add to what she’d said, and they knew nothing to add to it either. I was sure it would be quite some time before we could learn any details, so we’d just finish our lesson while we waited. And so we did. I fear I was a most prosaic teacher!
Your calm approach probably did more for those kids than anything else, Betty. Good for you.