November 22 1963

59 years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas. I was in the ninth grade that day at Bennett Junior High School in Manchester, CT. I remember Mrs. Meyer, my homeroom teacher, telling us, in a halting voice, about this at the end of the school day just before we were dismissed. As I listened to her, I thought I had just heard her say that the Governor of Connecticut, John Dempsey, had been killed. It was if my mind wasn’t able to take in the full magnitude of what was happening.

I was a walker and when I arrived home one block from school, the front door was wide open. Even though it was an unusually warm late November day, I found this to be surprising and, because of the confusion swirling through my mind, vaguely disturbing. My grandmother was sitting in the living room, crying as she watched the TV. My mother had run down the street when she heard the news to be with a friend. I saw, much to my consternation, that she too was crying when she walked back into the kitchen. I went upstairs to my bedroom and since it was time to do my paper route, changed out of my school clothes and into jeans and a light jacket. Since it was a Friday, it was collection day. Some of the adults who were normally friendly and spoke to me on Fridays just handed me $.42 to pay for the week and took their paper from my hand without saying a word.  

The next few days became ever more bewildering, especially when my father called to me to come downstairs to the television because Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who was believed to have killed the President, had just been shot himself. On Monday, my family and I spent the afternoon in the living room to watch the funeral service, followed by the long and solemn military procession from Saint Matthew’s Church to Arlington National Cemetery. We witnessed the arrival of the Kennedy family to the gravesite, along with U.S. officials and heads of state from around the world. The Marine Corps band played “Ruffles and Flourishes” and the National Anthem, followed by a 21-gun salute from cannons and three volleys of rifle fire. As the sound of the guns faded in the chilly November air, a bugler began to play Taps. As the first notes sounded, my father abruptly got up from his easy chair and went into the kitchen. When I followed him out of the living room several seconds later, I saw him standing by himself with tears streaming down his face as the bugler cracked a note on the sixth word, “Day is done, Gone the sun…”  I had never seen my father cry before. I wouldn’t see him cry again until my mother died 31 years later, almost to the day. It wasn’t easy to see my father cry either time, but at the age of 13, it was almost more than I could bear, and I hurried out of the room.   

Photo by Jim Altgens/AP