Yesterday I was talking with some friends. We were discussing the JFK assassination in Dallas in 1963. We are all of age that we remember where we were that day.
I told them that I was a second grader at John Ireland in The Grove. I was home sick that Friday however and was home from school. The first thing That happened was that Walter Chronkite came on TV with obviously an important message. I was newly minted 8 year old so I knew what puffy eyes and a slightly cracking voice in an older person meant.
The veteran newsman took off his glasses and told the nation that the president had been killed in Dallas Texas. I'm not sure if the fact that he had been killed in my hometown and where I was residing, made the announcement any more horrifying. I ran out side and stood on the back porch. It was by noon a clear day in Dallas after raining all morning. Mom was hanging clothes on the line in the back yard. I yelled from the porch that President Kennedy had been killed. She said "Bill quit storytelling," or words to that effect. It seems the words were "Bill, quit lying." But I'm not totally sure.
My other memories is being in front of our really big Sears Silvertone B/W TV in the living room. I seem to remember seeing the moment, that Sunday morning, where Jack Ruby shot Oswald. I'm not sure if that was just a memory of another time thinking about that Sunday.
Another thing that I remember is the fact that for years, going on vacation with the family, that Mom would tell us not to tell people that we were from Dallas. There was so much anger towards this conservative town, and the media hyped it up, that it was just better to keeps ones hometown, to ones self.
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