Day 33, Year 9: Fifty Years Ago Today
Date: Friday, November 22, 2013
Weather: Warmer Today and Tomorrow and Then Back to FREEZING
Location: Home of Bruce and Jane Woodin, West Falmouth, MA
On the way home from an afternoon of running errands in Falmouth, we were listening to NPR news on the local public radio station. As we pulled into the drive-way, we were listening to Walter Cronkite reviewing the happenings on this day in 1963. NPR was replaying this piece from the 40th Anniversary of Kennedy’s death, and they were doing so because it is a very powerful piece presented as only Walter Cronkite, who is no longer with us, could do. We had what is called a public radio ‘drive-way’ moment and had to stay in the car until the piece was over. What a powerful reminder! On November 22, 1963, I was a junior in high school and Mark was in college. On this particular day, I was in Chemistry class when the alarm went off for an all-school fire drill. Once we were all outside the school, the principal announced over the loud-speaker that President Kennedy had been killed by an assassin. Whether you loved him or hated him, an immediate feeling of grief and loss overcame all. Mark was bussing tables in the student union at Eastern Illinois University and in passing he saw the announcement that the President had been shot on a TV screen. The initial reaction was total disbelief. But after that initial moment, like all Americans, we spent the next three days watching our nation grieve on television. Tonight Mark and I went up to Bruce’s ‘man cave’ on the second floor where there is a television and watched some of the tributes to Kennedy. Even after 50 years, it is hard to watch without shedding a tear. As we look back, however, the sadness is no longer so much about Kennedy’s death as it is about the loss of innocence we experienced as a country on that November day in 1963.
