How old were you when JFK killed

[dixiegrrrrl]

51. I had turned 18 earlier that month and was in the dentist chair

waiting for him to do something painful ( dentist's were always painful back then).
He hurried in and said the appointment was canceled ( whooopeee!)
because the President had been shot ( whaaaa???)
and I sat in the chair for a few minutes waiting for the dental assistant to take off the paper towel thingy
and then walked home.
We always walked back then, had no car, it was about 1.5 city blick miles, and I was struck by how hushed everything was in the street. I remember everything seemed very surreal.
Came home to the tv on, the folks always watched CBS news. That is when it really hit me.
We all just sat, dazed, for hours, watching the news before and after Cronkite's announcement that he was dead.

I must say, hearing Walter Cronkite say those words was a powerful shock.He really was "the most trusted man in America". National News casts back them were very serious intelligent shows, no silly blather back and forth like today.
For those who were NOT around at that time, let me share that a very common feeling in the country was a MASSIVE sense of loss of leadership. "What will we do without him?" was the overall concern, there was not, in the first few days, any sense of Johnson stepping in, but a huge sense of JFK being gone.
We felt concern for Mrs. Kennedy and the children and the extended family.
JFK was, to most of us blue collar families, a very large and inspiring public figure, back in a time when Presidents were looked up to as powerful people and much was expected of them.

I still feel the sadness as I type this.....