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In reply to the discussion: Generation JKF About to Re-Live the 60's in Their 60's: Are You Experienced? [View all]Grins
(7,132 posts)I too was a sophomore in high school that day. I remember leaving school about 90-minutes later and walking to the exit, and down the entire length of that corridor my friends crying, an unable-to-stand level of crying.
I remember walking through my small town's (northern NJ) main street and no traffic was moving. Cars parked by the sidewalk had several people standing near them listening to the car's radio, all in stunned disbelief. Churches and synagogues filled up, stores, restaurants and movie theaters closed, the 405 in Calif. came to a complete stop because people could not drive. Traffic in Times Sq - the same. Complete gridlock and no one cared. Broadway went dark for three days, Times Square went dark. Completely. Dark. No store windows were lit unless it was to illuminate a subtle and sombre portrait of a youthful president Kennedy, a portrait that captured our loss. Black drapery in the background, and that portrait on an easel.
I seem to recall that JFK laid in state in the Capitol rotunda for three days. For three days and 24-hours each day, people passed in respect. When it was time to close the viewing to the public there were still THOUSANDS of people still in line waiting to pay their respects. In the dark, the remaining people in line to see him went down Constitution Ave.
All schools were closed. All of them. Everyone stayed home in front of their TV's watching. Watching Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live TV! Watching Jackie, Robert and Ted walking down the street. Watching, and watching, and never forgetting a three year old boy - on his birthday - salute his father's passing casket. Try to imagine the collective slap to the head everyone in America - in the world! - felt seeing that. And this feeling lasted for many days after JFK was buried. You could not get it out of your mind.
I tell my friends who were too young to know that date that it is, still, to this day, the one event that truly shattered America, the one event I will never forget. Not Reagan, not Vietnam, not Watergate - not even Sept. 11th - not so many other things; but that one day.
It's too hard to explain to those who did not live though it, but if you are one of those and get a chance, pick up Robert Caro's "Lyndon Johnson, the Passage of Power", and read the chapter that deals with that day and the days following. It's terrific!