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For those old enough, share your experiences of November 22, 1963.

SpitfireIX

Philosopher
SpitfireIX
Joined
May 22, 2007
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Location
Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
I'm not old enough to remember; I wasn't born until 1965.

My parents were both teaching secondary school at the time; my father once told me that he was giving an exam when someone came to his classroom and told him that the President had been shot. As exams were handed in, he took each student out in the hall and told him or her. They were all very upset.

My mother said that she was initially skeptical, because the person who first told her was something of a flake, but she soon had the information confirmed, and then informed her students. She told me that one boy asked her if the government would end; she assured him that it would continue.
 
SpitfireIX said:
I'm not old enough to remember; I wasn't born until 1965.

My parents were both teaching secondary school at the time; my father once told me that he was giving an exam when someone came to his classroom and told him that the President had been shot. As exams were handed in, he took each student out in the hall and told him or her. They were all very upset.

My mother said that she was initially skeptical, because the person who first told her was something of a flake, but she soon had the information confirmed, and then informed her students. She told me that one boy asked her if the government would end; she assured him that it would continue.
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7 years old, grade two
Canadian living in Winnipeg, Manitoba
When I got home my mother was crying as she told my brother and I that the President of the United States had been killed.
The concept of other countries was not completely unknown to me as we had learned some geography in school and I knew that one TV station we got was from Pembina,N.D. and that was in the USA..
Later I saw the TV coverage on our local CBC station and do recall the funeral which I believe was live.
 
I was in school...A Junior in high school. Back then, many students would surreptitiously listen to the little plastic transistor radios... Rumors began to circulate shortly after lunch as I recall.
The buzz got to the point of disrupting classes. Then, the administration decided to pipe the news feed in through the school PA system.
The reaction was primarily one of shock and dismay. I recall that a girl sitting in front of me fell to the floor, weeping.
(this was, after all, a Catholic school and Kennedy's Catholocism had been a big deal during the election.)
Classes pretty well ended for the day, and students and teachers both huddled around radios or listened to the feed over the PA.
My dad was watching a few days later when Ruby shot Oswald.. I was downstairs and heard dad shout a rather loud expletive..... I ran upstairs and caught the rest of the coverage.
 
I was 8. Dad comes home from work, tells mom, they both start crying. It would be decades before I saw him crying again ...

It was strange, you would have thought someone had died in the family of most of the Swiss and French people who talked about Kennedy's assassination during the next few days. Us kids understood something serious had happened. Americans, and Kennedy in particular, were held in high regards at that time.
 
I was ten. I remember talk about the US presidential election, and who did we want to win. I said Kennedy, because that was a "normal" name that normal people had, while his opponent had some sort of weird moniker that sounded like an alien from Planet Zog to me.

My Dad looked disapproving and said that Kennedy was a Catholic. To understand why that might be important you have to live in west central Scotland. Even then, I remember thinking, knock it off Dad you unreconstructed bigot. I don't suppose the words "Democrat" or "Republican" were ever mentioned or that I'd have known what they meant even if they had been.

Then I remember hearing Kennedy had been assassinated. I realise now there was nearly three years between those two events. The grown-ups were making a big deal about it all. Didn't politicians get assassinated all the time? Same thing when I learned about Mr. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, though that was a couple of years later.

Not very inspiring, I suppose. I understand the first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast the same evening.

Rolfe.
 
Seven years old. Can't remember anything about the assassination. My family was moving in to a new house on the day of the funeral. Nothing on TV but the funeral, they got me a Digi-Comp I toy computer to keep me occupied.
 
I was a senior in High School - Donelson High in Nashville, TN. - and was in American History Class - teacher Jack Cass (not a joke) when the announcement came in over our loudspeakers. We were, at a minimum very surprised/shocked. Ricky (name suppressed) made some kind of joke and Cass exploded (he did tend that way anyway) and ordered him out of the room. General quiet , waited for further information. A class or so later the rest of the news came. School was out for a day or three after that - and thanks to it a local teen died in an accident that could not have happened had school not been out. Due to snow at the time. Not a good time all in all. Interestingly, I only remember where I was (which class) for the initial announcement. But pretty well for it.
 
I had just turned 4. I recall needing my diaper changed, but my mom said I had to wait because there was important news on the radio.
 
I was eight years old. What I remember is all the kids including me were lined up at the curb waiting for our parents to come pick us up. The teachers were crying and a lot of the kids were crying as well. We didn't really understand what was happening.
 
Rolfe said:
I was ten. I remember talk about the US presidential election, and who did we want to win. I said Kennedy, because that was a "normal" name that normal people had, while his opponent had some sort of weird moniker that sounded like an alien from Planet Zog to me.

My Dad looked disapproving and said that Kennedy was a Catholic. To understand why that might be important you have to live in west central Scotland. Even then, I remember thinking, knock it off Dad you unreconstructed bigot. I don't suppose the words "Democrat" or "Republican" were ever mentioned or that I'd have known what they meant even if they had been.

Then I remember hearing Kennedy had been assassinated. I realise now there was nearly three years between those two events. The grown-ups were making a big deal about it all. Didn't politicians get assassinated all the time? Same thing when I learned about Mr. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, though that was a couple of years later.

Not very inspiring, I suppose. I understand the first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast the same evening.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...
Nixon sounded strange to a Scot?

http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=nixon

Northern English, Scottish, and northern Irish:
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ETA: To the OP, I was two, I probably crapped in my diaper.
 
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A thread of mine from last year:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8512982&postcount=1

ETA for humor:

Years back, I heard a story told on the Howard Stern show by Johnny Fratto, son of Mafia boss Louis Fratto:

http://www.midwestmafia.com/

Johhny related that when he and his younger brother were growing up, his father always told him that they should never say anything to anybody about what went on at home.

At some point after the JFK assassination, Johnny was attending catholic school and in the class the subject came up - the nun asked Johnny "who killed the President?"

Johnny thought about what his father always told him, and answered "I don't know..."

It devolved from there. Taken into the Principal's office, his father was called and came to the school. The principal informed Johhny's father about how his son obviously wasn't paying attention in class, etc, and what was he going to do to correct Johnny's behavior...

Johnny said that his father was just watching him through all this, and when the principal asked that question, his father turned to the principal and said:

"If he say's he don't know, he don't know."
 
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I was 12, it was a Saturday in Sydney (IIRC) and was heading into school as exams were coming up.

Although I wasn't a practicing Catholic then, I was attending a Catholic school. JFK was a real hero of the faith, and his killing seemed to paralyze the whole school for days. In those days, Australia was moving away from the UK, and the USA could do no wrong (WWII was still in the memory of our parents, as was the role of the US in the Pacific War). It hit the country hard.
 
Working at ACF Electronics in Riverdale Md.
I heard that the president had been shot using a 30-30, from a guard at the entrance.
I was watching the LHOLN transfer at the DPD when Ruby did his thing.
 
38 days old. Probably crapped my pants.

My Dad was in the Army at the time. He was an artillery NCO. He had been assigned to a task force force preparing for an invasion of Cuba during the missile crisis. Fortunately for me it didn't happen because I was conceived shortly after he got back.
 
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6 year old army brat. On post at Pirmasens, Germany. A tense couple of days without dad...
 
I was 20 years old, a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy, stationed at Moffat Field Naval Air Station in northern California. While there was a general sense of shock, I remember a bunch of southerners going out a and getting drunk that night, coming back and harassing the one black guy in our barracks and calling out, "We got a southern president, now!" Of course their tune changed considerably when Lyndon Johnson got down to business on civil rights.

I should mention that, even in those days when there was a draft, there was a high ratio of southerners in the service. It was one way to get a GED, learn a useful trade and to get out of the south.
 
I was seven years old, in second grade. I recall the teacher (Mrs. Glaser), was called to the hall, then came back in to tell us that the President had been shot. A little later the principal came in to say that the President was dead.

That was the first instance of cognitive dissonance that I can remember. I knew that Mrs. Glaser would not say anything that wasn't true, but I also knew that no one would kill the President. The world did not make sense.
 
7th grade, at Joes Big Burger in Lovington, NM for lunch. We heard it over the radio, and all ran the 7 blocks back to school. We were all dismissed and sent home. Even my parents, who were dyed-in-the wool Republicans, were extremely upset. ..
 
It was a Saturday morning (In NZ) about 9am. I was outside playing in the back yard with Barry, my next door neighbour. We went inside to get something to eat/drink, and my Mum and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table; the little PYE "Caddy" transistor radio was on, but I couldn't hear or understand (or I don't recall) what was being said; Mum was crying and I could see that Dad had been.

I must have asked what was wrong, and the only words I remember him saying were "they Killed President Kennedy".

I was only 8. I didn't understand the import of his words!
 
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