One of my earliest memories I have as a child was President Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. I was 5 years old and in kindergarten in Johnson City, NY. I can distinctly remember sitting around tables in the classroom after lunch recess when the intercom speaker above the blackboard at the front of the room crackled with some incomprehensible announcement that no one could understand. I remember my teacher shrugging off the intrusion and continuing on with her lesson plan. Shortly thereafter, another teacher burst into the room crying and both teachers went out into the hall. I could feel that there was an electric, emotional tension in the air. That’s when I knew something big had happened.
For the next four days, every one was glued to the wall-to-wall TV coverage on all three channels: ABC, CBS, and NBC. All regular programing was preempted. My mother says I sat in my kid-size rocking chair in front of our black and white TV set taking it all in. She saved this drawing I did of the President’s funeral procession.
The only earlier memory I have is of my sister being born and coming home from the hospital the year before in November 1962. This picture of me pushing my year old sister in a stroller was taken a few weeks before the Kennedy assassination.
I was born in January 1958. I have not met anyone younger then me that remembers the vivid details of this national tragedy.
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