It seems an odd coincidence that the 50th JFK's assassination should fall on a Friday, although, I'm sure a few in-between have fallen on a Friday.
It's almost inconceivable that so many years have taken place since then. I was 6 years old. I don't remember the morning of this historic day. I do remember that my friends and I were excited about the weekend. Lunch had finished and I was swinging on the monkey bars in the big kids playground. It was an overcast, sultry afternoon. I remember next seeing the older girls running towards the girls bathroom crying. Then our principal announced an impromptu assembly where he told us that the president had been shot in Dallas, Texas and that school was adjourned for the weekend.
I walked home from school and entered our living room to see my grandmother watching As The World Turns... at that moment Walter Cronkite interrupted the daytime soap opera to announce that JFK had died.
Everyone sat glued to the television that weekend; Sunday morning, while dad, gram and my dad's bff Paul were in the kitchen, I was in the living room watching Lee Harvey Oswald being led underground from the jail to an awaiting car when he was shot on live television.
I remember watching the funeral cortege procession on television.
It's amazing looking back over this long span of years to what might have been had the assassination not occurred, the things that would and would not have shaped history as we know it. Would MLK or RFK been assassinated had this not taken place first? We'll never know what might had been....
Abraham, Martin & John, by Dion
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