November 22, 1963 Do you remember....

where you were when the announcement was made that President Kennedy was dead?  I seem to remember I was at Denver General hospital, but I have been told by family members that I was at school.

His inaugural speech "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country"  is one of the reasons I joined the Navy at 17 years old in 1971.

Even though today is Thanksgiving, please remember that a lot of the things we have today - computers, cell phones, microwaves, and so forth - came from the space race advocated by Kennedy.

catspaw66 said:

Even though today is Thanksgiving, please remember that a lot of the things we have today - computers, cell phones, microwaves, and so forth - came from the space race advocated by Kennedy.

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Absolutely. :nod:


...and I was 8 months old when he was assassinated.

I was 9 years old.  Who would have thought then that less than 6 years later, Niel Armstrong would set foot on the moon.

Was it really Nov 22nd? My dad's birthday is Nov 22 and he never told me Kennedy was shot on his birthday. That's weird, my mom has told me exactly where she was and how she reacted, but my dad never even mentioned it was on his birthday.

I was almost 7. I don't remember where I was.

I was at home when I heard news of JFK's shooting and death. It was right on my Mom's birthday and Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed on my birthday two days later. Certainly can't forget these dates being what they are. It was a sad day for most.

5 years before my time, but I do remember the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, does that count?
 

It does to an old Navy veteran. 

When I lived in Dallas, the house I lived in was two blocks from the rooming house where Oswald had lived 25 years before.

I thought this was the anniversary of JFK's assassination, but I wasn't sure. I wasn't born yet but I remember my parents and their friends talking about it when I was little. I never could understand how someone could remember exactly what they were doing at any one point in their life.....then there was 9/11. NOW, I understand. 

Yes. I was a sophomore in high school - 15 years old - and I was in choir. The announcement came in over the PA system, made by our principal. I remember it was a Friday because it was the night of our Sadie Hawkins Dance. The dance, of course, was cancelled, we were sent home for the rest of the afternoon. I got home and I was all by myself, because Mom was working, Dad was working, my younger brother hadn't gotten home yet. It was a gray, overcast, cold day, and I turned on the TV and felt almost sick to my stomach watching.

Since then - Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, 9/11 - so many days of tragedy. Hard to fathom that 1963 was the first time I felt like I was kicked in the stomach with overwhelming, awful news, since it's happened a few times since then.

I was in 5th grade. Our teacher was called out of class to take a phone call from her husband. When she came back she was crying and told us that President Kennedy had been shot. She still insisted that we continue with our normal class schedule while we were waiting to hear if he survived. It was the only time all year that I missed a word on a spelling test.

I was in the 4th grade when the terrible news was given via the audio box. Everyone in the class went
Totally silent and though we were only 9yrs old we knew this event was so sad, I remember my teacher cried after we had our minutes of silence. Still seems like it happened last week.

Yes.  I was in Jr. High, I think it was math class.  They announced it over the intercom, it was devestating.  I remember the funeral prarade too, I was ironing and trying so hard not to break down.  The riderless horse and little John John really did me in. 

I was born in 1992, and my parents were born in 1965 and 1968, so not even they were alive then.

But I do remember where I was on 9/11. :nod: In my fourth grade English class. The teacher got a phone call, I guess from another teacher, and then ran to turn the TV on. Then she paused with her hand on the button while we watched the footage... Then the principal came onto the intercom and asked the teachers to turn off the TVs. I guess they thought it would be too traumatic for us to see. In retrospect, I'm not sure how we didn't have a lockdown or go into complete panic...

<<But I do remember where I was on 9/11. In my fourth grade English class. The teacher got a phone call, I guess from another teacher, and then ran to turn the TV on. Then she paused with her hand on the button while we watched the footage... Then the principal came onto the intercom and asked the teachers to turn off the TVs. I guess they thought it would be too traumatic for us to see. In retrospect, I'm not sure how we didn't have a lockdown or go into complete panic...>>

Your teacher turned the TV on? 

My oldest was in second grade at the time, and the teachers at the school  made the whole thing a non-issue. Her teacher said "I want to make school a safe place- so we're really not discussing it". 

And in second grade- I agree. 

The boys next door were in middle and high school at the time, they said that they watched some of it on TV. 

The youngest was 4.  Oh man- trying to keep a 4 year old's life "normal".

I went over to someone's house (I think it was the pastor at the mission church we were at- I had to pick something up) and he had it on TV.  I came in with the youngest- he tried to turn it off, but I know she saw some of it.  She saw some anyways b/c I was out and was told and then I went home and saw the whole thing on TV.

I had a friend who had a boy the same age.  She told us one day at playgroup that she was worried- her son was stacking up blocks and pretending a plane was crashing into them

I don't think they had lockdown drills then.  They do now.  DD said there was one the day before Thanksgiving. The kids went and hid in the orchestra room storage closet.

Cheryl

I was only about 18 months. So probably napping.
 

Those of you who do remember that day will probably remember the previous October and the Cuban missile crisis.  Did they really believe that hiding under our desks would save us from a blast or were they just giving KYAG a different name?

My parents were early elementary age at the time. My step-dad wasn't born yet either.

calico2222 said:

I thought this was the anniversary of JFK's assassination, but I wasn't sure. I wasn't born yet but I remember my parents and their friends talking about it when I was little. I never could understand how someone could remember exactly what they were doing at any one point in their life.....then there was 9/11. NOW, I understand. 

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9-11 is definitely the biggest memory of that sort in my life.  DH and I were just flirting at that point and started dating a few months later.  He was military at the time and my step-dad had not yet retired from the military; so that directly shaped so much of my 20s and my early relationship with DH.  

I remember being 7 years old in grade three at school.. we had a kind of 'news/show and tell' start to the day and that was the news everyone had.  It must have been the following Monday as it would have happened early Saturday our time.

So even in Australia it was big news.