Today marks the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination and yet I know that many reading this post were not born yet. It's hard to realize that 50 years have gone by and all that has happened since.
I was a young mother working as a lab tech in a Hartford, Connecticut hospital. My husband was an actuarial student at one of the insurance companies in Hartford and my little son was 7 years old. At 12:30 PM, someone ran down in hall in our laboratory yelling, "the president has been shot." At first, it was hard to comprehend the words as we gathered in small groups to try and make sense of what we heard. We all went home early that Friday, and from that moment on until the funeral was over on Monday, our television set was on, black and white of course which made what we saw even more dramatic and poignant.
I think that day marked the end of innocence of our country, at least from our generations' point of view. How could this happen here, we thought. And little did we know, more assassinations were to come, Martin Luther King on April 4th, 1968 and Robert Kennedy only two months later, June 5th, 1968.
Assassinations are not new in history, but to a young country such as ours, they were. Our immunity from the political turbulence of Europe somehow protected us, even though our country was involved in World War I and II, they were not fought on our soil, and not-withstanding, Lincoln's assassination, with Kennedy, here was someone we knew, someone we saw on television, in magazines, someone whose voice we heard, whose family we admired, their youth was our youth, and our hopes for a bright future seemed somehow linked with theirs.
And then two more murders of political leaders, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy made our reality complete.
I was a young mother working as a lab tech in a Hartford, Connecticut hospital. My husband was an actuarial student at one of the insurance companies in Hartford and my little son was 7 years old. At 12:30 PM, someone ran down in hall in our laboratory yelling, "the president has been shot." At first, it was hard to comprehend the words as we gathered in small groups to try and make sense of what we heard. We all went home early that Friday, and from that moment on until the funeral was over on Monday, our television set was on, black and white of course which made what we saw even more dramatic and poignant.
I think that day marked the end of innocence of our country, at least from our generations' point of view. How could this happen here, we thought. And little did we know, more assassinations were to come, Martin Luther King on April 4th, 1968 and Robert Kennedy only two months later, June 5th, 1968.
Assassinations are not new in history, but to a young country such as ours, they were. Our immunity from the political turbulence of Europe somehow protected us, even though our country was involved in World War I and II, they were not fought on our soil, and not-withstanding, Lincoln's assassination, with Kennedy, here was someone we knew, someone we saw on television, in magazines, someone whose voice we heard, whose family we admired, their youth was our youth, and our hopes for a bright future seemed somehow linked with theirs.
And then two more murders of political leaders, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy made our reality complete.
Hi Tasha .. I was at school - it was about 9.30 in the evening I guess ... just before we went to bed - and I must have heard it on the radio .. I was shocked, I must say.
ReplyDeleteIt's been interesting seeing/listening some of the view points of those days ... cheers Hilary
Thank you, Hilary. Cannot believe it has been 50 years.
ReplyDeleteMy mom and dad both have vivid memories of it, the way I do of 9/11, which is about as comparable as I hope to ever get.
ReplyDeleteSo true. Nothing has changed but everything has changed. Sorry to be so serious. I do have so much to be thankful for.
ReplyDeleteThat would be one of the coming of age events for the US which would highlight the turmoil present in the cold war world of politics, internal and external. We saw the government and intelligence at their worst - turning on their own students and their own American people. Kennedy was one of the best to appear, and even he had his faults. This is a sad reminder of the dark side of history.
ReplyDeleteIt was a "coming of age"event and made the impossible seem possible. We went to the moon and produced the atom bomb. . . .
ReplyDeleteWell-said. You're right; it really did feel like we "knew" the Kennedy's, didn't it? Maybe that's why it felt so personal.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I was a lab tech back in the dark ages, too. At Johns Hopkins and Baltimore City Hospitals.
Hi Susan: Did you stay in the medical field? I later went back to school, got a teaching degree and taught in LA.
ReplyDeleteIt's like the day the twin towers came down. There are just certain events that change our lives and perception of the world forever, eh?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Crystal. Shattering events like that do change our lives in many ways.
ReplyDeleteI was at a Masonic Dinner Dance and our host and hostess were a bit late because they had just heard about it on TV before they left home. I don't think anyone believed it at first.
ReplyDeleteThat's how we all felt. Now we are all hardened to events like that, perhaps that is not a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI was working for an advertising agency in San Francisco. We had a television in our office to monitor the commercials and make sure they ran correctly. The news came on the television. At that time, Alan Lerner was in our office working on a music soundtrack. He went pale at the news and rushed to the airport to go home. Later I was told that he was a close friend of JFK's - a classmate in boarding school and college. We all shared the pain and disbelief.
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding your comment, CQ. These stories bring it all back for us.
ReplyDeletei remember it being an usually warm day---returning home from school---i think i already knew what had happened, but i don't think my mother knew i knew---i remember she was cleaning the glass in the front door--i suspect she was making work, while she waited to see me come in from school-
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