Comments: Where were you when Kennedy was killed?

Check out the comments we're getting (all on the left hand side of the blog) regarding George's original post, "Where were you when Kennedy was killed?"

It seems to have struck a nerve with many folks who can never forget where they were the exact moment they heard news.

We'd love to hear all of these stories and we invite our readers to post their comments here.

These two below in particular have very poignant memories:

I was eight years old & in Catholic school. We got the announcement over the PA system. But more amazing then the shock I felt was seeing all these stern nuns sobbing and clinging to each other. I'll never forget it because America changed that day. We lost hope and we lost our ability to believe in dreams. No President since has been able to convey the power of dreams the way Kennedy did. I still miss him.

Posted by: Victoria Campbell

I was 6 years old & in Catholic School. I heard it in school that the President had been shot. I heard when I arrived home that the President had died. My parents and grandparents were "grey" for a couple of weeks. I remember that there were no cartoons on TV for quite a while. Only funerals and memorials... That was just the start, Bobby Kennedy and MLK were soon to follow... In my hometown there were race riots that forced me and a friend to serve every mass at church for two weeks... When I look back, it all started with JFK being murdered... For me, everthing goes back to that time... The bad concept of everything is only an opinion, and right and wrong are not finite, stems from that time... The moral "death spiral" began in 1963...

Posted by: Tom Nieman

Comments

[Terry Malone]

I was 14 years old and was a Freshman in high school. We were called back into our home room in a small rural school in Ohio. We watched on TV Walter Kronkite and the news as it came across the TV. My brother, who was two years younger than I, had been supported Kennedy for the 1960 election and I had supported Nixon. Even as a kid of 11 years of age I can remember the heated discussions in my friend's homes as to how the Pope was going to run our country etc. I was too young to understand the full import of the events. I did come home from church on Sunday morning after the assassination and saw live Jack Ruby get shot in the basement of the Dallas police station. The first live broadcast of a murder!

[Chip Zullinger]

I was 13 in a small town high school in South Carolina, all white but a lot of folks worried about when the black kids would be in school with us. Because of the racial tensions and attitudes at the time I find myself ashamed to tell of my feelings about the news of Kennedy being shot. I did not share those feelings alone. I remember that afternoon my band director giving me a ride home from school and his crying over the events of the day and the reactions of the young southern white boys and girls that he taught.

[Martha Ragsdale]

I was in 4th grade,it was just after 1pm. The custodian in our school,Mr.Ryan,came to the doorway of our class & had tears streaming down his face. He looked at our teacher & told her what he had just heard on the radio in his maintenance workroom. Men in 1963 did not display emotion like what I witnessed in Mr.Ryan that horrible afternoon. I will never forget that day as long as I live.

[Lisa Gibbs]

This is one of my earliest memories. I was 3, and I couldn't understand why my mother was crying because of something she saw on television. She was sobbing, "Poor Jackie! Poor Jackie! And those poor children!" I was puzzled to think that an event on television could affect anyone in real life. "Mommie, do you know her?"

[Jim Gibbs]

I remember it was a beautiful, cool fall day with brightly-colored autumn leaves on the ground and on the stone walls lining the sidewalks. I was an undergraduate Journalism major at UNC-Chapel Hill and as I was leaving Aycock dorm I noticed a group of students sitting on the steps listening to a radio. Before I could ask what was happening, someone said "President Kennedy's been shot in Dallas." I sat down as well and tried to understand what had happened. We continued to listen to the news as more information emerged and the group continued to sit in stunned, silent disbelief. When it was clear that JFK was dead, we felt an enormous sense of loss. We knew then that Camelot had been sacked by the barbarians and the bright vision we had of the future was irrevocably tarnished without JFK to lead the way.