Where were you when Kennedy was killed?

By George Phenix

At our book signings, strangers come up to tell us where they were and what they were doing. It seems they want to talk about it. That dark day was a tipping point for the entire world and for everybody living in it.

Our account of those terrible days has struck a common nerve. And people want to talk about it. That's cool.

For a time after the assassination, we were a nation united in grief. Much like the aftermath of 9/11. While I hope we never again feel that collective grief, I would hope we could ramp up the "united" part again.

The red state/blue state divide is tearing this nation apart. And the knee-jerk-offs on both sides are either too dumb or too jaded to care. I am really weary of the 24-hour attack cycle from spinmeisters on both sides of the political morass.

This is a bit of a ramble and I'll admit to getting sentimental, but someone recently sent me an email that kinda got to me.

Here goes:

A four-year-old was looking at the baby in the crib and said, "Tell me again what the voice of God sounds like. I'm beginning to forget."

Well, I'm beginning to forget what "united we stand" feels like.

Comments

[Victoria Campbell]

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.

[Tom Nieman]

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...

[kulturkritik]

I was 13 and in junior high school. For some reason, I was walking in the halls instead of being in class, and the nurse came running out into the hall crying that the president had been killed. Just a few years earlier, I had taken our portable black and white TV to school so we could watch the Kennedy inauguration in class. A few years later I would graduate from high school in the year of Martin Luther KIng, Jr.'s and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations, 1968.

Watching the president's funeral was personal, because the image of the two small children was like a proxy for the funeral my father never had after dying in Korea. The Kennedy children at the time seemed to be standing for me and my brother.

Early in 1964, I would see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and it was as if things were coming together to make me feel that the world was changing and that it affected me.

[Liza.Marie]

Congratulations, Mr. Phenix

Excellent work. Your family can be proud of you.

[Bob Huffaker]

Aw hell, Liza. Not only can they be proud of George Phenix. His kids, who are amazing in their own right, know how lucky they are to have el hombre con los cojones muy grandes for a dad. Life would be more fun if all Dads were as spectacular as Phenix.

[Frank S. Wagner]

I have always been ashamed of my reaction. I laughed. What else would an eight year old boy at recess during a georgeous November friday afternoon. I was playing with the son of the high school football coach who was leading the team to the state championship that year. A girl in a green dress, maybe a girl scout uniform said; "President Kennedy died." Jim Ragus and I laughed.
"Why that's stupid!" I shouted, "Why he's right here in Texas!" The thought that the U.S. President and my hero would be killed in my home state was beyond my realm of possibilities.
One of the girl's in my class was the niece of a State Senator. Somehow he had gotten word to her that the horrible story was true. Our teacher, Ms. Delane confirmed this. I have called this 'The Most Horrible Day in My Life."