50 Years Later

It has been interesting watching all of the news, videos, documentaries, etc., surrounding the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President Kennedy. As a fourth grade student, I remember the day very clearly in my head. Sitting in Sr. Mary Rose's class as St. James Elementary School, I believe it was a reading class, the day was interrupted by an announcement from the Principal, Sr. Jan. She asked the boys to stand and the girls to remain seated and we would all recite the rosary together.

After a while, the Principal again interrupted the rosary by telling us over the PA that President Kennedy and some others had been shot, and that President Kennedy had died. Our parents had been called and we would be going home from school. We were told that we needed to continue praying for our country.

It was a weekend of watching the black and white television at our home and what became continuous live coverage of all the activity. Then the news came in that an officer had been shot at the Texas Theatre, a theatre we went to many times to see movies. Then the next day we watched Lee Harvey Oswald get shot by Jack Ruby while being transferred and seeing Mr. Harrison, who was a police officer, member of our parish and a friend of our family right in the middle of the craziness in the basement of the jail.

The funny thing is I remember when that happened and spending time sitting around with my family and watching things on television, but I don't remember going back to school or things surrounding the return to the "new normal." A country in continual turmoil, the Vietnam War, eventually Woodstock, the sexual revolution, and on and on.

The next summer while on vacation, we were traveling in New Mexico from our home in Dallas and we stopped for some lunch and a bathroom break. We did that a lot with 5 kids, stopped a lot for bathroom breaks. While there, a man asked where we lived and I said Dallas. I remember his response was simply "Oh you people kill presidents don't you." I couldn't understand why people didn't like anyone from Dallas.

Diane and I have talked many times about what is there historic to see in Dallas, compared to places like Boston, Philadelphia and so many other cities throughout the United States and all we can come up with is the 6th Floor Museum and Dealey Plaza and South Fork Ranch where they filmed the show Dallas. After that there wasn't much to see.

Dallas continues to try and figure out it's place in the world in my opinion and once again the nation and the world focuses it's media eye here to try and figure out who, and how many actually were involved. Me, I still wonder why?

So much to learn and so little time.