Re: JFK

[Gordon Waldron <gordowal@infochi.infochi.com>]

I was sixteen when JFK was assassinated.  I was in my American History
class when the assassination was announced over the school PA.  I don't
remember feeling much of anything but numb.  Who would ever think
something so violent would happen in the USA? This was before all the
assassinations and riots that followed in that decade--and the violence
against the freedom riders in the deep South seemed a million miles away,
even though I lived in Kentucky at the time.  I had persuaded my mom to
take me to the airport the year before when JFK visited town to make some
political endorsements.  It was before jetways, so he just walked down the
steps on to the tarmac from air force one.  All of the spectators were on
the tarmac too.  I wasn't close enough to touch him but certainly close
enough to hear him without a microphone.  He said a few words to the crowd
before getting into a limousine to go to the real rally.  Security was
certainly lax by today's standards, but then we didn't know what was
coming.  I had been a real Kennedy kid, rushing home from school to see
the bi-weekly(I think) press conferences-which were entertaining as well
as informative.  I think the funeral must have been on a Monday(did he die
on Friday?)  School was closed and the whole family watched the riderless
horse and heard those mournful drums and the procession proceeded to the
Capitol building, I think.  Even then, all I felt was numb and empty.
That was the first defining public event of my generation.  Since then
there have been many, many more--Bobby Kennedy, ML King, the urban riots
of 1968(I watched from a safe distance while whole neighborhoods of
Cincinnati burned), Vietnam(eight young men from my high school class of
about 300 died there), Kent State, the 1968 Chicago convention(where I saw
with my own eyes as it was happening, over the magic of television, policemen
beating defenseless people on the head with billy clubs--again, I couldn't
believe this was happening in my country), and a few years later
Watergate.  The JFK assassination seems now to have been the "gateway"
event to a decade violence and deceit.

If I have learned anything from living through those times, it is that it
is important for those who are selfless to become involved--to prevent
those who are selfish or evil from taking over.  When you grow up, at the
very least, vote.  Even better lead those who do vote.  Do good things.

Kathy Schroer
Emerson Junior HIgh
Oak Park, IL 60302
gordowal@infochi.com