The childhood of a white suburban kid from a good family was pretty darn good in the fifties. Anyone who was growing up during those times and in that place would most likely agree. They would probably also agree that things changed, the country changed when President Kennedy was assassinated. "Where were you when JFK was shot?" is a question that each person in my generation has the answer to burned into their brain.
I was in the 6th grade at Parkview Elementary School in Morton Grove. We had just come back from lunch and we were maybe halfway through English class. A class I really did not like. The principal came over the loudspeaker to make an announcement. He said that President Kennedy had been shot and we should all say a prayer for him. Boy, you don't hear that sort of thing in a public school anymore. My teacher just sat down and started crying. That really freaked us out. We didn't know what to make of it. Then the principal said school was closing and we should go home. Go home? That was the plan if they dropped "The Big One". This must be that important. Everyone just quietly packed up their books and ran, I mean ran home.
I was in the 6th grade at Parkview Elementary School in Morton Grove. We had just come back from lunch and we were maybe halfway through English class. A class I really did not like. The principal came over the loudspeaker to make an announcement. He said that President Kennedy had been shot and we should all say a prayer for him. Boy, you don't hear that sort of thing in a public school anymore. My teacher just sat down and started crying. That really freaked us out. We didn't know what to make of it. Then the principal said school was closing and we should go home. Go home? That was the plan if they dropped "The Big One". This must be that important. Everyone just quietly packed up their books and ran, I mean ran home.
When I got home I found my Mom was crying like the world was going to end. All the TV shows had been pre-empted. Our eyes were glued to Walter Cronkite. Then it came. It was announced that he had died. The newscasters were teary and shaken up.The handsome young president was gone and we watched his wife in her pink suit stained with his blood, her son John Jr. saluting the coffin. It was surreal and scary.
The rest of the sixties, all I remember is turmoil. The death of Robert Kennedy, death of Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, race riots and burning down neighborhoods, the war in Vietnam. Just chaos and upheaval everywhere it seemed. What was happening in the world? The government was no longer to be trusted. In a way it was the end of the world. Our world. Our ideal suburban, white priviledged world of the fifties was gone. It had never occurred to us kids that most Americans had never been a part of Ozzie and Harriet's world anyway.
.
 |
| President Kennedy's remains lie in state in the Capital building rotunda |
