I had no idea that my father cried about things until I saw him cry at the Sixth Floor Museum on Dealey Plaza in Dallas. I was more than 20 years old by this time, and I was working at a newspaper near Dallas, and he was visiting. It wasn’t only that he cried as we walked through the museum in the old book depository. He was devastated. It was as if he took every sad thing he’d ever felt and collected it up under the title “November 22, 1963.” I think things have continued to accumulate there.
Waiting for me in my email this morning was an unsolicited remembrance of that day, from him. He said it would be okay to share it with you in case you want to read it.
November 22, 1963 began as any other day in the life of a relatively happy and somewhat optimistic high school junior. The day filled with classes and academia was merely a steppingstone to the best part of the day — basketball practice at 3 p.m.
We hadn’t yet started the season of playing games, but we were about a week away from our first real game and my first as captain of the team. It was a great time to be young.
We were sitting through another boring chemistry lesson with Miss Reid and I was barely able to keep my eyes open. She knew it. My days were long — school, practice, work at my father’s bowling alley, homework at around 10 p.m., then finally bed. Up at 7 a.m.
Then came the announcement over the PA that the President had been shot. Young people like me idolized him and there was genuine hope in the air — rather unlike today. Later would come the announcement we all feared — Kennedy was dead.
I can’t even describe the sorrow and futility I felt at that moment and for days to come. It really was the loss of innocence for most of us. I had been a naive kid who probably benefited from the absence of Internet, Facebook and all that brainwashing technology. I really was pretty innocent for a kid that age — 16.
Practice was canceled, unless individuals wanted to practice on their own. I found solace on the basketball court and went out there for an hour of two trying to comprehend what had just happened. I couldn’t. A couple other guys showed up, but we hardly talked and a few tears fell onto the court. It was awful for an impressionable teenager.
I never really got over that and some of the tragic losses to other political figures who lost their lives subsequently. Now, 50 years later, it’s still fresh in my mind. It never goes away.
