The JFK Assassination

I was 11 in 1963 and had just finished crosswalk duty at Washington Grade School.

It was a cold rainy day and I could not wait to get home and sit in front of the register to warm up.

A lady that lived near the crosswalk told me I should hurry home, the President had been shot.

She had teased me on other occasions but I could not understand why she would tease about this.

I ran home and know I talked to Mom but I do not remember the conversation.

I do remember many hours in front of the TV watching the news and the funeral. I think we got 2 or 3 days off from school.

I remember the horse without the rider and the backwards boots. The cadence which I was forever reminded of whenever a marching band kept the beat for marching betweens songs.

The horse drawn hearse and the salute from his son. Jackie O veiled in black holding her children's hands.

I remember watching a guy get shot on live TV. Ruby shooting Oswald I think.

I remember during the first few hours thinking it had to be a joke or a weird movie but the longer it went on, the more real it got and the sadder it got.

I know we spent a lot of time at school discussing everything - I guess they would call it grief counseling - we talked about it for a long time and nothing was off limits.

I do not remember the conspiracy talk until much later.

I remember watching the moon landing and I remembered JFK's speech about reaching the moon by the end of the decade I think were his words.

I think that speech was the first presidential speech I had ever heard. I still remember the chills up and down my spine at some of his words.

I sometimes wonder what the world would have been like had whoever missed 45 years ago.

Would Vietnam have turned out different? Would we have landed on the moon? Would the supposed perpetrators have been caught and the conspiracy exposed?

Who would have been the next president if JFK had lived? What other goals were being considered by JFK beside the moon trip?

I remember when one of the reports came out, maybe the Warren report, that there was no way a group would conspire to kill a president - the position was too protected.

I was young and naïve. And was just starting to learn American History beyond the civil war.

Now after living through Vietnam, Watergate, Reagan, Clinton, 9-11, the space shuttle and station - the Internet and social networks, I find that nothing surprises me and that the people of the world are capable of anything. Anything.

I wonder if the world made a big wrong turn the day JFK died or did it make any difference at all.

I doubt I will ever know.