Where Were You on Friday, November 22, 1963?

I was recently talking to a fellow about my age and he told me that he had asked the question of a few fellows that he was talking to. He said he looked around and all of them were looking at him with blank looks on their faces. It was then that he realized that those who had been born were too young to remember.

It was raining that morning when I drove to work from Richardson to Dallas. Not hard, but it was raining. It cleared up before noon. Little did I know how much it would have changed history if it had continued to rain into the afternoon. When our President visits your town, you would think that virtually everyone would want to watch his motorcade pass. I didn't, even though he was scheduled to pass right in front of the Texas Instruments building that I was working in on Lemon Avenue.

There was some talk that the people of Dallas were so "fanatically" right wing that there might be some that might assassinate President Kennedy. I scoffed at the idea. I was, and still am, a Constitutionalist, a federalist, a conservative, so I don't like the socialist agenda of people like JFK. I do, however, regret not walking out the front door and watching his motorcade pass. Had I had any idea that he would be assassinated in a few minutes, I would have gone out to see him.

Within an hour or so of his motorcade passing by someone came rushing in and said, "Turn on the radio! President Kennedy's been shot!" I have never seen so many people with their heads hung so low. Many of them were Republicans but they certainly were unhappy about our President being assassinated. I heard the phrase "How are we ever going to live this down?" several times. You would think that everyone in "Big D" had participated in the assassination. The city reeked of the guilt that was felt. The people of Dallas had given our President a warm reception. When it was revealed that the assassin was not a right wing fanatic, but a left wing fanatic, I felt somewhat better. I felt ashamed, tending towards the right, thinking that an insane fanatic on the right wing had assassinated our President. John F. Kennedy was an honest and admirable man, even if I did disagree with his politics. I will always regret not taking the few steps that it would take to go out to see him pass the building I was working in.