11/22/1963

My mother tells me that I was watching TV when it happened, that I saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald.


I have no memory of the shooting, or, for that matter, of anything to do with the assassination of JFK.  At least, no contemporaneous memories of the weekend it actually happened.  I was only three years old at the time, and the significance of what I'd witnessed was so far over my head as to be invisible.


(I have some vague recollections of Bobby Kennedy's funeral, some 5 years later, but that's for another day.)



For years everyone would ask each other, "Where were you when Kennedy was killed?"  People just a few years older than I would tell stories of tearful teachers at school.  No crying teachers for me, I was home playing with my dolls.


The most significant news story of the early 1960's, and I have no memory of it.  But yet, I know all the details.  I've seen the TV news clips, I've read about that day in Dallas in fact and in fiction.

It was 50 years ago.  A lifetime ago.  And yet it's a story that is dominating the newscasts for these last few weeks.

This clip of Walter Cronkite always makes me cry.






And Oswald being shot:


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