For those of us old enough to remember, where were you at 1:40 PM EST, 54 years ago today, November 22, 1963, when the first "Breaking News" reports went out that President John F. Kennedy had been shot?
I was a Junior in high school and was in Physics class when they broadcast the news over the school's PA system that the President had been shot. Now you have to realize that I grew-up in Northern Michigan and November 22nd was in the middle of deer season, and for me and several of my friends, our first thoughts were that we didn't even know Kennedy was a hunter. After all, back then, particularly during that time of year, often as not, the only news of people getting shot was due to hunting accidents. Yes, we were living a rather sheltered life being from a very small town (there were only 30 kids in my high school class) well of the so-called beaten path (the nearest movie theater was 30+ miles away).
An hour later, when the first news came that the President had died, I was in study hall and our English teacher was the one who came to the room and told us personally. She was crying so hard that she could barely get the words out. About 30 minutes later they announced that school was letting out early. Also, since it was Friday and the next week was Thanksgiving and they expected that the funeral would be sometime earlier in the week, classes were cancelled until after the Thanksgiving break. Note that I spent the next week watching the events unfold on TV, when I wasn't at work (I was a 'meat cutter' at our local grocery store and deer season was our last big chance to earn money off the tourists before they 'rolled-up the sidewalks' for the winter) or with my girlfriend, with whom I had just started to 'go steady' three weeks prior to this (we celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary this past June).
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what others were doing when Camelot came crashing down. BTW, my wife and I saw the movie LBJ last week and it was very good. I was amazed at how well Woody Harrelson did playing the title role. Also the actress who played LBJ's wife, Lady Bird Johnson, was amazing in terms of her uncanny resemblance to the real First Lady in both appearance and mannerisms. For those who had not heard much about the movie, it basically covered about 72 hours of the events immediately after the assassination with flashbacks to Johnson's life just prior to the 1960 campaign and election. While I'm not sure that the movie itself will get any Academy Award nominations as it was basically a dramatic 'bio-pic', it's very possible that Harrelson and Jennifer Jason Leigh (the actress who played Lady Bird Johnson) could get nominated as their performances were outstanding.
So, what are your stories...
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