Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. Nobody in my generation will ever forget where we were when we got the news. If you have any memories you'd care to share, please do.
I was in 11th grade history class at Pt. Loma High, it was a sunny, nice morning. Mr. Kemp, who was always all business, was talking with another teacher on the deck outside the classroom well into class period, that was weird. When he came in he was clearly shaken, he told us the president had been shot in Dallas and like a lot of people that day he ventured the opinion that it had been the right wingers who did it. Righties in Texas had made a big show of their scorn for Kennedy. A few minutes later a runner came by from the principal's office with a mimeographed message that the president had died, "God rest his soul", it ended. Wow. The whole rest of the weekend was a nightmare.
Kennedy had visited San Diego earlier, he took an open car motorcade from downtown to San Diego State where he delivered the commencement address. The motorcade traveled on El Cajon Boulevard, which is a huge, wide, long street, and the TV coverage showed the route packed many deep from start to finish. A woman I know was a little girl then, singing in a school choir for Kennedy, he had the motorcade stop so he could listen to them, and they really appreciated it. The boy who would later become my step brother was in the crowd, he ran out to the president's limo and got a handshake. This was a Republican town at the time, but Mr. Kennedy received a huge, warm reception. There must have been over 300,000 people on the route because as I said El Cajon is a long street, that would have been about a third of the population then. It is sobering to realize that Mr. Kennedy's reception in Dallas was equally warm until one nut case opened fire.
I was in 11th grade history class at Pt. Loma High, it was a sunny, nice morning. Mr. Kemp, who was always all business, was talking with another teacher on the deck outside the classroom well into class period, that was weird. When he came in he was clearly shaken, he told us the president had been shot in Dallas and like a lot of people that day he ventured the opinion that it had been the right wingers who did it. Righties in Texas had made a big show of their scorn for Kennedy. A few minutes later a runner came by from the principal's office with a mimeographed message that the president had died, "God rest his soul", it ended. Wow. The whole rest of the weekend was a nightmare.
Kennedy had visited San Diego earlier, he took an open car motorcade from downtown to San Diego State where he delivered the commencement address. The motorcade traveled on El Cajon Boulevard, which is a huge, wide, long street, and the TV coverage showed the route packed many deep from start to finish. A woman I know was a little girl then, singing in a school choir for Kennedy, he had the motorcade stop so he could listen to them, and they really appreciated it. The boy who would later become my step brother was in the crowd, he ran out to the president's limo and got a handshake. This was a Republican town at the time, but Mr. Kennedy received a huge, warm reception. There must have been over 300,000 people on the route because as I said El Cajon is a long street, that would have been about a third of the population then. It is sobering to realize that Mr. Kennedy's reception in Dallas was equally warm until one nut case opened fire.
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