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John F. Kennedy

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  • John F. Kennedy

    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.
    Last edited by Kalalau; November 22, 2013, 05:27 AM.

  • #2
    Re: John F. Kennedy

    There was tons of high dollar Dallas gutter scum and many other factions we know of that wanted JFK dead and they got their ways even if they had nothing to do with it, and that was the beginning of the end of this country as anything worth more than a cold turd. But it seems Dallas got a bum rap for the murder, being the one big place in all Texas that he was liked by the general public. But he had pissed off too much of the dirt and lot's of evidence say's Johnson was part of it and I'm siding with Oswald being willing to kill but being betrayed and used as a patsy. Hell, he didn't even have evidence of having recently fired a gun! 50 years later and all we know for sure is bad won over evil and we've sucked badly ever since.

    I was in my first semester of the 3rd grade in a Lutheran School and an older girl burst into our room and cried that the President had been shot. I'd never heard of JFK, the Presidency, nor did I comprehend Gmt. and such, but I knew it was really bad and then we all watched the drama unfold further as Oswald get's killed on live TV by possibly one of the true gunmen re Kennedy, followed by the surreal funeral.
    Then I fortunately went back to my public school the next semester and that's when my life started taking off big time, plus The Beatles hit the scene and the 60s began to go nuts in myriad ways, good, bad, and even stranger as the profile killings continued with MLK and Bobby Kennedy.

    All together now, America, America...
    https://www.facebook.com/Bobby-Ingan...5875444640256/

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    • #3
      Re: John F. Kennedy

      I remember well that fateful day when gun violence once again proved how lethal a firearm is in the hands of a paranoid gun nut. I was working at Sunmaid Raisin company in Selma, CA where I worked outdoors emptying pallets of newly arrived raisins into a shaker where the stems and debris were separated from the fruit. I was putting everything I earned into savings so that I could pay my own way to the University in Berkeley the next January. It was a cold, dreary, overcast day, much like it is today. There was an announcement over the outdoor speaker system but I had trouble hearing it because of all the background noise, something about "President" and "dead." I asked my Mexican amigo working next to me if he heard the message and he said no, he just hoped it was an announcement that we were getting the rest of the day off with pay! When we broke for lunch, we were informed of the horrific event. We went back to work after lunch, but everyone was less talkative, all reflecting on their inner thoughts.

      I did go to Berkeley in January, where the assassination and the Viet Nam war protests, the "Free Speech Movement", and an era of Peace, Love, and Activism made a lasting impression on my life.
      Peace, Love, and Local Grindz

      People who form FIRM opinions with so little knowledge only pretend to be open-minded. They select their facts like food from a buffet. David R. Dow

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      • #4
        Re: John F. Kennedy

        It did seem during the Kennedy term that there was great optimism, that the torch had indeed been passed to a new generation and great things were possible. We will never know how Vietnam would have turned out if Kennedy had lived. Johnson sure fell on his face with that. Yet with all his political skill and power Johnson was able to get Medicare and the Voting Rights Act through and its possible Kennedy couldn't have because he would have been a lightning rod for Republican resistance like Obama has been, obviously much less so, but the same idea. And now the same crooked court that gave you president Bush and Citizens United has gutted the Voting Rights Act, we see the ever evil hand of Nixon & his southern strategy at play still.

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