My November 22, 1963 Memory

I can't remember whether I was in the fifth or sixth grade when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but I know exactly where I was.  Once I week, on Fridays,  I rode my bicycle six blocks to take piano lessons during our lunch hour. I had turned north from 12th Street onto Gary that in three blocks would take me to our house and Stevenson Elementary which was right across the street.  A classmate rushing to school shared the news that Kennedy had been shot. Oswald shot Kennedy at 12:30 pm, so the timing is right.

My class would have started at 1:00 pm. the same time that Kennedy died and about forty minutes before the news was broadcast that Kennedy was dead.  I'm sure that we were told that the President was dead fairly soon after classes resumed. Likely we were allowed to listen to radio broadcast, but I don't remember for sure. Nor can I remember whether they let school out early or not.

I think I was  watching on Saturday when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

I also remember that we had the Vaughn Meader Kennedy impersonation LP and that after the assassination, we bought a memorial book from Time or Life.  Another memory is that during that the Cuban missile crisis, I remember taking the garbage to the trash can in the ally --in a sprint and back.