A Day

November 22.  It is a day I remember every year though I do not always speak about it.  I am sorry the post was late.  I had a hard tine writing this in time.  It was Nov 22nd when I started.

There are many days I remember.  Black Friday starting the Great Depression, December 7, 1941, starting WWII for the US.  But I wasn't alive then.  They affected my parents greatly, but they are history.  And  I will always remember 9/11, because it was a terrible event in our time.

But the date I most remember, because I was 13 at the time, is 11/22.  I do not have some exact memories of it, I WAS only 13.  But I recall so very clearly, the voice coming out of the announcement box at the top of the front classroom wall.  We were back in class from lunch and recess.  It was about 2 pm.  The voices didn't come out of the announcement box after the morning announcements unless there was a fire drill or atom bomb drill.

I do not remember the exact words I heard.  Something like "The President has been killed.  School is closed and you are all to go home immediately".  Going home by ourselves was not that big a deal back then.  We did it every day after school.  We mostly spent our days outside anyway without supervision.  We got on our bicycles or walked and went home.

My Mom was there as most Moms were at the time.  She was crying.

The only thing on the only 3 TV channels for days was coverage of the Kennedy assassination and burial.  I saw Oswald shot live.  It was all horrible.

But what I will never forget is staring at the announcement box, hearing "The President has been killed".  That is seared into my memory.  That beige pine wood box, with the top extending further than the bottom, the slight pattern of some wood mesh in front of the cloth speaker cover.  I just see that box in my mind sometimes.

I can't picture the wood mesh front.  That bothers me sometimes.  I can picture the rest of the box so perfectly.  Its a flaw in my recollection where everything else seems so clear.  The box where such a horrible announcement came out is uncertain in that one way.

I was totally immersed in a nationwide grieving after that.  But that part is all history and knowable to all.

On this day, I remember that awful announcement box.  That is what I see every year on this day.  That is the memory that will never go away.  That is my personal recollection of a terrible event.

Gravesite Inscription:

Let the word go forth
From this time and place
To friend and foe alike
That the torch has been passed
To a new generation of Americans.

Let every nation know
Whether it wishes us well or ill
That we shall pay any price - bear any burden
Meet any hardship - support any friend
Oppose any foe to assure the survival
And the success of liberty

Now the trumpet summons us again
Not as a call to bear arms
- though embattled we are 
But a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle 
A struggle against the common enemies of man Tyranny - Poverty - Disease - and War itself

In the long history of the world
Only a few generations have been granted
The role of defending freedom
In the hour of maximum danger
I do not shrink from this responsibility
I welcome it

The Energy - the Faith - the Devotion
Which we bring to this endeavor
Will light our country
And all who serve it
And the glow from that fire
Can truly light the world

And so my fellow Americans
Ask not what your country can do for you
Ask what you can do for your country
My fellow citizens of the world - ask not
What America can do for you - but what together
We can do for the freedom of man

With a good conscience our only sure reward
With history the final judge of our deeds
Let us go forth to lead the land we love - asking His blessing
And his help - but knowing that here on earth
God's work must truly be our own.

Inaugural Address - January 20, 1961