Where were you?

I was in Mr. Ulig's health class in room eight of Wilkinsburg Jr. High School and the teacher had left the room leading to the usual talking and horse play among the students.  When the cat is away the mice will play as they say.  It was near the end of the day, my last period,  and no one was really interested in doing any work as it was.  Upon the door opening every returned to their normal routine with noses in books and trying to make it look like we were doing something.  It was at this point that Mr. Ulig told us that he had just come from the teacher's lounge where a radio report said that someone had taken a shot at President Kennedy.  I can't remember his exact words but he had disparaging words for anyone who would commit such a dastardly act. You could tell that he was completely disgusted by the report though he seldom showed emotion in any of his classes.  In addition to health class I also had him as a science instructor.

The period ended and so did the school day.  Retrieving my books and personal belongings from my locker I headed for the door.  There was a rumbling undercurrent in the halls about the news that was spreading but no one was saying much at that point.  Looking back I think we may have all been a little afraid of what we were hearing might be true and chose not to talk about it until we had more information.

Henry and Darryl were two friends that I walked to school with just about every day.  We met up on North Avenue behind the Jr. High and proceeded to follow our normal path homeward.  We would walk down the long hill that was North Avenue to Swissvale Avenue and then up the hill to the top where I lived and then Henry and Darryl who were neighbors would go up Pearl Street on to their houses on Sherman Street.

When we reached the bottom of North Avenue there was a traffic signal at the intersection.  There were about three cars backed up at the light and the three of us stepped of the curb to get closer to an open passenger window of the first car and there we heard the awful news.  That President John Kennedy had died of an assassins bullet in Dallas Texas that afternoon.  I don't think we spoke much the rest of the way home not really knowing what to say.  None of us had ever experienced an event that effected the entire country and the world such as this.  We were too young to have experienced the shock of Pearl Harbor.  All of the major events of age so far were only something that we read about in history books or watched as news reel footage or specials on television.

This was real in the sense that we felt the loss that the rest of the country and the world did.  Had I been of age to vote I would have voted for  John Kennedy.  I also felt his enthusiasm for the nation and believed that indeed that torch had been passed to a new generation.  It almost seemed like hope had been taken from us.

Little did I know at my tender age that this would be only the first of several events that would be forever indelibly burned into my memory.  The assassination of Robert Kennedy, then of Martin Luther King, the Challenger Disaster and undoubtedly that event that has had the most direct effect the lives of myself and my family, the attacks of September 11th 2001.

So if you are old enough, do you remember where you were that fateful day 50 years ago?  Do you often wonder what our world would be like today had an assassins bullet had not found it's mark on November 22nd 1963?   I have wondered about these things many times.  Much as I would love to try I don't think that even it we develop the technology to move through time I don't know that we could or should try to change history.

As a final thought I have to bring up the subject of Lee Harvey Oswald.  I have never been one to follow much less believe in conspiracy theories.  There is no way with the current evidence at hand that I could believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the loan gunman and assassin of John Kennedy.  I consider the Warren Report at best a compilation of half truths and propaganda designed to quite that masses looking for honest answers to the events of that day.  I only hope that generations from now that some of my family will finally learn the truth.  Perhaps when I get to heaven I will have the knowledge but I think at that time it will no longer be a matter of concern.

So all I ask at this time is that you remember, be informed, pray for our republic which I feel is in great danger at this time.