JFK 50 YEARS ON
A VERY PERSONAL DATE
11/22/63
The night, before I sat at our kitchen table and was doing a book report on Lincoln. It was around the 100th anniversary of The Gettysburg address and he was top of mind in our history studies with Sister Apolonia. I wondered out loud how anyone could kill Lincoln and then returned to my work.
That Thursday night in Houston in an effort to shore up support with Latin American citizens who thought JFK was not as supportive as he should be, the President addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens Council. LULAC.
The next day at St. John the Baptist was pretty normal. It was a sunny brisk November day. The girls at recess were jumping rope, the boys were playing a version of baseball using a rubber ball and a wall near the church parking lot. Lunch was a treat that day, pizza with government cheese that oozed on top of the hardened crust. I remember sneering at the third grade girl in pig tails that would be my 7th grade girlfriend and she gave it right back to me making oink noises as I devoured my second piece of pizza.
In the playground that day Drew Wasko informed me that a nun, a nun of all people had the number one record in America. A singing nun no less. His brother Bob laughed and said something like imagine our Slovak nuns on Ed Sullivan. Another set of brothers I was friends with, the Dellarte Brothers said they were on the second bus and would be arriving late at home on a Friday. I reminded them that on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I would ride the late bus and they should stop complaining.
Time was going slow on a Friday afternoon until at around 2:20PM someone came in our classroom and whispered in Sister Apolonia’s ear. She nodded gravely and said nothing.
At 2:50 we gathered our belongings and waited as the buses driven by Billy Wagner and Paul Suscon pulled up in front of the school. Unlike prior weekends there was silence. I sat down and I heard a kid say to his sister “He never knew what hit him”. I wondered about that but had no idea what had happened. The Principle Sister Augusta boarded the bus armed with Rosary in hand and crooked a finger at his saying,”Pray, pray, you know what happened!”
She started the Rosary and a Patrol Boy and Girl took over the prayers as the bus rode through Pittston toward the Junction. I still had no idea.
After we left the bus, older classmates filled me in and I was in disbelief. I went home and did not enter the House. My dad was working a night shift at the Cigar Factory, my mother the day. I sat on one of those Milk Boxes our Milk Guy Rudy Forlenza gave us and waited. My mom and I went inside and waited impatiently as the TV warmed up. By 6PM my sister and father (both at work) were let out early. We sat in the TV room as a family just in time to see John Kennedy’s casket come off the plane. I don’t remember what we ate or what we said that night. Although I do remember my Godmother visiting and recalling when Kennedy came through Pittston. It seemed like everyone took turns crying. I remember I did not. I was just scared.
I stayed up until 1am and I remember David Brinkley saying this. After you hear Brinkley’s statement you’ll realize there was little else to say.
The Kennedy assassination to all of us of this age was personal. It is something that none of us will ever forget. As he touched us in life, he touched us in death.
Fourth grade boys and girls turn into men and women. Our lives take twists and turns that make us forget old times and things we’ve done. Sometimes we barely remember what we did last week. In this day and age, with IPhones, computers and all the gadgets that take away any mystery in our lives we as a society are pretty isolated. We only seem to come together in grief. When my dad died in 1980, a woman I knew marveled at the people who came to his wake. She said, “I never saw so many people feel so bad at the same time for the same reason”. She was two when Kennedy died.
That Monday as the Funeral took place, a whole nation felt very bad at the same time for the very same reason. And fifty years later, for some of us, it is still very fresh. It is fifty years to the day….but it might as well have been just a few hours ago.