November 22, 1963. It's one of those things. People remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.
I was a senior in high school. I had just finished lunch and was on my way to choir practice. At one point some sort of bottle neck caused the streams of students to come to a brief halt, and I found myself facing a girl I knew only casually.
She was smiling in an agitated sort of way, and she said to me excitedly, "Did you hear Kennedy's been shot?" I shook my head, thinking it was a joke, but before she could deliver the punch line, we both got swept along. I wondered why on earth somebody who hadn't talked to me since the sixth grade would suddenly want to tell me a joke as we passed in the hallway.
Shortly after choir rehearsal began, the principal came over the PA system to announce that the president was dead. Some of the girls wept. Our director asked us to join him in a minute of silent prayer, after which he carried on with the rehearsal.
For the record, I believe it was a conspiracy, Oswald did not act alone, and the Cubans were behind it.
I'll bet that girl has not thought of me once in the last 47 years, and there is no reason why I should remember her either. We were not friends; we basically each knew who the other one was.
But she is linked in my mind and memory with the event of that day . I do remember her. I remember her name. I can see her face.
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