When I was in the eighth grade, it was the first time that anything political had my attention. John Kennedy, my own senator, was running for president. I didn’t know the difference between a democrat or a republican, but I knew I was a democrat because John Kennedy was. The Kennedy headquarters in my town were in what had been a vacant store. It was there I got my Kennedy pins. I still have them. One says, “If I were twenty-one I’d vote for Kennedy.” The other has Kennedy’s face and a third says Kennedy for President. I wore them proudly. For that whole fall, I followed his campaign. I watched the debates. The only thing I remember about the debates is an easel on which was a map of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu and Nixon disagreeing with Kennedy on their defense. On election night I stayed up as late as I could watching the results as they trickled in, but they were too long in coming and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I found out that my senator was going to be President.
I watched the inaugural. I remember the top hats, and I remember Robert Frost and the poem he recited from memory. Kennedy’s inaugural address didn’t make a big impression. I was in the eighth grade and speeches didn’t hold my attention all that long. It wouldn’t be until I was older that I understood the greatness of his speech and the importance of his words.
It was a Friday. We were having a dance that night in the gym. I was going to stay after school to help decorate. I was in the cafeteria when one of the serving ladies told us the President had been shot. We sat there stunned. When the bell rang, we went upstairs to our classrooms, and I turned on the television in mine. Sister Ernestina came in and right away wanted to know who had turned on the TV without permission. I told her I had, and I told her the President had been shot. She sat down without another word. We watched even after school would have been dismissed, and I remember Walter Cronkite announcing the death of the President. The only sound in my classroom was the sound of crying. It wasn’t just the loss of the President but the loss of our President, the senator from Massachusetts, and the loss of our own innocence though we would’t realize that for a while.
We had no dance. Almost everything was cancelled. I spent the weekend glued to the television. I saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot and couldn’t believe what I had seen. I watched the funeral and the salute and the riderless horse so spirited. I remember how tall De Gaulle looked walking behind the cortege. I remember the tears of the crowd. I will never forget.
