ANA Discussion Forum
Post-Treatment => Cognitive/Emotional Issues => Topic started by: MDemisay on November 22, 2013, 04:20:14 pm
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Friends,
On this day 50 years ago, those of us who are old enough to remember the assassination of JFK and the media flurry that followed for many of us alive at the time, it was the end of our innocence. The end of Camelot! I can remember the bus driver and the teachers being very upset and my mother being very upset and crying :'( :'( :' (she is French and had come over from Paris to marry an American(my father) in 1956) and being riveted to the TV for days and days.
Where were you? How was it for you when you got the news?
Mike
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I was 20 years old on November 22, 1963 and was taking a day off from my job. We didn't have a TV (by choice). around 1 P.M. I turned on the radio (WABC, N.Y.) and they were playing funereal music instead of the usual 'top 40' pop hits of the day, so I knew something was wrong. The ABC newsman gave an account of the shooting of the president and, shortly after 2 P.M. (EST) it was announced that the president was dead. I was shocked.
Even though I was not very interested in politics and wasn't a huge fan of President Kennedy, I respected him. I sensed that the assassination would have negative ramifications - and it did. Escalation of the Viet Nam war and the social upheaval of the late 1960's followed. Like many young Americans in 1963, I was angry that some loon could kill the U.S. president and that Lee Harvey Oswald never stood trial because Jack Ruby took it upon himself to kill Oswald. I never bought into the many conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy's assassination. I believed then and now that while Oswald had communist associations and was anti-American, he killed the president on his own, using a cheap mail-order rifle.
I consider that all the conspiracy theories were simply a reaction to the unpleasant fact that such a momentous event - a U.S. president's assassination in broad daylight by a little weasel of a man, a proven loser - had to be bigger than just Oswald because of who Kennedy was; a handsome multimillionaire in the prime of life (JFK was 46) with a beautiful wife and children, holding the most powerful office on the planet. The assassination upset our belief in the order of things.
Today, a half-century later, the Kennedy assassination still resonates in American culture. Even with many who only know it through books, newspaper articles and TV documentaries full of grainy black-and-white film of the motorcade and the chaos that erupted immediately following the gunshots that killed our 35th president. For those of us who were old enough to live through what happened that day in Dallas, even at a distance, it will always be a clear yet dark memory.
Jim
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I was in Kindergarten. I turned six on the 21st, one day earlier. In an odd sort of way, I’ve always closely associated the anniversary of the shooting of JFK with my birthday, even yesterday on the occasion of my 56th!
Doc
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I was 17, a junior in high school. I had just gotten on the bus and, as it was pulling away from the curb, somebody with a radio announced that President Kennedy had been shot. I didn't learn much more till I got home.
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I was a 9 year old girl growing up in Canada. I remember my teacher wheeling a black and white TV on a big stand into our classroom. We watched the news coverage until it was time to go home. I remember my teacher crying for what seemed like most of the afternoon. Loosing JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King were three huge events that I remember struggling to understand as I grew up.
Cathie.
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I was then age 19 and had a part time job as a taxi driver employed by a family friend who owned the taxi business. I had just picked up a fare and the lady customer tearfully told me about the JFK incident. Can't quite believe that was over 50 years ago and I am now knocking on the door of 70! :o
Regards
Derek
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Can't quite believe that was over 50 years ago and I am now knocking on the door of 70! :o
Derek ~
Ten months ago seventy knocked on my door. Having no other option, I invited him in. Not much really changed.
Assuming good health and realistic expectations, aging is as much a state of mind as it is a physical reality. One adapts. :)
Jim
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Assuming good health and realistic expectations, aging is as much a state of mind as it is a physical reality. One adapts. :)
Quite right Jim.. I remain young at heart and fortunate enough to still have the ability to do many of the activities that I did in my teens and twenties. I have always been a supreme optimist hence my total self-belief and commitment to take on and conquer the AN beast! ;D
Regards
Derek
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Dear Jim and Derek,
We are fortunate gentlemen. You are only as old as you feel! I feel like a youth of 18 yet I am in actuality 56. I keep my mind active by reading, getting regular exercise and doing a hobby that takes me back to my childhood, model trains. In fact this past weekend I got to participate in a train show at a local nursing home. It was fun and it made everyone feel young
My friends father just passed his 102nd birthday he's slightly deaf but his secret to longevity is a bottle of red wine a day. God bless him and may you both have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Mike
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Dear Jim and Derek,
We are fortunate gentlemen. You are only as old as you feel! I feel like a youth of 18 yet I am in actuality 56. I keep my mind active by reading, getting regular exercise and doing a hobby that takes me back to my childhood, model trains. In fact this past weekend I got to participate in a train show at a local nursing home. It was fun and it made everyone feel young
My friends father just passed his 102nd birthday he's slightly deaf but his secret to longevity is a bottle of red wine a day. God bless him and may you both have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Thanks, Mike! A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too.
Jim
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Words of wisdom and great advice there Mike...think I might change my bottle of water a day to whatever type of red wine that 102 year old gent is on! ;D
Have a great Christmas Mike and the very best of health, wealth and happiness to you and yours in 2014.
Best Wishes
Derek