I was over at the rant forum and there is a post on a link to an LSU Ole Miss game from 1972. Wow just listening to that old game with John Ferguson started bringing back the memories. I started thinking of the first memory i have in my life and how it has always sort of haunted me. I was born in 1961 and grew up in Bossier City . My parents were both school teachers and we didnt have a lot of money but we had everything we needed. It was an age of hand me down clothes and 3 channel black and white T.V's . I have a brother who is a year older and we shared a room with bunk beds. I dont really know if this is the first memory i have but it is the one that everything seems to have started at and it had a big impact on me . It was November and it was cool outside and a hazy day so we were inside in our room playing and i walked from me and my brothers room to the living room and i saw my dad sitting on the couch and my mom sitting in an arm chair and they were both crying. I had never seen my dad cry before and i sort of looked at them both just watching the T. V. . The newsman was talking about President Kennedy getting killed in Dallas. I just stood there for a minute. I was 2 and a half years old and i didnt really comprehend what the newsman was saying but the way my parents were crying i realized something was wrong and i started to get scared. These were the people that my whole world revolved around and they were very upset and there was a weird quiet with just the sound of the t.v. . Over the next few days with the funerals and the T. V. coverage i stayed close to my mom and watched it with her. Knowing something very sad had happenned but not really old enough to comprehend. The Presidents assasination has always fascinated me and i think about that moment of walking into the living room and seeing my parents sadness and i can picture it just like i am standing there in black and white. It has always sort of haunted me. I used to do papers in school on John F Kennedy and have visited the Grassy Knoll in Dallas many times when I lived there. Every single time i went there i would think about walking into our living room as a little boy.
My random and totally insignificant recollections: I was 14 when that happened and I heard about the assasination while I was at school. When I got home, my Dad was crying too. He was a huge Kennedy man. He wasn't grieving enough to keep us from going to the hunting camp that weekend, though. On the ride home that Sunday, we turned on the car radio and found out that Oswald had been shot. We were thinking "what in the hell is this world coming to?" I was totally apolitical then but I do remember the apparent glee from many people over the assassination. I now realize that these people were none too pleased with Kennedy's attitude toward civil rights. What I remember from the week that followed was that it rained the entire time. Also, I remember that the fad then was yo-yos and spinning tops. We had the entire week off from school (Thanksgiving). I remember the funeral on TV and the constant funeral dirge played by a military band. The music was haunting and sad. When I think of the events now, my main thought is that Teddy should have been in that back seat.
I vividly remember watching the JFK funeral at Franklinton Elem. School in the 1st grade. The very idea that they would bring a tv in the classroom was unbelievable and ironic in that we children really didn't grasp the enormity of the situation. I do remember the teachers crying and us sitting there somewhat stunned.
Yeah, I was eight and it was a shocking thing to the America of the time. It was the first time that the whole country was glued to the TV screen for an event. I was living in the house of a segregationist George Wallace democrat who despised Kennedy. But he took no glee in the assasination. My dad did not miss Kennedy at all politically, but he was outraged at the thought that somebody would shoot the president of the United States. One of his anti-Kennedy relatives in Texas called him up and said, "We don't shoot squirrels in Texas. We shoot presidents". My dad called him a dumb sonofabitch and hung up. Ten seconds after we heard that Oswald had been shot, my dad was convinced that Lyndon Johnson was involved. He thought that Johnson was worse than Kennedy and he turned out to be right about that.
Holy Smokes. See, that's an opinion. I wasn't quite alive yet........71.........but my parents talked about it and cried. Hey, no matter what my political persuasion, I never want something like that to happen. I mean, I disliked Clinton but wanting him dead is treason, IMO. Kennedy was the last Democrat my parents voted for. In fact, IMO, Kennedy was the last old-time Democrat. Wish there were more like him.
There will never be a coverup of the magnitude that happenned in the death of John F Kennedy. Parts of it have chipped away and people draw their own conclusions but the conspiracy to cover up who killed the President involved alot of people in the government. The Warren Commission was such a joke. In some ways i dont think Politics has ever been the same. I honestly dont think Johnson was involved but he sure didnt want people to find out who was. It still bugs me today and if i am flipping through channels and see them replaying documentaries on the assasination i watch as if some new information may be there that solves it. This event led to the mistrust we have today of our Government. I dont think even the people who did it could have forseen the effect it would have on this country. Would Kennedy have stayed the course in Vietnam? Some people say this is what got him killed!!! Who knows? I cant believe the changes that have come about in my lifetime. Generations have come and gone since the sixties and there have been advances in the comforts of life. But that generation still influences this country still today maybe more than any generation since. The effects of drugs on our society, distrust of the government, sexual expression, freedom of speach, race relations , music, breakdown of moral values, discipline etc. I guess all these issues were there before then they just seem to have magnified after this happenned.
This deserves a new thread, Calco. I don't remember ever getting into it about the Kennedy Assasination before.
I bet Rex thinks Karl Rove did it. But seriously, I believe there was much more to it than the history books tell, but there are so many questions that have not been answered or the answers have been buried, it would be difficult to come to any sort of definitive conclusion as to who really was responsible. At least that's my opinion, but I wasn't around back then.
Im in. I have always been interested. Start it up and i will be there. I have read alot of different theories as to what happenned. Going down to dealey plaza has always been very weird for me. It is like a time warp that takes you back to that day.
