A Memorable Mourning

By Jessica Branco

It was a clear, fall Friday in southern Miami.  The temperature was in the 70s.  It was the kind of weather that made school children want to leave the classroom and start their weekends early.

Candace Walters, a seventh grader, was one of those school children at Old South Beach Elementary School. 

She spent her school days gazing out of the tall glass windows, and out into the miles of open land.

Over the past few years, twelve-year-old Walters and other students in Miami had experienced everything imaginable.  From The Bay of Pigs Invasion to air raid drills, the children were used to the feeling of a looming disaster.

“When you heard the air raid sirens, you have to crawl under your desk, put your hands over your head, and hope for the best,” Walters said.

The air raid drills took place throughout all of the 1950s and ended in the early 1960s.  They were designed to protect a student from the effects of a nuclear blast and were routine for Miami, the city in line with Cuban missiles.

The school bell rang shortly before 2 p.m. and Walters started on her usual walk home.

It was “almost like the calm right before a hurricane,” Walters said.

Once she got home, Walters threw her school bag onto her couch.  The pet dog, Twinkles, nipped at her feet.  It was time for their daily walk.

Throughout the stroll, she noticed the street was empty. 

“My neighbors weren’t out on their porches, like usual,” Walters said. “There was an eerie silence that made me panic, so I ran home with Twinkles.”

Gasping for breath once she got home, Walters saw her parents seated on the couch, staring at the small television set.  They were watching the news.

“There has been an attempt, as perhaps you know now, on the life of John F. Kennedy.  He was wounded in an automobile driving from Dallas airport into downtown Dallas along with Governor Connally of Texas,” the CBS newscaster, Walter Cronkite, said. 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States who took office in 1961, was shot around 1:30 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) that Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. 

The Walters family stood in the living room, all speechless.

“The president, his limp body carried in the arms of his wife Jacqueline, was rushed to Parkland Hospital,” the newscaster said.  “More details to follow.”

Walters could not believe the newscaster.  She thought the president was invincible.

News alerts interrupted regularly scheduled programming throughout the day. 

“From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Times, two o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago,” Cronkite announced.

* * *

By the next day, newspaper headlines across the nation read “JFK Shot”; “Kennedy Assassinated”; “The President is Dead”.

“The media coverage was unbelievable,” Walters recalled.  “It was on television and newspapers for what seemed like forever.”

After the newscast, Walters’ parents remained silent.  Mrs. Walters, weeping, scrambled to the kitchen, while Mr. Walters sat on the couch and stared down at the carpeted floor.

“Can we talk about this?” Walters asked her father.

But her father didn’t respond.

Walters walked towards the kitchen and asked her mother the same question.  Her mother stood quiet, wiping her tears with a handkerchief.

Walters tiptoed upstairs to her bedroom and sat on the twin size bed.  Her bedroom was decorated with a handmade quilt and frilly lampshades, matching her dresses.

“All I could think of is what’s going to happen now?” Walters said.  “I wanted to know, but I was left alone with all my thoughts.”

That day, tucked away in her bedroom, Walters shed a tear. 

She cried for four straight days.

End Notes

Interview:  Candace Walters

Additional Sources:

Gov. Connally Shot; Mrs. Kennedy Safe: President Is Struck Down by a Rifle Shot From Building on ...By TOM WICKER Special to The New York Times;  New York Times (1923-Current file); Nov 23, 1963;  ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2007) (newspaper clipping)

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMIA/1963/11/22/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/Life-of-John-F-Kennedy.aspx?p=5

http://www.historybuff.com/library/refjfk.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/johnfkennedy

http://www.irememberjfk.com/mt/2008/02/air_raid_drills.php

YouTube:  JFK Assassination on Live Dallas TV:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpicOfFajNE&feature=related

YouTube:  JFK:  Breaking the News:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLzo46nU1N8&feature=related

YouTube:  Kennedy Assassination news report Nov 1963:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtawEgXWgJo&feature=related

YouTube:  First Kennedy assassination bulletin:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UHz0k3kkFw&feature=related

Google image of Old South Beach Elementary School:  http://www.google.com/imgres?q=%22old+south+beach+elementary+school%22&hl=en&rlz=1R2ADFA_enUS440&tbm=isch&tbnid=xeLc3K4-qNEe0M:&imgrefurl=http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/image/128982688&docid=uAaKE7RtXO3blM&w=800&h=533&ei=NveITorELYn20gHDvfHKDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=163&vpy=144&dur=1435&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=120&ty=100&page=1&tbnh=117&tbnw=164&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&biw=1280&bih=572

An Unforgettable Friday

By Hanna Pattie

            On the morning of Friday November 22, 1963 President John F Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline stepped out of air force one in Dallas, Texas. Thousands of people stood outside to greet them. President Kennedy stepped into the sunlight from the safety of his airplane and walked down the metal stairs. A light rain fell on his brown hair which was carefully combed off to the side. He was wearing a pressed navy blue suit with a blue houndstooth print tie. His shirt was white and silver cufflinks reflected off the metal railing as he made his descent down the stairs.

 He waved to the crowd, wide grin on his face, Mrs. Kennedy waved to bystanders. Her long, bright pink coat swayed from side to side. Her brown hair which only reached her ears was casually worn down, under a pink hat which matched her coat. She said shook hands and received a large bouquet of red roses from a woman. Smiling, Mrs. Kennedy slung the gold chain link strap of her purse around her elbow and cradled the bouquet in her arms.

This was the first public appearance since the loss of their baby in November.

            The couple approached a shiny 1961 Lincoln Continental limousine. The rain began to slow, and sun began to beam warm rays on the car. The driver pulled the top off so the Presidential Party could enjoy the nice weather as they travelled.

------------------------------------------------------------ 

            The morning of November 22, 1961 began just as any other for Boston employee Gerald Rourke. Sipping his hot coffee with milk and one sugar he walked down a corridor of cubicles. Passing the glass entry way he could see people walking down the street of the north end. A large sign hung the door, “Massachusetts Department of Public Works, 100 Nashua Street.” Gerry’s dress pants swished as he walked, his skinny tie was pinned to his white pressed shirt. His shoes made a scraping noise on the carpet as he turned the corner to his bosses office.

            “Good morning Gerry,” he said.

----------------------------------------------------------- 

            The presidential limo travelled down Houston Street, then made a turn on to Elm Street in Dealey Plaza. People lined the streets shouting and waving to the traveling motorcade.  The uncovered limousine and thick crowds provided for maximum exposure of the President, Governor John Connally, and their wives.

            Rounding the corner to Elm Street, the sound of gun shots echoed. People in the crowd looked at one another.  President Kennedy looked at his wife abruptly. They both began looking over their shoulders to the left then the right.

Seconds later, at 12:30, a gunshot entered the president’s neck, continuing to the front seat into Governor Connally’s right upper back.

Mrs. Kennedy braced her husband’s head and began screaming as brain fragments spatter along the silver leather interior.

She climbed out of the cab and on to the trunk, a member of the Secret Service reached out to grab her pink coat now covered in her husband’s blood.

President Kennedy now sat hunched over, falling into the car door panels.            

The crowd erupted.

----------------------------------------------------------

            Gerald sat at a brown wood table with co-workers as their boss discussed the past week. Another employee sitting outside the office had been listening to the radio. Gerald looked over and saw the man leap out of his desk and whip open the glass door without knocking.

            “Someone just shot the president,” he said.

            Silence filled the meeting as men exchanged glances. 

----------------------------------------------------------

            The limo sped to the nearby Parkland Hospital where President Kennedy was pronnounced dead at one p.m. At 2:38 Vice President Johnson took oath into office. Mrs. Kennedy standing by his side. Her hat was now removed, her arms lay crossed resting on the pink coat.

            Between 12:33 and 12:50 the Texas Schoolbook Depository had been sealed off. Employees Harold Norman and James Jarmon Jr. were watching the motorcade from the fifth floor of the brick building and heard the shots followed by shells clinking directly above them. A rifle was later found on the sixth floor.  One of the employees, Lee Harvey Oswald, was spotted by Officer J.D. Tippit, 70 minutes after the shooting. Oswald was three miles from Dealey Plaza and was walking in Oak Cliff.

As Tippit approached him, Oswald drew his gun and shot the officer four times.

-----------------------------------------------------------

            Rourke and co-workers tuned into the radio, quiet as they sat around the table. Heads lowered, they listened attentively as the announcer  gave a detailed report of the presidential motorcade riding through Dealey Plaza in Dallas where the president was fatally shot. The reporter detailed how the president was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead within an hour after the shooting.

------------------------------------------------------------- 

            Pulling into his driveway after work in Burlington, Gerald took a moment to reflect on the day before he entered his household. Pushing, he swung the car door open and picked up his suitcase. Slamming the door behind him, he walked up two steps, and along the gravel path to his big white front door.

It was warm and birds were chirping.

The house was quiet. 

In the kitchen his wife Carol was cooking dinner staring at the television screen. Silently, they hugged each other then sat down at the small light brown table to watch the television. For hours they questioned how this could happen and continuously watched the news throughout the evening about the assassination . 

            News anchor Walter Cronkite was on the television broadcasting his news report, tears in his eyes. He repeatedly took his glasses on and off, wiping his eyes and fixing what little hair he had as he delivered the news.

            “From Dallas, Texas the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at one p.m .central standard time,” Cronkite said.

            Tears sprung from Mrs. Rourke’s eyes as Gerald hugged her.

            --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources

Wikipedia

Youtube

November 22, 1963: Death of the President." John F. Kennedy. Presidential Library. Web. 1 Oct. 2011. http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/November-22-1963-Death-of-the-President.aspx?p=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I

Interviews:

Gerry Rourke

Carol Rourke

Kerry Pattie

Wake-up Call

By Patrik Bergabo

            The Seraphin family was looking forward to taking a break from work and enjoying some turkey. It was a brisk Friday in 1963 with a high of 51°F when 11^th grader Bob Seraphin crawled out of bed and headed to Olney High School in northern Philadelphia.

            Seraphin was closing in on the end of the school week when shortly after 1:30 the students were told they were going home. Confusion reigned over the high school as students packed up their bags and headed out towards the buses that would bring them home. Seraphin stopped to talk to a crossing-guard on his way out.

            President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas, he was told. The bus ride home was somber. The high school students on the bus were very subdued.

            Once home, Seraphin rushed to his television and heard the news, “White House press secretary…Malcolm Kilda…has just announced…that President Kennedy…died at approximately one o’clock central standard time which is about 35 minutes ago.” Seraphin’s family idolized Kennedy, and his mind drifted to his parents, both politically active in the Democratic Party.

            The next morning the headline “PRESIDENT SLAIN BY ASSASSIN” was plastered on the Philadelphia Daily News. Still, the people of Philadelphia rallied and made sure everyone felt supported. “I think everyone was somewhat confused by it.” The Seraphin family and their neighbors would visit each other as a form of support and long discussions would occur night after night in a futile attempt to make sense of the assassination. Not a soul dared to take their eyes off the TV screen as the funeral approached.

            Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged with the assassination. Before his case could come to trial he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby while being transported to Dallas County Jail. Ruby claimed he was distraught over the Kennedy assassination and was taking revenge.

Four and a half years later, with the memories of November 22^nd 1963 still burned in his mind, Seraphin would watch the news reveal the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

            This time Seraphin was over 21 and prepared to deal with it.

End Notes

Interview with Robert Seraphin.

NBC News coverage of Kennedy assassination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-rXaWQkUDk

Weather Information from http://www.wunderground.com/history/.

Joe's Reaction to JFK's Death

By Kelsey Braga

            The sun beamed through the windshield of the old Volkswagen as it puttered down the highway. Joe Bustin turned up the radio slightly to listen to one more song. Joe, a tall, 22 year old man with short black hair, was on his way to work at Mark Stevens Health and Beauty in Woonsocket, RI.

            It was a sunny Friday in November and all Joe could think about was the weekend ahead.

Little did he know, his weekend off from Bryant College would be extended.

            Joe pulled into the parking lot of Mark Stevens at around one in the afternoon. A stream of people were leaving the store as Joe approached.

            “We’re closing the store. The presidents been shot,” Joe’s manager said frantically, scurrying to finish stocking the selves with tissues. 

            Joe quickly helped finish stock the last few items on the shelf then hurried out with car keys in hand.

            He fiddled with his keys to find the right one for his car. When he got to his car he hopped in.

He turned on his AM radio for news.

Nothing.

            He half listened to the classical music coming from ABC radio as he drove to his girlfriend’s house in Lincoln.

            What happened to President Kennedy? Is he going to be okay? Joe wondered.

            An announcement interrupted Doris Day’s singing.

           

            “We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin from ABC radio. Here is a special bulletin from Dallas, Texas. Three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade today in downtown Dallas, Texas. This is ABC radio. We are going to stand by for more details in Dallas.”

            Joe lowered the radio, trying to absorb the devastating news.

            He pulled up along side of Marcia’s small apartment in Lincoln. Marcia opened the door.

            “Did you hear?” Marcia asked.

            Joe nodded.

The couple rushed inside the living room and sat in front of the little antenna TV.

They watched the black and white frames of John F. Kennedy’s motorcade travel through Dealey Plaza.

Joe’s face froze with disbelief as the president’s car passed the Texas School Book Depository and shots were fired.

He watched a bullet target Kennedy’s head.

            He’s not going to make it, Joe thought.

            Joe flipped the station.

            He stopped on CBS and listened to Walter Cronkite.

            “We have just learned however that Father Hubert, one of the two priests called into the room has administered the last sacrament of the church to President Kennedy....We just have a report from our correspondent Dan, rather, in Dallas that he has confirmed that President Kennedy is dead.”

            Joe picked up the phone and called his parents in Pawtucket.

            “Hello?” his mother answered, her voice shaky.

            “Mom, did you hear...?” Joe started to ask.

            “Oh, Joey, this is just awful!” his mom said.

            News stations aired clips of the president for hours.

In the days that followed, Joe bought newspaper after newspaper with the latest Kennedy headlines “Kennedy killed by sniper as he rides in car in Dallas: Johnson sworn in on plane” and “Kennedy Slain: President assassinated by sniper in Dallas”.

            Joe’s work re-opened. Class at Bryant University resumed.

            Joe sat at his desk and wrote his latest English assignment for Mrs. Patterson: a one page paper about President Kennedy’s death.

It hit Joe.

He had witnessed history.

Endnotes

PAGE 1: Joe Bustin, ABC Radio Network Broadcast (found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1ataY2BdnU)

PAGE 2: Joe Bustin, CBS Television Network Broadcast (found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I), NY Times headline (found at http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1122.html), The Racine Journal Times headline (found at http://www.archives.com/genealogy/newspaper-genealogy-jfk-assassination.html)

A Weekend’s Formative Reflection on Moments Never Forgotten

By Francis O'Brien

The whole family sat there, Michael on the floor’s braided rug, dog by his side. All sitting stock still, faces absorbed in the screen. Losing themselves. Michael’s lithe pale hand brushed the dog’s unsettled fur absently, still piecing together the images replaying on the screen. Listening intently to Walter Cronkite’s elegantly unsettled pronouncement, the small, thin brown-haired boy struggled to take it all in. Over and over again flashed recycled versions of the same scenes.

President Kennedy, iconic household figure, had been shot, a grainy, faded home-made film, the last anyone would see before blood was first glimpsed on Kennedy’s face, as his wife weeped trying to support her husband’s crumbled body. Michael heard it all described on T.V., piece by piece, as a vague picture of what happened was gradually pieced together.

There was only so much polished television reporters could reveal to the searching public. Still, in that fatal moment, reporters could not be the people’s prophets. Walter Cronkite especially made a lasting impression on Michael, as he recollected the once-composed man bowing his head, trying to hide fresh tears.

And all the nation was left to watch.

                Michael , a nine year old fourth grader, recognized the President’s name and had watched the Inaugural Address three years prior. He knew few specific details about Kennedy, but he liked what he saw of the man. And he felt a little anxious then. For the President, the symbolic authority of his nation, was dead. Could his world, his very way of life, survive after the only leader he’d ever known was so effortlessly wiped away?

Michael’s parents tried to reassure him the best they could, though they were shaken up themselves. They explained that their country, their government would still continue on. They insisted their life wouldn’t change.

                Michael’s parents still feared the future. While they had grown up during World War II and had heard many atrocities of war, since then the country was relatively peaceful. Deep down, nobody then believed such an assassination could happen, its torments were so foreign to the security they had begun to develop, the suburban utopia suddenly thrust into the midst of brooding conflict. For Rockland, Michael’s home at the time, was a small close-knit community, a working class town. Most people tried to help each other out, everyone knew each other and many had lived their entire lives here. Few people in his neighborhood locked their doors at night, there was little crime.

At first, many people were left to wonder whether this was a sign of the future. Still anxious over the Cuban Missile Crisis, many people around Michael suspected the murder was an indication of war’s re-emergence on a national scale.

Searching for a re-assurance, families sat in their living rooms, united in vulnerable confusion. And Michael, just a child, was carried into that world, and would never forget.

                Michael was dismissed from school early that day. It was 2:00, in the middle of class at Holy Family School, a parochial school in Rockland. It started off as just another day. As routine as the uniforms students wore. A light blue shirt, dark pants, and a dark blue tie with three simple emblematic letters on it: H.F.F. Always the same, always predictable.

                It was the middle of a lesson. Michael’s teacher stood before the class in a black nun’s habit with the pin-up white cardboard bib, long skirt stretching to the floor in imposing order. Mid-sentence of her lesson, there was a knock on the door and the teacher was called out of the classroom.

The children were left alone, waiting, expecting the lesson to resume. The lesson never did.

                When she returned, the nun’s face betrayed something was amiss. “Go, just go! Go to the church across the street”, the nun told the class. The children lined up single-file and marched to the Holy Family Church’s beckoning gates.

                The class climbed the brick structure’s solemn granite steps. The upper building was majestic, with high ceilings plastered in colorful painted scenes. The children were brought to the downstairs chapel, where the ceiling was lower and the furnishings plainer, more compact. There the students attended a religious service commemorating Kennedy, and there they were first told the truth. They learned that President Kennedy had been shot and critically wounded. It was a short mass, with prayers for the President’s recovery and for his family. Though it was clear the priest was upset, the mass was conducted just as it always was. Some of the nuns cried a little.

                After the mass, the children filed out of the church to the bus to take them home.Then Michael learned Kennedy was dead. Few children spoke that afternoon. One of the first stops, Michael got off the bus and walked back home. It was Friday and he did not go out or play. Monday would be the President’s funeral, and Michael had that day off to watch the ceremony on the family’s 19’’ black and white screen. That screen had become all-too-familiar that weekend. It was where the family spent much of their time, watching as reporters tried to piece together what had happened.

                Michael felt many things that weekend. He wondered how anyone could willingly bring about the death he’d seen. Everyone began to question a sense of security once taken for granted, unquestioned. The President was vulnerable, and thus the very nation he guarded, could also be vulnerable.         

 Michael’s mother said the rosary and a few other prayers with her children the first night after the assassination. Then, after the funeral, life would slowly resume.

News coverage would gradually die down, and families turned away from their private television sets.

But still Michael would never forget.


                                                        End Notes:
Phone interview with Michael O’Brien, Plymouth, MA

Phone interview with Joanne Sartori, Andover, MA

http://www.massbenchmarks.org/statedata/data.htm, Total Population 1930-2010-Excel    Document

JFK Initial report-Walter Cronkite, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I

ABC TV Coverage- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y36DbAmUKw4&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc72/4176537090/

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/Life-of-John-F-Kennedy.aspx?p=5

“Nation: The Assassination”. Time Magazine. 29 November 1963.

“Nation: The Last Week”. Time Magazine. 29 November 1963.

“The Presidency: The Government Still Lives”. Time Magazine. 29 November 1963.

                 

A Friday to remember

By Jill Jansson

Brian Jansson bumped along in the Sutton’s public-school bus. It was a Friday afternoon and the second grader, fresh out of a full day of spelling, penmanship and math lessons, was eager to get home and start his weekend.

Brian thought to himself, What will I do this weekend?

Probably play a game of catch or even some football, he figured.   

Brian was on the young side for a second grader. He turned seven less than a month earlier, on October 29, and was smaller than his classmates.

The bus, stopping at each driveway at half-mile intervals, weaved its way through the side streets of the small, rural, central Massachusetts, farm town.

When the bus finally arrived at Brian’s driveway, he made his way through the aisle, down the stairs and out into the crisp, fresh, mid-November air. The light jacket he wore over his school outfit, barely shielded him from the chill.

He walked, carrying nothing but an empty lunch box.

The 500-foot driveway slopped just enough so he and his friends could sled down it once snow began to accumulate.

Brian followed the path around to the back door of the green, split-level home that his father built from the ground up that same year. It was a modest four bed-room home with two floors: the main level and the basement.

Brian pulled the glass-slider door open and stepped into the kitchen, a bright, semi-modern space.

Dropping his lunch box on the counter, he followed the sound of the television across the hardwood floors and into the “TV room,” off the kitchen.

There he found his mother, a housewife to her husband, who worked as a laborer at a wire mill in Worcester, Mass. Brian was the youngest in his family of six.  His much-older brother and two sisters were well into high school.

That Friday afternoon it was just Brian and his mother in the TV room.

It was November 22, 1963. The voices and images playing and replaying on the black and white television screen were a frenzy of news flashes.

JFK was shot at 12:30 p.m. as his car processed through downtown Dallas, waving to crowds of excited onlookers on his way to a speaking arrangement. The bullet struck the president’s neck as he collapsed into the first lady sitting beside him. JFK was immediately rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital.  

They both just watched. She sat stunned. He sat confused.

Brian knew the name, President Kennedy.

His mother and father were JFK supporters; they voted for him, talked about him at the dinner table and listened to all his speeches and public appearances on the TV.

That afternoon, mother and son watched Walter Cronkite, the CBS evening news anchor, at his desk amid stacks of papers and transcripts in the New York newsroom.

The screen scanned the scene of the downtown hotel, where President Kennedy planned to address a group of organizations. The people, who were awaiting his arrival, buzzed around the elaborately-dressed banquet tables lining the room.

There was no definite word yet on the President’s condition. “We are waiting for something more official. It is difficult certainly to go on scanty reports,” CBS affiliate, KRLD television, in Dallas reported.

President Kennedy’s death remained a rumor. “The President is dead. Totally unconfirmed, apparently,” Cronkite later reminded his listeners. 

CBS cut back to KRLD in Dallas. “The word we have is that President Kennedy is dead. This we do not know for a fact…The word we have is from a doctor on the staff at Parkman Hospital that says it is true. He was in tears as he told me, just a moment ago,” reporter, Eddie Barker, said.

It was an hour since the President was shot, Cronkite said. The sheriff officers took the suspected assassin into custody, a 25-year-old man.

Cronkite stopped midsentence. The final report came in from Dallas. President Kennedy was dead.

Removing his thick, plastic black-framed glasses and looking directly into the camera, Cronkite said, “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently, official: President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. central, standard time.”

Glancing up at the newsroom clock, he continued, “2 o’clock eastern, standard time, some 38 minutes ago.”

It was official.

Brian remembered Cronkite pausing, choked up.

His mother, eyes glued to the TV, did not get emotional. Neither did Brian.

He didn’t fully understand the gravity and finality of the report, but he knew it was big.

It had to be big. School was cancelled on Monday.

 

Endnotes:

Interview with Brian Jansson; jfklibrary.org; YouTube video—Walter Cronkite announces death of JFK