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
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