Reflections on the Way We Were: Childress High School Class of 1963: November 22 1963

Painting by Yahn Smith

Today the blog begins a new, intermittent series of posts (and we hope comments) on "The Times of Our Lives" ... discussions and memories of the events and experiences which shaped our lives after our graduation from CHS, which along with the seminal personalities and sensibilities we had developed by May 1963, caused us to become the sui generis, yet "connected" individuals we are today.

There are many such events ... the war in Vietnam; all the trauma of 1968 (the Tet offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the chaos at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the violent explosion of the first major rift in American society itself since the Civil War); the manned landing, and Neil Armstrong's first walk on the moon in 1969 (fulfilling John F. Kennedy's "vision") and subsequent space exploration; the first OPEC power play (from which we unfortunately did not learn, and haven't yet); the "Yom Kippur War" (instigated by Arab countries, won by Israel, and certainly a huge influence on the dynamics of the Middle East even today); the first Palestinian intifada (1987, while Yahn and I were just "next door" in Egypt); the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993; the rise and entrenchment of extremely partisan and divisive politics, and more.

I had been turning this idea over in my mind, as well as pondering the specific subject for the first post, when just a few days ago, in the newly-inaugurated "Quote of the Day", there was this from John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. I'm not sure if there was some psychic vibe going (which might open up a whole new topic), but I immediately called Nicki and broached the idea, which she received with gratifying enthusiasm. Or else she was too polite to tell me if she did have negative thoughts....

Nevertheless, I think that arguably the most shocking, life-changing and perspective-altering event to collectively befall our generation ... at least in our still formative years and until the terrible day of September 11, 2001 ... was the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. I have heard our parents and grandparents say many times over the years that they would never ever forget what happened on December 7, 1941 ... where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, how they felt ... when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor hurtled the U.S. into World War II. But it was not until I was barely 17, not long out of a small high school in a small town, and in my freshman year at Texas Tech, that I had any personal frame of reference for the type of occurrence ... catastrophe ... our elders had faced, leading to the genesis of "The Greatest Generation" as Tom Brokaw has called them.

Although there may be diverse conclusions to be drawn, and many opinions as to the sociological and psychological effects the assassination had on our generation, and on our country as a whole, I am going to avoid speculation and conjecture at this juncture and only share with you what happened to me on that awful day, and in the days immediately following. And I hope others will share memories and thoughts as well.

That beautiful fall at Texas Tech, I counted myself fortunate to be the only freshman who was then allowed to actually work as part of the staff of The Daily Toreador, the Tech student newspaper. In accordance with my avocation and following my declared major in journalism, I had deliberately gotten both my freshman English requirements out of the way that summer, a prerequisite, and I had then been given a waiver to join Toreador while simultaneously taking the first required journalism course. I recall I loved working with the upperclassmen who ran the paper, and was absolutely delighted to be assigned to cover even quotidian things such as student government meetings, dorm councils, Panhellenic activities, etc.

On the Friday before the Thanksgiving holidays, during the noon hour (CST), my roommate Susie Willingham and I were just coming out of the cafeteria at Knapp Hall when we saw a large group gathered around the television in the reception room. Curious, we wandered in, just in time to hear the announcer (I think it was either Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather, but I am not sure) intone: "... reports that a shot has been fired at the Presidential motorcade in downtown Dallas. No word yet as to the condition of the President and Mrs. Kennedy, whose car sped from the scene...."

Absolute and utter shock!!!! That someone could actually shoot at the President of the United States!!! It took just a minute, and then my journalistic instincts kicked in ... and I began running as fast as I could, Susie unthinkingly running behind me, toward the offices of the Toreador.

I remember we barreled through the central Administration Building, almost knocking two professors off their feet in our mad scramble. As one of them began to remonstrate, I gabbled out "Haven't you heard!!!! Someone shot at the President!!" before taking flight again and leaving them standing there open-mouthed. When we arrived at the Toreador office, Susie shrugged helplessly and opted to return to the dorm, since she didn't work on the paper. And then I walked into the outer office and saw ... about six people, including Artie Shaw, the Sports Editor ... and heard the bells and clatter of the UPI and AP wire services in the background. I looked at Artie, and at my five fellow lower-tier staffers (a/k/a grunts and/or go-fers) and asked in a rush, "Have you heard? What's happening on the wires? Where is everyone? What are we going to do???"

I remembered vaguely as I stood there that there was an out-of-town football game between the Tech Red Raiders and the UT Longhorns the next day ... BIG game!!! ... but it was Friday, and the game was Saturday ... and where was everyone??? Artie quieted me, and the others, and explained that all the masthead (core) staff of the Toreador had already left for pre-game partying in Austin, having "put to bed" (sent to to be published) the last paper of the week the preceding night. Artie was the exception, and he had not planned to leave Lubbock until early Saturday morning.

As we absorbed this, we heard the AP and UPI bells start again ... ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.... In those days, whenever an important story came across the wire services, it was preceded by a series of bells, the number of bells denoting the importance of the story. I'd first learned about this when I worked at The Childress Index during the summer of 1962 ... the summer Marilyn Monroe died, and Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were dueling it out in the baseball stats ... and I had of course become reaccustomed to it on Toreador. But I had never heard a story come across the wire with more than three bells max ... until I heard those bells, so insistent, so loud ... and I began mentally, silently counting, as I'm sure everyone in the room was doing: "One, two, three, four, five, six...." Oh my God! Six bells!!!!" We all ran to gather around the wire and saw as the teletype clanked out, in its own dull yet urgent signature language, with typical spare phraseology: "Confirmed...President Kennedy shot...Taken to Parkland Hospital in Dallas....Condition unknown." Then the wire fell silent ... the passage of time seemed huge (though it was only seconds) before any of us could speak. And then there was a babble of "Oh my god! He was hit!!!" "He'll be all right, they got him to the hospital...." "What in hell...." "How could this happen...."

But no sooner did we begin to find coherent speech and thought than the bells started again ... and we all began our silent count.... ding, ding, ding ... one, two, three ... ten (10!!) bells ... and the chunk-a-chunk staccato of the wire service machines: "Kennedy's injuries reported serious." Then silence, fear, an attempt to comfort and reassure each other.... And we waited ... until: ding, ding, ding ... one two three ... fourteen (14!!!) bells: "Kennedy's condition grave." Stunned silence, and creeping dread. Then: ding, ding, ding ... "One, two three (we were all counting now in low, but audible whispers) ... eighteen ... EIGHTEEN (18!!!) bells." And the teletype: "CBS News reports that a priest has been called to Parkland Hospital ...." And silence ... one of the longest silences I can remember, both actually and metaphorically ... as we looked around at each with horror and shock and dawning grief flashing from face to face. We waited ... and waited ... so loooong.....so looong.... We found ourselves wanting the bells to start again, just to break the tension ... but dreading that they would.

Finally... the bells...ding, ding, ding...TWENTY-TWO (Oh my God! 22 BELLS!!) ... then a profound, resonating silence... and then the short rat-a-tat burst of the teletype, with two terse words: "Kennedy Dead." And silence again ... until some minutes later the machines jarringly and almost insultingly sprang to life, as reporters rushed to file their stories on the incident, and background material ... the bells now back to a reasonable level of three or four ... but I think we were beyond hearing them by then....

Finally Artie, the seasoned reporter, the solid upperclassman in our midst, said: "Well, we're not much of a staff ... but we've got to get an "Extra" out tonight." And somehow, we did ... all of us ripping (from the wire services), and reading, and writing, and proofing ... Artie pulling the issue together, and holding us together. We put the "Extra" to bed around 10:30 or 11:00 that night ... and then, after all the mercifully thought-dulling activity of the afternoon and evening, we left the office to confront the reality of what had happened, and try to put ourselves to bed, in a dark, haunted, sleepless night.

The next few days are still a blur. Watching television with friends at a boyfriend's apartment ... Oswald being transferred from the Dallas jail, being shot LIVE ON TELEVISION by Jack Ruby ... the mind almost refused to comprehend and process ... the absolute cessation of normal activity and commerce, shuttered movie theaters, no televison broadcasts of anything except as they related to John F. Kennedy, and his presidency, the assassination ... that unspeakable, evil word, "assassination", hanging heavy in the air.... And then ... the funeral, the riderless horse, the stricken and stoic Mrs. Kennedy ... and just when we knew it could not be worse, or more tragically beautiful, that our hearts could not break more than they already had ... John-John saluted his father's casket....

No matter your politics ... if any of us really had many political beliefs of our own that were not just generally reflections of our parents' thinking (for the record, my family was Republican then and didn't think very much of JFK ... except for some unexplained maverick liberal tendencies on my grandmother's part) ... I think it is likely that the assassination affected all of us deeply, in our core beings, our sense of security and who we were as a nation... and that day remains burned in our memories these long years later.

We would be honored to hear your recollections of that time.

Footnote: Texas Tech had canceled classes until after the Thanksgiving weekend, so I went with Susie to Dallas earlier than we had originally planned. In Dallas, she introduced me to her friend and former Highland Park High School classmate Kirk Wade, then at UT Austin ... and at Kirk's house one afternoon, watching Texas play Texas A&M, I met Henry Wade ... Dallas District Attorney for many, many years and Kirk's uncle (and for those who have missed it previously, the "Wade" in the landmark case Roe v. Wade in 1973). And Uncle Henry, perhaps feeling the effects of a long schmooze with his friend "J.D. Black", let drop to me in conversation that despite wild speculation to the contrary, he and the Dallas Police were convinced that, improbable as it might seem, both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby had acted alone and independently of each other. Uncle Henry didn't tell me that our conversation was "off the record" ... it probably didn't occur to him that he needed to ... after all, I was just a college girl friend of his nephew Kirk. Nevertheless, perhaps he should have thought twice ... because I duly reported the remark to the Toreador when I returned, where it appeared in a story a good two or three days before Uncle Henry gave his press conference to make a formal announcement of that determination to the country and the world. Never got credit for the scoop ... but I (and Kirk and Uncle Henry, wherever he may be) know....