Post Here Only If You Were Alive During JFK's Presidency

In 1960, we young people were so excited to have a young, handsome man with a pretty wife and adorable little children in the White House. We had such hope then. I was 16 and in class when it was announced over the PA system that Kennedy had been shot. I remember as I walked home from school, people were crying in the streets. We were all glued to our TV's and when it was announced that he has died, I also cried. I remember watching the funeral procession and feeling so heartbroken. As I write about this, I am feeling rather sad again.

I have not read the other posts yet; sorry if duplicative.

Remember the last Ike years & JFK years vividly.
Lived in NC near Ft. Bragg & Seymour Johnson AFB.
We did air raid drills frequently in school.
Watched a lot of cheesy 50's sci-fi nuclear war-survival flicks.
There were TV ads about "retaking" E. Europe from Soviet domination.
Kruschev was blustering & threatening to attack W. Berlin, etc.
All we heard on the news was Berlin, Berlin...
Mood was tense--not openly fearful, but on edge.
I always believed the sexual revolution was in part a reaction to the sense
that young people might not live long: the missiles might be fired.
In that context, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought all the repressed angst
into the open. War seemed inevitable. Then Kruschev backed down w/o war.

A thaw seemed to occur--I recall JFK's American Univ. speech & Test Ban treaty.
1963 felt very different. People relaxed. (That is why the Vietnam escalation
of late 1965 was such an unwelcome shock: it seemed unnecessary & unwarranted.)
The Civil Rights movement still seemed pure, nonviolent, & a consensus good thing
among most young people I knew. Idealism had a brief moment in 1963.
The assassination did not kill it. Vietnam & riots did.

The teacher quietly told us JFK had been shot and had died. We were stunned.
There was a "shocky" numb feeling--no one could say anything.

For us kids, the assassination was very sad--like losing your Dad suddenly.
But it did not seem as unbelievable to us as it may have to our parents.
We did not have decades of peaceful politics in our memories.
Just incredibly sad. And soon enough, it was the "new normal" as many other
assassinations, war, riots followed.

I was 7 years old and in the first grade at the time of his death. It was a Friday and we had just come in from our noon recess. Our teacher was sitting at her desk crying. We all sat down quietly and she told us what had happened and then she told us to put our things away and to get ready to go home. The busses would be there soon. I honestly think I was more upset that our teacher was crying. It was very upsetting to see her in such a state and when you are little you just don't expect that.
For the next several days our TV stayed on all the time. there were only three channels to choose from and all three had only coverage of the president's death, sketchy information on Lee Harvey Oswald, his death, and ofcourse the funeral. I remember feeling so sad for Jackie and her children at that time. I also remember feeling as though the whole world had stopped. It had for me because there was nothing on TV but sadness.

I wasn't impressed with this production either. The actors were fine but you are right. It seemed as though they were more interested in having the actors look like the people they were portraying and it was only highlights of certain events we already know about. It was interesting but nothing special. It also seemed strange that the entire family wasn't portrayed.
Try the 1990 mini series, "The Kennedys of Massachusetts". I found that one to be a far more interesting production.

You are the same age as my son. He was born in 1980 too.

Face it girls.... I'm older and I have more insurance!

I was 13 and in the 8th grade in South Miami, FL. Just after lunch, someone in study hall had a small transistor radio, and that's how we got the first news bulletin. The teacher let us listen until the period was over. Then the principal came on the PA system, confirmed that JFK was dead, canceled the rest of our classes, and also told us to be careful not to say anything that we might regret. The deep south was no friend of JFK, and that's why she gave that caution.

Our family was liberal, so we didn't share the attitudes of a lot of people in the south. Our family was pretty devastated, because my father had recently served in the Kennedy administration before we moved to FL because he took a college teaching position. He had been in the Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, and had actually worked w/JFK. My dad, a social gerontologist, had come up with the idea for what eventually became the Foster Grandparent program, and he got Sargent Shriver to help him bring the idea to Kennedy, who loved the idea and told them to implement it. So I think my dad was hit hard by the assassination. And I had actually seen Kennedy in person on more than one occasion (e.g., when he gave the dedication at the opening of Virginia's Dulles Airport, or when he and Jackie happened to be attending a gala theater event near where we were at the time). So it affected me deeply as well. I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach for several hours after JFK's death.

On the afternoon of 11/22/63 after I went home from school, I remember that we all just sort of walked around the house looking at each other, saying things like, "I can't believe this actually happened." But on Saturday morning, the Miami Herald had the largest front-page headline above the fold that I've ever seen before or since. It said simply, "KENNEDY DEAD." So we knew it hadn't been a bad dream. And of course we watched the TV coverage all weekend, including Lee Harvey Oswald's murder and JFK's funeral.

I think it was arguably the second worst day of my life, right behind 9/11/01. It hit me harder than the deaths of my grandparents or parents, probably because I was so young. (Whereas my grandparents died far away from me when I was in grad school; and my parents died far away from me at a very advanced age after long illnesses when I was in my 50s.)

I still miss JFK and that era, and I always will. I think he could have had a great second term. Presidents sometimes don't hit their stride until their second term, and I think JFK would have improved in a second term. I will always feel that America was robbed of a charismatic leader who could have been really outstanding.

One of the things I really liked about JFK was his wonderful sense of humor, which was often self-effacing. We loved to watch his many TV news conferences because they were so entertaining. If you ever get the chance, try watching some of them if they show up on YouTube. Then you'll see one reason why Kennedy was so loved.

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