I was in the fourth grade when it happened. The principal told us what had happened over the loud speaker. I remember being very sad the next few days.
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11-22-63.......what were you doing when you heard the news
- Thread starter gregg75
- Start date
I was floating around in some amniotic fluid.
I was in first grade. School was dismissed and buses took us home. I cried. In my mind I thought John might be my teacher's son. Her name was Mrs. Kennedy. I cried because she looked so sad as she told us. JFK had quite the image, at least to me, and at that young age I annoyed parents with 'who is it?' when the phone rang. My Dad, would sometimes joke it was the President and I'd beg to talk to him. After he figured out I was more annoying when he said that, that 'bit' quickly stopped.
I was a junior in high school and working the board after school (or when skipping classes) at WCUY in Cleveland. The news came down the ABC wire, and we put their feed on live. The manager, who was the only other person at the station at the time (an FM in 1963 with about zero billing), took over the board and I went down the block to the radio service - appliance -record shop and begged to borrow a few classical albums to play when ABC was not giving us a feed. It was pretty much that for the next several days.
I was a 18-year old radioman aboard a US destroyer sailing outbound in the Straits of Juan de Fuca from Washington State's Dabob Bay. It was cold and the seas were very rough. We were still within signal distance of land based radio so had the ship's entertainment radios on throughout - except in the radio shack itself. I was on my hands and knees in Radio Central cleaning the big rubber mats that covered the deck when the Communications Officer burst into the shack yelling that the president had been shot. I remember thinking at that very moment how weird "President Johnson" sounded but little did I know at that time how much that event would change not only my military experience but that of the whole nation...and for decades to come.
I'm feeling young right now compared to Landtuna and David Eduardo. 
Age 11 - Junior High. I had just started 7th grade in September at this new school, which had a public address system, so the Principal announced it to all the classes at once, around 11:00 AM, IIRC. During lunch, I was surprised to see a lot of kids crying. My town was a very conservative suburb of Los Angeles - the biggest employer of fathers in town was Lockheed in Burbank (where "Bob Hope" Airport is now), which made HUGE money off the Cold War. Democrats were not popular there. So even though my parents and their friends were mostly liberal, I was surprised, and rather touched, to see such an outpouring of emotion.
I don't remember that they let us out of school early, but I may be remembering incorrectly.
Age 11 - Junior High. I had just started 7th grade in September at this new school, which had a public address system, so the Principal announced it to all the classes at once, around 11:00 AM, IIRC. During lunch, I was surprised to see a lot of kids crying. My town was a very conservative suburb of Los Angeles - the biggest employer of fathers in town was Lockheed in Burbank (where "Bob Hope" Airport is now), which made HUGE money off the Cold War. Democrats were not popular there. So even though my parents and their friends were mostly liberal, I was surprised, and rather touched, to see such an outpouring of emotion.
I don't remember that they let us out of school early, but I may be remembering incorrectly.
I wasn't born yet when it happened, but I know all about it from history class and all that.
Weren't born yet? You must be a young guy no older than....uh...54? God, I feel so old...
John Chancellor was not in the Dallas Police garage when Oswald was shot. He was in West Berlin. Tom Pettit was NBC's man on the scene.
Fun fact: Tom Pettit broke into NBC's West Coast programming(believe it was Concentration?) for the bulletins. Once the New York people took over, he went to Dallas.
Second grade, Rose Elementary School, Escondido, California. It was recess and a girl in my class told me she heard JFK was shot. I didn't make much of it at the time until class reconvened. At around 11:45 PST, the principal got on the loudspeaker and announced "President Kennedy is dead." The class went up in a singular collective gasp. Class was dismissed early. At home when TV broke in with the bulletins, mom was out of sorts. She called dad, who was working at Sears in electronics. When he heard mom's voice, he was about to come home, thinking something happened to one of us Cook kids. Mom said "No! Turn the TVs on! The president has been shot!" The weekend would not be the same.
Actually Oswald's shooting had nothngn to do with no NFL games on TV that Sunday. Sometime on Friday afternoon CBS announced there would be no entertainbment programming of commercial announcements until after the President's funeral.
In college football most games were made up the next week as the weekend of the assassination was pretty much the end of the college regular season. Also the NBA and NHL(MUCH less popular than now) also did play games that weekend.(The NHL had(and still does) have a contract for a Saturday Night game in Canada which needed to be fulfilled)
Also another fun fact about the day of the Kennedy Assassination and the NFL. That morning before the assassination the Detroit Lions board of directors approved the sale of the team to William Clay Ford for $4.5 million
Also another fun fact about the day of the Kennedy Assassination and the NFL. That morning before the assassination the Detroit Lions board of directors approved the sale of the team to William Clay Ford for $4.5 million
That Saturday night hockey game has been an institution in the Frozen North for many, many years - radio broadcasts proceeding TV today. The entire country stopped at one time to listen - it was akin to the Super Bowl being played every weekend.
The Celtics were scheduled to play a home-and-home series with the Sixers on Friday and Saturday night. Originally, only the Friday game was postponed, but the following day, both the Saturday game and a Sunday game n Detroit also were put on hold. That meant that they went from 11/20 to 11/26 without playing any games. The Celtics' Friday game was rescheduled for 1/11, while the Saturday contest was played on 1/31. The game in Detroit was rescheduled for 2/24, giving the Celts a brutal three road games in three nights stretch (NY and Baltimore).
Another home-and-home series that was postponed that weekend was the Lakers-Warriors matchup that was to have the teams playing in SF on Friday and LA on Saturday. The SF game was played on 1/10--which forced the Warriors originally scheduled home game vs. the Knicks to be played the night before. The game in LA was played on 1/26--which meant the two teams had a Home-Away-Home series over three nights, with the middle game on 1/25 in SF.
I was exactly just over 4 years old when this happened. I obviously can't confirm this, but I do recall watching the airplane landing in DC with the body aboard, and Johnson's brief remarks. I didn't understand it, but my parents were engrossed and that is why I was too. I didn't realize how important it was at the time, but my parents reaction made an impact. Isn't this a true certain parent/child connection? I believe it is.
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my grandmom was watching a soap opera. might have been the doctors(which at that time was an anthology drama that presented one self-contained story per episode) or maybe it was as the world turns. The first bulletin on JFK was maybe 20 seconds long and they cut back in to the soap opera. less than a minute or two later they interrupted with a second bulletin a bit more detailed, then back to the soap opera. at some point, they cut off the soap opera entirety and switched to walter cronkite in a newsroom. if it was the doctors on nbc maybe it was chet huntley. maybe i'm wrong since the doctors aired at 2:30 and jfk was shot at 1:30, it was atwt.
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