Where were you?

I was in first grade. The principal came on the intercom and announced what had happened, and all the teachers started crying.

 

Third grade, Mrs Cathy's class at Madison Pike Elementary, when the announcement came over the PA system.

 

Working at Boeing/Seattle

 

Pretty much the same 6th grade scenario, except the Principal called our little Jewish teach out into the hall and she came back in weeping.

We were dismissed early.

My step dad was stationed at Quonset Point, RI... And, he had come through our base on hos way to MA. Often.

There was a real sense of disbelief, the surreal and utter shock...

 

I was 4 yrs old and saw it on tv. They were talking about how the bullet entered his head. I never have forgotten that.

 

My wife and I were driving from Wickliffe, Kentucky to Paducah, when Ted Hite came on the radio (WKYB) to breathlessly announce that the President had been shot.

I looked over to Phyllis, and tears were running down her face.

When we got home, I immediately headed for the television station where I worked as a reporter-anchor. We were an NBC affiliate, so we were watching the NBC News coverage, with Chet Huntley, joined by Frank McGee. Around one o'clock, Huntley paused, dropped his eyes away from the camera as if gathering himself for what he was about to say. Then he reported that the President had died.

We set about the task of getting local angles together, going out and interviewing residents for reaction. It was raining that day, and the thought ran through my mind: "even the heavens are weeping."

This was the same weekend that the television station (WPSD Paducah) was to put on a 15-hour telethon to raise money for handicapped children and adults at Easter Seal Centers in Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, West Tennessee and Southeast Missouri (our signal reached into those states). Officials of the sponsoring Lions Clubs, the TV station and the Easter Seal Centers met with the host, Art James. Art hosted an NBC game show at the time and had been asked to emcee the telethon.

They all agreed that raising the money was too important not to go ahead. So we went on the air that Saturday night, but the atmosphere was obviously not the same as usual.

In the control room a monitor is always plugged into NBC's signal. As the telethon continued into Sunday morning, I was standing in the control when suddenly Lee Harvey Oswald appeared on the monitor. The director immediately punched the picture up on the air. Tom Pettitt of NBC News was reporting from the jail, when suddenly it happened.

Pettitt practically screamed into the microphone, "He's been shot! Lee Harvey Oswald has been shot!" What we saw were several officers on top of the shooter. We learned later that his name was Jack Ruby, and that Oswald was dead.

Imagine trying to go back to a telethon and raise money after that. But somehow we got back on track and the telethon ended at 1:00 p,m Sunday afternoon. I don't remember how much we raised, but it was more than ever before.

The three networks staged telethons of their own. Their coverage of the shooting and subsequent events went 24 hours a day until after the funeral--without commercials.

Twenty-five years later, I stood at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, facing the Texas School Book Depository, and looking at the nearby grassy knoll, where some believe a second assassin was hiding. My colleagues and I stood there silently, watching traffic go by, as memories of November 22, 1963 flooded back in.

 

I was 4 at the time so it had little impact on me, but I recall my parents telling us that at the time we were in the car and the radio was on ( this would have been unusual I think, so it must have been newstime) and then dad pulled the car over to the side of the road to hear more and talk to mum. Apparently there were quite a number of cars that did so and people got out to talk about it because it was so shocking.

This would have been Adelaide South Australia.:type:

There would have been a significant time lag as well.

 

First semester college freshman--watching T.V. in the dorm breakroom. May have seen it live. Also saw the shooting of Oswald--live.

Mystery Babylon is falling.

Are we ready?

Bro. James

 

I was working in my office at the Baptist Student Center at Berea College, my first ministry assignment out of seminary. The Minister of Education at Berea Baptist Church, adjacent to our center, came running over to tell me, and we both went to his home to see the television accounts.

Being the new kid on the block, I was to preach on Thanksgiving Day, not long thereafter, for the entire student body in their chapel service. What a responsibility and what an opportunity, at the same time!

 

First grade in a one room school in eastern Kentucky. A neighbor to the school came over and told the teacher, she then told us and home.

 

I was a little more than a year old. Little did I know that years later I'd learn that my government covered up who actually killed JFK.

 

It is interesting how events like that draw us together. For my part I was unborn when JFK was killed.

What other events have the same impact? Where were you when . . .
. . . the World Trade Center fell? (10 years ago this year)
. . . the space shuttle Challenger exploded? (25 years ago last month)

Those two are pretty much gimmes to me. What other events would you place in that category? For my own case I remember the fall of the Iranian embassy in 1979, especially since I knew someone there. When Regan was shot in 1981. The space shuttle Columbia loss in 2003.

For my own history I told my children yesterday that 20 years ago I invaded a foreign country. Where was I 20 years ago today? In Iraq with the 24th infantry division. That made no impression on my kids. Anything that happened 20 years ago must be ancient history right?

 

I was six months old. In Seattle. Watching television.