John F. Kennedy
On November 22, 1963, the 35th president of the United States, Mr. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was shot to death. Though that was many years ago, the memories are forever etched in my mind. I can still remember the very minute that I got the news that he had been killed. I was attending school that day, Clark Lee Elementary, undergoing one of my typical math lessons. It seems as though it was just yesterday that I was setting there in that chair with my new sports jacket draped over my scrawny shoulders making fun of my friend Harry over his new buzz haircut. It was about two o’clock in the day, as I remember, when the loudspeaker came on and the sound of the principal’s voice filled my ears. His usual stern, shrill voice was somewhere far away as we listened to him sob as he prepared for whatever it was that he was about to say. He immediately got my attention; I knew that this wasn’t going to be an every day announcement. “Faculty and students, may I have your attention, please,” he roared. “It is with great sorrow that I announce to you that our president…Mr. John Kennedy…has been assassinated…”
It was from that moment that my life, along with the rest of the nation, was turned completely upside-down. My adolescent heart had never known such pain as it knew at that very moment. I was stricken with grief. Tears flooded my beady eyes as I witnessed history in the making. People far and wide were torn between grief and disbelief as they mourned the loss of one of the finest men our nation had ever known. I remember my mothers tears and my father hanging his head in sadness as we watched of his murder that night on the evening news. It was unrealKennedy wasn’t just a man loved by the rich and famous, but he was loved by the middle and lower classes as well. Everything was different when he was in office; the world wasn’t like we know it today
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