It's not just Thanksgiving

Today, the fourth Thursday in November, is Thanksgiving in the USA and all the best of the holiday to you and yours if you observe it.

As a kid I got confused that some holidays were fixed and others movable (this was before we had a Monday holiday law, which happened shortly after the end of the Civil War) and I'd lose sight that Christmas Day was always December 25th, whatever day in the week that proved to be (you always hoped for a Sunday because that way you got credit for church, twice, and had more time to play with whatever you had received for Christmas). I never really understood, and still don't, how some years Easter 'came early' in March and other years it was 'late' in April. I suppose I could ask the Pope to explain it, but he'd go through his 'naughty and nice' book, find my name where I'd prefer he not see it, and tell me 'no chocolate for you!'

But today, 22 November, isn't just Thanksgiving in the USA.
Today is the day, forty-four years ago that President John F. Kennedy, was murdered in Dallas, Texas. I was barely eleven and a half years old and in 5th grade at St Peter School in New Brunswick, NJ (in Sister Thomas Anne's class in the basement of what was still a brand-new building).
The announcement came over the PA from the Principal's office, Sister Immaculata, through the speaker in the corner of the room near the end of the school day and in the blink of an eye, not just for me, but for my entire generation and perhaps all who followed us, the carefree innocence of childhood was over.

As children we couldn't fathom what would cause anyone to want to kill anyone else (the violence on our streets and in our homes now was very different back then, and how we gathered and processed information was different as well), and as we headed home to houses with mothers and fathers and siblings gathered around the radio, there were only three TV stations in those days and 'live' broadcasting was a cumbersome operation, radio was faster and newspapers rushed out 'special editions', I think we all had a dim awareness something had changed, but we didn't know what and how much. A lifetime later, many of us still don't.
-bill kenny