A Picture Postcard from Long Ago

This should really appear in somewhat sepia tones on your monitor because it's about an event that happened in another, more hopeful America, a nation that I think may have vanished forever on this day fifty-seven years ago. That was the day John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas.

As I typed that I'm chastened to realize how much has passed since that day. For you, this is probably like reading about the first walk on the moon's surface or the Fall of Saigon. For me and my generation, this is a part of who we are because we remember all of these events (perhaps because and/or despite what followed them).

JFK wasn't a better person than those whom we have chosen since to occupy the White House nor was he worse-if events and circumstances make a person who can and will master them, then he was a man of a different time and all of us can't pretend to be able to compare and contrast then to now. We were and now we are. And those we lost along the way have only us to bear their witness. That some of then looks a lot like some of now is as much a function of perspective as it is of situations.

All my memories of the days of coverage in the aftermath of his assassination are black and white. They are not the misty water-colored memories, the song would have me believe of the way we were but rather, grainy high contrast black and white moments stapled to special editions of newspapers and hurled at us by television stations engaged and engaging in their first national seance. 

We gathered in our living rooms or those without a TV stood on sidewalks in front of appliance stores to watch over and over again the film clips as the Secret Service agent clambered up the back of the moving limo, Jackie struggled to cradle the dying man's head, and Walter Cronkite removed his glasses and gathered himself before reading the teletype news telling us the youngest man ever elected President was now dead.

And as we headed home to houses with mothers, 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 that something had changed, but we didn't know what and we didn’t know how much. All those years on, many of us still don't.

-bill kenny