I have a granddaughter who enrolled for a class that focused on the Cold War with a particular emphasis on the nineteen sixties and seventies. I have been fascinated to hear her views on that era because that was a time when, like her, I was coming of age. Perhaps the most defining moment in those years came on November 22, 1963, when I had only days before celebrated by fifteenth birthday with gifts from my mother that assured me that she finally believed that I was no longer a little girl. I was a sophomore in high school studying subjects like Biology and Geometry, teasing my hair and wearing pink lipstick. Life was feeling upbeat and exciting as I held a seat on the Student Council and joined the Medical Careers Club while writing for the school newspaper. Best of all I still had my all time favorite teacher, Father Shane, for English where I was thriving. 

On the day before November 22, Father Shane had arranged for our class to attend a symphony concert in downtown Houston. Classmates and I rode to the event in the car of one of our friends who had already turned sixteen and thereby had secured her driver’s license. As we were riding down Interstate 45 from the Hobby Airport area we were passed by an entourage of vehicles accompanying President John F. Kennedy who had come to Houston to raise campaign funds and meet with political supporters. It was an exciting moment for all of us who generally were huge fans of the president even though none of us were yet eligible to vote. Somehow seeing him whiz by us made the day even more exciting than it might otherwise have been. I told my friends about the time I had seen him ride in a open car no more than a few feet away from me as I stood with my mother and brothers under the freeway near Hobby Airport. He had looked over at us and waved with a big smile on his face. It was a golden moment for everyone.

I don’t recall much about the concert that we attended other than the fact that Father Shane had taught us how to watch the conductor as a cue for when to remain silent and when to applaud. We had felt quite sophisticated with our learned manners. We would also buzz about our brief encounter with President Kennedy even though we had only seen his car rushing past. The following day, on November 22, we suspected that Father Shane would briefly discuss the nuances of the music that we had heard before transitioning into a lesson. 

The class had barely begun when one of the nuns who worked at the school rushed through the door declaring that the president had been shot in Dallas. My first instinct was to laugh at her comment because she often popped in to tease us with silly jokes. Somehow, though, this bit of dark humor did not feel right so I held back my laughter following the cues from Father Shane and my fellow classmates. It took a few seconds before I read the expression on her face and realized that she was not attempting to be funny, I suppose I went into a state of shock at that point. I only recall sitting among my friends feeling all alone. It was almost an out of body experience much like I had endured when my father died. We simply sat at our desks without making a sound, without daring to even move. 

There was a later announcement that the President had died. In that moment I heard a few sobs and saw that some of my friends had put their heads down on their desks. I simply sat frozen and feeling as though somehow the world had ended once again. My emotions were rioting in my head as disbelief, sorrow, and even fear overtook my thoughts. Somehow time both stopped and rush forward at the same moment. Before long I was walking home to the comfort of my mother and my brothers. 

The next days were cold and dreary as though the weather itself changed to reflect the mood of the nation. For the first time in my memory my mother kept the television tuned to the hour by hour reports that seemed to only become more and more disturbing. I watched in horror as Jack Ruby shot and killed the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. It was the first time I had witnessed a murder in real time. 

We mostly stayed home but on the day of John Kennedy’s funeral Mama decided that she wanted to be with her mother. We sat in Grandma Ulrich’s tiny living room warmed by a gas stove that glowed in the darkened room. I remember little John John Kennedy, Jr. saluting his father and Jackie Kennedy wearing a long black widow’s veil as she walked behind the horse drawn caisson carrying her husband. The sound of the drumbeat became permanently embossed in my memory. I only need to hear a few seconds of it and I am once again sobbing for our wounded president. 

Somehow our nation’s reaction to the death of a president, a war in Vietnam that seemed endless and a struggle for civil rights for all of our citizens would dominate the rest of the nineteen sixties and much of the first half of the nineteen seventies. I began to fully understand that I would be stepping into a world far more chaotic than the safe little hideaway of my home. Unimaginable changes lay ahead that would push me into adulthood far sooner than I had ever anticipated. My family and my school would prepare me well for what was to come.