Silly Little Country

November 22

It is now past 6 pm here and I have seen NO observation that in 1963 John F. Kennedy was assassinated on this day.
In past years this has been observed strenuously. This is very interesting. Maybe it was the same last year - for some reason I just thought about it today.
That day in 1963 was truly extraordinary and I have memories about it I carry with more confidence that I do about possibly more personally important days in the interim.
I recall heading for history class with the news radio, oddly, being broadcast on the school PA system (very unusual) and I recall hearing on that broadcast discussions of what Mrs Johnson was saying (though there was no established context at that point so we had no idea who she was). I recall walking into history class, and seeing my history teacher (who was excellent, at least I thought so then, but I cannot recall his name) in tears. He filled us in.
The school sent us all home early.
I arrived home to see my parents unprecedentedly in tears.
What a date in history for little me.
And it is funny how fate works - one of Milton Friedman's best comments in my view, is the one that dismisses both halves of Kennedy's "do what you can do" speech as unworthy of a proper society (and I now agree with Friedman, though I could not have thought it through back then).
What were the Kennedys? The Lady Di's of their times - the symbols of the break from the '50s, which was both one of the most productive times in history and, I suspect as a result, the one that built up more tension for change than it could handle.
Still, those tears, from my history teacher in front of his class trying to maintain composure, and from my father, mowing the lawn trying to fight them back that day, tell me that this event cut deeply into the dreams and hopes of the generation before me.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:18 PM