DAVE ROSS

It was the crying

Nov 22, 2013, 6:48 AM | Updated: 9:42 am

FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 25, 1963 file photo, 3-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes his father's casket in Washington, three days after the president was assassinated in Dallas. Widow Jacqueline Kennedy, center, and daughter Caroline Kennedy are accompanied by the late president's brothers Sen. Edward Kennedy, left, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. (AP Photo/File) FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 25, 1963 file photo, Caroline Kennedy, 5, looks to her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy, as she clutches her hand, accompanied by John F. Kennedy, Jr., 3, while leaving St. Matthew's Cathedral after the funeral Mass for President John F. Kennedy in Washington. It is his third birthday; his sister will turn 6 two days later. Behind them are Robert P. Fitzgerald, first cousin of the president, Rose Kennedy, mother of the president, and Robert F. Kennedy, his brother, far right. Men at left are unidentified. (AP Photo/William C. Allen, File) FILE - In this Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963 file photo, the flag-draped casket of President John F. Kennedy lies in state in the East Room of the White House in Washington. "Jackie Kennedy sent word that she wanted the East Room, where the president would lie in state, to look as it did when Lincoln's body lay there," remembers Richard Goodwin, a speechwriter and adviser to the administration. He and others went to work. Someone was sent to the Library of Congress for a sketch and a newspaper description from Lincoln's time; artists and upholsterers were called in, and black crepe was carefully hung. "In the midst of all these activities we would alternately break down in tears," Goodwin says. (AP Photo) FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 photo from the White House via the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library in Boston, Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as president as Jacqueline Kennedy stands at his side in the cabin of the presidential plane on the ground at Love Field in Dallas. Judge Sarah T. Hughes, a Kennedy appointee to the Federal court, left, administers the oath. In background, from left are, Associate Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff, holding microphone; Jack Valenti, administrative assistant to Johnson; Rep. Albert Thomas, D-Texas.; Lady Bird Johnson; and Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Texas. (AP Photo/White House, Cecil Stoughton, via the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Boston) FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, women burst into tears outside Parkland Hospital upon hearing that President John F. Kennedy died from a shooting while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. (AP Photo/File) FILE - This Nov. 22, 1963 file photo shows the Texas Theatre where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested after U.S. President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas. The Warren Commission said Oswald left the book depository moments after shots were fired from the sixth floor, returned by bus and cab to his rooming house, then ventured out again _ soon encountering a Dallas police officer who stopped him based on descriptions of the assassination suspect. According to the commission, Oswald fatally shot Patrolman J.D. Tippit with a handgun, then fled into the nearby movie theater. (AP Photo) FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, Jacqueline Kennedy, with bloodstains on her clothes, holds hands with her brother-in-law, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, as the coffin carrying the body of President John F. Kennedy is placed in an ambulance after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. near Washington. President Kennedy was assassinated earlier that afternoon in Dallas. (AP Photo)  FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, a U.S. flag flies at half-staff in front of Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas where President John F. Kennedy was declared dead after being shot. When the end came, eyes turned to Jacqueline Kennedy at her husband's side. Dr. Robert McClelland recalls a kiss. Dr. Kenneth Salyer, who had done external cardiac massage, says, "She sort of laid on his chest ... in a sort of compassionate motion." (AP Photo/RAJ) FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, President John F. Kennedy slumps down in the back seat of the Presidential limousine as it speeds along Elm Street toward the Stemmons Freeway overpass in Dallas after being fatally shot. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy leans over the president as Secret Service agent Clint Hill pushes her back to her seat. "She's going to go flying off the back of the car," Hill thought as he tried to secure the first lady. (AP Photo/James W. "Ike" Altgens) FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, seen through the foreground convertible's windshield, President John F. Kennedy's hand reaches toward his head within seconds of being fatally shot as first lady Jacqueline Kennedy holds his forearm as the motorcade proceeds along Elm Street past the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. Gov. John Connally was also shot. (AP Photo/James W. "Ike" Altgens) FILE - In this Friday morning, Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, President John F. Kennedy, center, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson, center right, walk with others in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. Later in the morning, they headed to Dallas for a motorcade to a planned luncheon speech. It was part of a trip to help mend a rift among Texas Democrats and try to secure the state for Kennedy in the 1964 election. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle) FILE - In this Nov. 22, 1963 file photo, President John F. Kennedy, center on foreground platform, addresses a rain-soaked crowd in Fort Worth, Texas. In an interview, Secret Service agent Clint Hill recalled, "I heard the noise outside" of a large, friendly crowd gathering, despite the drizzle, for a speech _ Kennedy's first event of a packed day. (AP Photo/Ferd Kaufman)

I avoid trying to reflect on this day. But there’s no avoiding it this year.

The motorcade sequence, the cameras panning to the Texas Book Depository. The words themselves – “Book Depository” “Zapruder” “Oswald” “Ruby” – they’re words that create a darkness when I hear them.

I was 11 when JFK was shot; not old enough to understand it, but old enough to witness what horror looks like.

Like most kids, I was at school. And my teacher, who was a stern, red-headed woman, was suddenly running across the room in tears saying “they killed him, they killed him.” I had never witnessed an adult cry and certainly not the helpless cry I heard that day.

My only memory after that is all of us sitting in front of the TV for hours. Just watching.

As Walter Cronkite reported, “There is weeping on the streets.”

Over the years, I’ve done interviews about the conspiracy claims, but I don’t think about conspiracies or how history might have been different. What I think of when I think of the JFK assassination is being in that classroom and having it shoved in my face that this is a world where things can disappear in an instant. Where people you think are bigger than life can be suddenly gone.
And that you can’t dwell on it, but you might as well be prepared for it because that’s the way it is.

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It was the crying