That question has been asked over and over again this past week as the 50th Anniversary of JFK’s death has been recognized. I realized that you have to be 55 to remember much of anything, I’m one that does remember. Just like our columnist C..J. Woods in Words from Woods wrote in his column last week, I, too was in gym class when I heard the news. I was a freshman at Tech High School and when the announcement came over the loudspeaker, I was shocked like everyone else. I can remember as my classmates stood at the front door of the old gym waiting for the class bell to ring, the black girls in class started singing gospels — there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. It still brings tears to my eyes as I write this. It was so hard to believe that someone could do that to the leader of our country. John F. Kennedy was more than a president he was like a King – the King of Camelot. The Kennedy’s all seemed to be from a royal family, and that feeling I don’t think had ever been felt before by the American people.
That day, my mother was at her doctor’s clinic in Fountain Square getting a Vitamin B shot. She was anemic and run down and only weighted 106 lbs. She said the doctor’s office had a TV in the waiting room and everyone went a little crazy when they heard the awful news. Well six weeks later my mother contracted Hepatitis and was hospitalized for six weeks. She nearly died and we always suspended that the needle used to give her the Vitamin B shot was not cleaned properly (this was before disposable needles) and that could have been how she contracted the disease. The hepatitis became chronic and she lived with it for the next 35 years.
About 20 years ago, while in Dallas visiting my brother, I got to see the Kennedy Museum at the Book Depository. It was an amazing exhibit and a very moving experience.
The Kennedys had so much tragedy, I feel so sorry for Rose Kennedy living so long and having to endure such losses.