The President is coming to town!!! It was 50 years ago this week. As an excited 11 year old, (yes, back then we got excited about such things!), we had been informed at school the week before that we could have the day off to go see him if we provided a parental note. Transportation and a chaperone would be provided for groups if there were enough participants, and there was. We loaded onto the bus in Seagoville Texas, a small country town back in those days, at about 8:00 a.m. on November 22, 1963 to head for the BIG CITY Dallas. Upon our arrival, they parked the bus and we proceeded as a group to Main Street directly where the president would be driving by. We were very excited but waited patiently; things like this just didn’t occur that often back then and it was something we had been looking forward to.
The presidential motorcade arrived at Carswell Air Force Base for a thirteen minute flight to Dallas Love Field, which at that time was the main airport in Dallas. The President and Mrs. Kennedy disembarked and walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered and spent a few minutes greeting them. The first lady received a bouquet of red roses which she took with her to the limousine. The governor of Texas, John Connally and his wife Nellie were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedy’s entered and sat behind them. The rain had stopped, so the plastic bubble top had been taken off the car. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied a separate car in the motorcade. The motorcade then left for a 10 mile journey through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon. Crowds of excited people lined the streets to greet the President who had come to Texas for a five city campaign tour.
As the motorcade passed by, the crowd waved to the Kennedys along with us. Approximately two and a half blocks from our location on Main Street, although we couldn’t see it by this time, the motorcade turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. Immediately after the car cleared the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly rang out in the area of the plaza. Bullets struck the president’s neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor, directly in front of him, was also hit in the chest. The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the largest and most modern in those times in Dallas, which was just a few minutes away. Little could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites and at 1:00 p.m. President John F Kennedy was pronounced dead. Though seriously wounded, Governor Connally would later recover. The president’s body was taken to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane departed Love Field, a grim faced Lyndon B Johnson took the oath of office of the President Of The United States which was administered by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Hughes which took place at 2:38 p.m.
As youngsters, we heard the shots followed by commotion up and down the entire area, especially coming from the plaza area although we had no realization of exactly what happened. We were rushed back to the bus which returned us to each of our individual homes as our schedule was askew at this point and there was no way to inform parents of our early return. I can remember walking in my front door, not fully realizing what had occurred, walked directly into our living room and seeing the news broadcast on our single black and white TV. My dad, who wouldn’t have normally been there, was sitting on the couch watching Walter Cronkite on TV with tears in his eyes. I immediately recalled that I had never seen him do that since my grandpa passed away about seven years prior back in Ashland Kentucky. It was then that I discovered what had happened. The news was never ending that day and the mood was somber for days on end it seemed.
Less than an hour after the shooting, police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently hired employee at the Book Depository. He was arrested for the assassination of President Kennedy and the fatal shooting of Patrolman J D Tippit shortly afterwards on a Dallas street. Two days later, on Sunday morning, the 24th, Oswald was scheduled to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. I remember the entire family sitting in front of the TV as we, and viewers across America, watched the live broadcast coverage as we watched a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range. The assailant, Jack Ruby, was a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Hospital as well.
It was a very sad time in Dallas, as well as the rest of the nation. As an 11 year old, the politics of it all were far beyond me at that point in time but I do remember well the days of the Cuban Missile Crises and the constant drills at school crouching under our desks in preparation for a nuclear attack. From day one, there have been thousands of speculations concerning the assassination and it continues still today. To me, at this point, it’s kind of like trying to figure out ‘what God’s plan is’. When it’s time for me to know, I’m sure He’ll properly inform me and until then, it’s my pleasure to follow His lead; and in the mean time, if all the ‘thinking heads’ haven’t resolved all the issues with the Kennedy assassination yet, I seriously doubt they ever will.
