November 22, 2003

It was after lunch. I was taking my tray to the dishroom window. Charley (I never knew his last name.) had a radio playing in the dishroom and he said to me, The president's been shot in Dallas. I was teaching at a prep school (Colorado Academy) outside Denver while I was trying to sort out my path in life. The headmaster convened an assembly and mumbled something about right-wing extremists as he dismissed school for the remainder of the day on that Friday. The rest of the day and evening seemed eerie. I remember going out to dinner and the restaurant—open because the owner was in shock—was nearly empty and quiet, whispers, really. Only the NFL was impervious to propriety as the games that Sunday were played by edict of Commissioner Pete Rozelle.

I have read a lot of reflections about November 22, 1963, forty years later. None of them were satisfying. It is hard to imagine that JFK would be 86 years old if he had survived. For a brief time, John Kennedy touched a lot of people. I say to my students that a president today could never say, Ask not..., but ask.... I remember as I watched my daughter Erica board the plane that would take her (ultimately) around the world to Uzbekistan as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I remember how proud I was—on a holiday visit during her second year in Central Asia—listening to her dicker with a group of Uzbek cab drivers. A lot of banter and laughter as she dismissed this fare and that. Ultimately, Erica secured two cabs for us and our luggage at a fare that she thought was appropriate. Erica touched a lot of lives in Uzbekistan. JFK would have been proud. I was. That is my memory of JFK on November 22, 2003. If this be (fair & balanced) nostalgia, so be it.