November 23, 1963

 Regular readers will be heartbroken to hear that this is not the blog I thought I would write today.  Last night, I had a vague idea that sometime today I would sit down with a cold beer and write another long and weirdly twisting tale about yet another obscure piece of artwork that was tied to Napoleon, had survived multiple wars, and had ended up someplace where you would’t expect it.  Yes, I know that I have done that about a dozen times already, but the topic keeps nibbling away at me and sooner or later (probably sooner), I will feel a compulsive need to put it on paper (again).

It was the news of Trump’s testing positive for Covid-19 late last night that changed my mind.  Hopefully, we can all agree that—regardless of our personal politics—having our president ill with a potentially deadly disease is a time for all Americans to respectfully unite in wishing the best for him.  (And if you are one of those few sad individuals whose withered hearts are so filled with hate that you are taking any measure of happiness from this, please go outside and play Hide-and-Go-Fuck-Yourself until the feeling passes.)

All day, I have been thinking back to a time when the nation lost a president—a day almost a lifetime ago.  I’m probably one of the last Americans who was alive in 1963 who hasn't previously recorded his version of the day, so allow me.

In 1963, my family was living in Azle, Texas, a small town just west of Fort Worth and close enough to it that my father commuted daily to his job in the city.  Azle was a small farming town of about 3,000 people and about half of my friends’ fathers worked in the city, too.  

I remember everyone in my elementary school class talking about President Kennedy’s coming to town and I can remember a few girls in my class being excited about Jackie Kennedy.  I can even remember a few kids talking about Vice President Lyndon Johnson—a fellow Texan who (at least where I lived) was as popular as the President. 

President Kennedy and his party were going to spend the night in downtown Fort Worth, then drive the short distance to Carswell Air Force Base, where the president would board Air Force One for the very brief, 34-mile flight to Dallas Love Field.  Though this rarely comes up in the countless documentaries about the Kennedy assassination, the drive from the Fort Worth hotel to the air force base, plus the flight to Love Field, and then the drive into Dallas—all of that was just for show and wasn’t really necessary.  It would have been far faster, easier, and cheaper just to drive from Fort Worth to Dallas down the turnpike.  The entire flight was so brief, 14 minutes, that the pilots probably had to start the landing procedure immediately after finishing the take-off procedure.

Though most Americans believe that Kennedy was one of our most popular presidents, that simply is not true.  The 1960 election was very close, and by 1963, Kennedy’s popularity in many states was slipping. The 1964 election was just a year away, so Kennedy—with Johnson in tow—was touring the Texas cities in order to court voters, which explains the brief flight to Dallas.  The arrival of Air Force One was just as newsworthy then as now, and the local Dallas television stations were sure to be on hand to report the president’s arrival.  

While it seems odd today, the newspapers published the route of the presidential motorcade for both the Fort Worth and Dallas trips.  My father noticed the proximity of the Fort Worth route to where he worked, and decided to take me to watch the president drive by, and then take me to school.  I can’t remember exactly what it was, but my older brother was doing something important at school that day and couldn’t go, while I, being in the fourth grade, was presumed to be doing nothing important.

There is really not much to tell about the actual motorcade’s driving by.  My father parked near a motel along the route, and after a wait of about an hour, what seemed like an endless procession of cars went by rather quickly—including the black Lincoln Continental with which we are all so familiar.  My father drove me back to Azle, where I arrived at school just in time to have lunch. 

Before the meal was over, the public address system announced that the president had been shot and wounded.  By the time we got back to our classroom, we heard an announcement that the president was dead.  

It is at this point that my memories get a little hazy.  I remember going to work after school (I had a part-time job as an usher) and being surprised that the theater was closed.  I remember thinking that it was impossible for the president to die—sort of a strange feeling, like the whole world was suddenly turned upside down.  That feeling intensified with the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald and the president’s funeral in the days to come.

And so very many people were upset and angry:  I can remember that most people were hurt for a very long time—something I hope that I never see again.  When someone mentions the Kennedy assassination, it is the mourning of so many people that comes first to mind.

At the time, my mother told me it brought back all the pain and uncertainty she had felt when President Roosevelt had died in 1945...the sense of uncertainty and of the world suddenly making no sense.  (My father’s memories of that day in 1945 were not quite as sharp, his being  busy “somewhere in the South Pacific” at the time.)

I guess there is one more thing I should mention.  I was there the day the motorcade passed in Fort Worth, but I don’t really have any accurate memories of it.  First off, for some reason my memories are all in black and white.  And that black Lincoln Continental?  Well, first off, the car we remember from Dallas was actually dark navy blue, and it was never in Fort Worth—it was waiting for the president at Love Field.  The car that drove by me that morning in Fort Worth, carrying the president and Mrs. Kennedy, was a white Lincoln Continental…. A car that I do not remember seeing at all.

I wonder how many times I have seen videos of that day in Dallas, all of them in black and white.  It was years later that our family got our first color television.  Newspapers, documentaries, magazine articles, television programs…. I've seen all of these numerous times.  I’ve read countless reports, still own several books on the assassination, and have even visited Dealey Plaza.  All of my “real” memories have been replaced by images I have seen endlessly over the last half century.

Frankly, I wish I remembered less of that day.  And I profoundly wish that none of us acquires any new memories of days like that.