"Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" For my generation that was the question for which we all knew the answer. How could we ever forget? The horror of that weekend was burned into our brains forever.
My good friend Jane had asked me to come up to Homecoming at Wesleyan. I missed my old life so much that I jumped at the chance. Of course, it would be different. Linda and Bootsie had married; Anne had graduated and Kathy and Kris had left.
But I had been part of the Wesleyan family and I wanted to be part of it again if only for a weekend. So I got on the Trailways bus and began the long, boring trip to Macon. I got off the bus in Albany, GA, to get a Coke.
There was a strange, almost surreal atmosphere in the bus station. People had gathered in small groups and I caught only snatches of their conversation.
"Yeah, shot through the head. Twice I think. Dallas."
"A motorcade. They were all out in the open. Secret Service was useless."
"Jackie tried to climb out the car at one point."
Jackie?
"Excuse me, what's happened? Who was shot?"
A man stared at me. "Why the President. Kennedy. I never did like him much," he said calmly.
"Is he alive? Did he die?"
"Oh, yeah, just a little while ago." I burst into tears. "That S.O.B. Johnson gets to be President now."
I walked away, still crying. Something had broken inside me, that illusion of safety. If someone could kill our President, then none of us was safe. Anything could happen. We were
vulnerable.
I don't remember the weekend at Wesleyan at all except that everyone was in shock. I must have ridden another bus back to Sarasota. Lee Harvey Oswald. Jack Ruby. Nothing remains clear--it was a nightmare in slow motion.
I wondered if Caroline and John- John really understood what had happened to their father. They were so young, so small. Thank God they could not know what lay ahead.
