It Was 40 Years Ago Today...

Forty years ago today... I was five years and one month old and President Kennedy was assassinated. Like everyone old enough to remember, I know exactly where I was when I first learned of it.

I was in a grocery store in Miami with my grandfather. He and my grandma had taken me with them on vacaction to Florida. It's probably the one vacation that I can tell you specifically where I was on a given day.

I remember a man saying that the President had been shot and all of the adults looking scared. I'd never seen that before and it caused me some concern. My grandfather assured me things would be ok, but I remember us hurrying back to the hotel. I was only five years old but I followed the details as they became clear. President Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald while visiting Dallas, Texas. Oswald acted alone and was caught after killing a police officer named Tippett. Oswald in turn was killed [in a police station of all places] by Jack Ruby. I remember adults saying that Ruby should be given a medal for killing Oswald and that he saved the country even more grief.

It wasn't until I was older that I began to learn that maybe there was more to the Kennedy Assassination than we had been led to believe. I read the Warren Commission Report. I watched and read every related item that I could get my hands on. As the years have passed I have continued to read and search out new information. I hope that someday we will definitively know exactly what happened.

But as each year passes, I find the only thing that I am truly sure of in relation to the Kennedy Assassination is where I was when I first heard of it.