John F. Kennedy

 

 

It was 60 years ago today.

My husband, at the time, and I were living in Stuttgart, Germany where he was a trumpet player in an Army band.

It was a beautiful day for late November. A sergeant in the band had to do an errand at Robinson barracks. He had picked me up along with my German shepherd, Kimm. He often did that so Kimm could run free.

My husband, RickI  had taken over someone's night duty. He did that whenever he could for for extra money.

Once home, I read, I knitted, I listened to music. I even did some cleaning.

I'm not sure what time I went out to call RickI. I usually called him whenever he was on all-night duty. There was a phone box around the corner of where we lived on Olgastrasse.

My hi was cheery. His reply wasn't. "The president has been shot. He's dead." It was hard to take in. 

I'd seen JFK once as he rode on the back of a convertible in a 4th of July parade in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Despite coming from a Republican family, I had been pro Kennedy in the election.

I went back to our apartment and cried.

Neighbors, who never really bothered with us, knocked on my door to express their condolences. The one neighbor who was friendly, a student, invited me to see the news clip.

The next morning I went to buy a newspaper. I wanted the story in German. The dealer, picking up on my accent, expressed his condolences.

At night there was a candlelight parade marching down the hill into the city. Their flickering lights went on and on and on and ...

It was more than a week before we could see the coverage, so unlike today when news comes almost at the same time as the event. There was a news reel at the Jay Hawk movie theater on base, It showed everything, including Oswald's shooting and John-John's salute to his father.

It was my first national tragedy, unfortunately the first of too many. It felt strange being in another country, a feeling that would be duplicated in 9/11. If only the distance, which made it seem so unreal, really was just that -- unreal.