Where Were You?

November 22, 1963.......

I had just turned 7 years old in September and was a first grader in a still segregated all black elementary school in Charleston, South Carolina.

My father was in the Navy..........my mother was home at the time.

That morning I had a severe asthma attack and my mother had to come to the school to pick me up.

I remember hearing teachers crying..........saying, "The president has been assassinated!".....Me, being only 7........asked, "Which one?" For all I ever knew, there was Washington, Lincoln, and now Kennedy.

It was a strange time. This was my first recollection ever of watching the news on television. Back then there were but three channels, NBC, CBS, and ABC.

I could not tell you if it was Walter Cronkite or Chet Huntley or David Brinkley ........or all of the above.

I remember the funeral..........the horses carrying the United States flagged draped casket.....

I remember that little boy, John F. Kennedy, Jr............holding his sisters hand....and his mother, Jacqueline........

I remember the country seemed to stop..........and for a brief time........there was no black or white....just Americans grieving......

And this was in 1963..........

Where were you?