November 22

*Note from Lynette: I was without power for a week then was out of town for Thanksgiving. I am posting Ed’s writing from last week now. Thank you!

Just as anyone who was alive at the time remembers where they were and what they were doing when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, we oldsters vividly recall November 22, 1963.

Like this year, Nov 22, 1963 fell on a Friday. Unlike this year, it was a warm(ish), sunny day in Scranton. A rumor began circulating through the halls of Central High. “The President has been shot.” “That cannot be,” I thought. “I just saw Butchie Mastroianni in the cafeteria at lunch.” Butchie was our class president.

Dear Old Central High, built in the 1880s, lacked a PA system. Important announcements were telephoned to each classroom and announced by the teachers. At 2 PM, we were informed, “Classes are cancelled for the rest of the day. You must leave the building at once and go home. Football, cheerleading, and band practice are also cancelled.”

The mile and a half walk home (no school buses in those days) was surreal. People in the few cars on the road were sobbing. Everyone was gathered around a radio or a TV. The streets were nearly silent. “President Kennedy cannot be dead. This sort of thing does not happen in 20th century America.”

But it happened again to MLK and to RFK less than five years later. Four years after that, George Wallace was grievously wounded by an assassin. Eight years later, John Lennon was shot dead on the streets of Manhattan. A year later, Ronald Reagan was wounded. This sort of thing happened a lot in 20th century America.

I should not have been surprised on Nov 22. I knew that Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley were all assassinated and that FDR very nearly was. As a 15 year old kid in 1963, JFK was everything I wanted in my President — young, handsome, eloquent. I did not want to believe that he was gone. I still don’t.

By Ed Dufton