Seating the mundane at the table next to the extraordinary makes for a vast variety of feelings as I read this. I was 10 years old on that Friday. We were at recess, and the rumor somehow had already reached the playground as we lined up to go back into the building. Nobody believed it; it was absurd. Back in our classrooms, red eyed teachers told their respective classes that our beloved President had been shot, and we were sent home where we sat glued to the tv with our families all weekend watching replay after replay of the shooting (the Zapruder film hadn't been whisked away yet), and then the subsequent killing of Oswald by Ruby. So I was transported not only back to 1963 when that seismic shift occurred, but also to the romanticized every day southern, dusty backroads I've traveled in real life, movies, books, and fantasies. The mundane images of the small town south seem to conjure as much reaction in me as the extraordinary. And then it sinks in that the ordinary, everyday south pulses with its own devastation every single day in this country's history.
I was 13 years old and in junior high in Cleveland, Mississippi, in gym class when the news about President Kennedy broke out. First, they loaded us into the bleachers and talked gently with us about what had happened, but for the most part, we were all speechless, including the gym teacher. Shortly after, they sent us home, and we spent the rest of several days glued to the television watching for details. Those days were vivid days in my memory. My parents were not supporters of Kennedy, but they were mercifully quiet while we who were grieved his loss.
Seating the mundane at the table next to the extraordinary makes for a vast variety of feelings as I read this. I was 10 years old on that Friday. We were at recess, and the rumor somehow had already reached the playground as we lined up to go back into the building. Nobody believed it; it was absurd. Back in our classrooms, red eyed teachers told their respective classes that our beloved President had been shot, and we were sent home where we sat glued to the tv with our families all weekend watching replay after replay of the shooting (the Zapruder film hadn't been whisked away yet), and then the subsequent killing of Oswald by Ruby. So I was transported not only back to 1963 when that seismic shift occurred, but also to the romanticized every day southern, dusty backroads I've traveled in real life, movies, books, and fantasies. The mundane images of the small town south seem to conjure as much reaction in me as the extraordinary. And then it sinks in that the ordinary, everyday south pulses with its own devastation every single day in this country's history.
I was 13 years old and in junior high in Cleveland, Mississippi, in gym class when the news about President Kennedy broke out. First, they loaded us into the bleachers and talked gently with us about what had happened, but for the most part, we were all speechless, including the gym teacher. Shortly after, they sent us home, and we spent the rest of several days glued to the television watching for details. Those days were vivid days in my memory. My parents were not supporters of Kennedy, but they were mercifully quiet while we who were grieved his loss.