"I'm Afraid I've Got Some Terrible News"

Fifty years ago I was an eighteen-year-old high school student, a Senior, at South Eugene High School.  On

November 22 of that year I was sitting in "study hall," an assigned class where students actually had to sit at desks and quietly study, something which is not a big part of our school systems' curriculum these days, or so I've been told.  These "study halls"  were each assigned a teacher, this one was watched over with stern kindness by Alyce Sheetz, also my journalism instructor, and who ranks somewhere in the top 2 of my all-time best teachers' list.  I'm not sure of the exact time of the following event, it was somewhere near noon, but suddenly the studious quiet was broken by the P.A. system's speaker suddenly coming to life with the squeaky sound of someones hand picking up the microphone.  It was the school Principal, Clifford Moffitt.  "I'm afraid I've got some terrible news," he began, "President Kennedy has been shot during a motorcade in Dallas, Texas."

I had been glancing up at the P.A. speaker over the blackboard during the start of the announcement, but at the end of it I remember staring straight into Alyce Sheetz's eyes.  For some reason, out of all the 20-some kids in the room, she was looking directly at me.  For just a second, she and I shared the most devastating news I had ever heard.  For a moment, pictures of JFK flashed before my eyes.  Kennedy, the youngest President ever elected, who had followed the oldest man to hold the office; this vibrant, healthy, handsome man had been SHOT.

Since it was near lunch time, and because all sense of time seemed to just melt away, Mrs. Sheetz told us to just go, and report back after lunch.  I wandered out into a hall full of hushed chatter, shocked faces, kids walking like zombies.  Some of the girls were crying.  I walked out of school, heading for the little burger shack down the street.  As I left school one of the things I remember hearing was some kid suddenly blurting out "They finally GOT the son-of-a-bitch!"  I don't know what happened to that kid, but I didn't hear him again.

The burger shack was about three blocks away from the school and as I walked I began to realize I was in some stage of shock.  I was breathing strangely, the colors of the day were oddly off, pale, washed out, and I seemed to be on auto-pilot, not really knowing where I was going, but knowing I would get there anyway.  I'm sure I was walking with someone, or perhaps several others, but I have no recollection of who it was.  The next thing I remember, I was in the burger shack, lots of people milling around, no one really ordering anything, the radio blaring in the corner (remember, this was before video machines, and even TVs were rare in cafes'.)  I ordered nothing, just stood there.  It was there I heard it.  On that little cheap radio in the corner. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was dead.

I left the shack alone, and walked purposefully back to my high school.  Perhaps I was hoping for the sanity of an afternoon class, or maybe Mr. Moffitt would come back on the P.A. and tell us it was all a mistake, that the President of the United States is just fine, that people were going to be punished for this horrible joke.  I was within a half a block of the school when several of my classmates walked by going the other way.  "School's been cancelled, go home," I was told.  Apparently it was no joke after all.

Since it was Friday, we had the weekend to recover slightly, at least, but then they declared the following Monday a national day of mourning.  The rest of the week is a complete blur, except I remember clearly, sitting in front of our Stromburg-Carlson black and white TV, watching the funeral procession, listening to the steady beat of the funeral drums, and the clip-clop of that riderless horse.  I think I cried for two days straight, off and on.  So did most everyone else.

JP