At the northern tip of Manhattan Island is a neighborhood called Inwood. At the northwest end of the neighborhood is a park. Inwood Hill Park, the last vestige of woods on the island.
In that neighborhood in 1963, my classmates and I emerged from Public School 98. We were third graders in Mrs. Eisenberg's class. Mrs. Eisenberg, was probably 40, but from her grey hair, she seemed 60. She was perpetually stern, but all my teacher memories from that era where stern.
Mrs. Eisenberg also lived in the same apartment house as me. I was cursed. As we emerged from the school, one of my friends, said the president was shot. In Dallas. My exposure to the news was when my dad brought home either the New York Post or the World-Telegram and Sun on his way home from work.
There was no internet, no cable news, and no cable TV. Just channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. No VHF. We had a black and white TV. When I got home, channel 2 was on and my mother was watching Walter Cronkite describe the events in Dallas where Kennedy had been shot just a couple of hours before.
She had been crying. I was scared, thinking that the Russians would now bomb us since we had no President. I didn't know Johnson had succeeded Kennedy.
It was raw grey day in New York, as it was for our nation.
We watched the TV constantly over the weekend, watching Jack Ruby shoot down Lee Harvey Oswald live. In black and white. A time etched forever in my mind. I was eight years old.
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Comments
Ablonde -- Indeed I did. How embarrasing. I can't blame that typo on jet lag either.
I wonder how she's doing?
bbd -- I think about all that came after, MLK, RFK, 9/11...the world became less innocent with each tragic event.
Raven -- The was much less live news, and less hyperbolic "analysis".
Wordhopper -- It was a scary time.
Brie -- Time for a facebook search for Diane? Thanks for sharing your experience.
Tia -- Two of the 9/11 highjackers flew out of Portland, Maine that morning. That community also has vivd memories of that day.
no frills -- Forty six years later, it still doesn't make any sense.
O/E -- Everything but the NFL was canceled that weekend.
bike -- It became a yard stick by which to measure one's life experience, in much the same way as an older generation remembers the death of FDR.
mg -- What an interesting view of the world.
trilogy -- I think my parents used me as their remote control.
Susanne -- You were not alone that weekend. A nation had the same feelings.
Coyote -- I remember those images too
Ardee -- I think Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y did come together on 9/11 and they could finally "get" what we had been describing, yet at such a terrible cost.
Deborah -- I did go back and read your post. Thanks for your comments and for sharing your memories, too.
Duaneart -- Imagine the fear 8 and 9 year olds today have about "Muslims".