This is my post for the #memoirmonday prompt What's the first major news story you can remember living through as a child? hosted by @ericvancewatson
In the above photo, I am the girl in the first row first desk, I was in 3rd grade, 1963. It started as a normal school day. We had lunch and were back in class when our teacher Miss Tearney gently told us that our President had been shot, I do not remember if she said he was killed, but I think she left that for our parents to tell us. We were then told to get under our desks in the kneeling position with our heads bent down and our hands wrapped around the back of our heads.
I remember being scared. Not by doing this, we had to do this for school drills but this time it was for something that had happened, and as a child, I wondered if Russia had sent a bomb to hit us because that is why we had these drills.
I also do not remember how long we stayed like this but for me, it seemed like forever. Parents were picking up other children and they went into the hallway to talk with my teacher, they were crying.
I lived the furthest from school, you had to cross a 2 mile river over an old wooden bridge and then go 5 miles on a sand road. Because we did not have electricity I wondered if my parents had heard the news and how would they know to come to get us.
The only way to travel this road was to let some of the air out of your tires or you would be stuck.
I remember wondering if we had to stay the whole day but my Mom showed up at the school to get us, we were the last to be picked up. When we got home we could hear the generator running and Dad had the TV on watching the news, we were told to change our clothes and go outside. Later we found out President Kennedy had died.
photos are mine