I wonder if this idea would work as a book...let me explain.
See that book cover to the left of this screen? It touts "When the News Went Live," a book written by four of us who were radio/TV reporters when President Kennedy was killed. The book chronicles our experiences covering the story of the century as the nation pivoted from newspapers to television as the major source of news.
We wrote the book for history, not money.
As we pump the book in panel discussions, the same thing happens after each presentation -- people want to tell us where they were and what they were doing when the president was shot.
That awful day is the Pearl Harbor for our generations. And we are getting older, dying, and soon those stories of how we survived as a nation, as individuals, will be gone forever.
We were so busy as reporters covering the breaking story that we didn't have time to cry until days later. So busy, in fact, that I didn't stop to think about the impact this would have on people throughout America, throughout the world.
I remember one person from Nebraska who was just a school kid at the time told us that the principal gathered all the students outside where they formed a circle around the flagpole, said a prayer, then dismissed the kids to go home to their parents arms.
Another told of the boss, crying, going from office to office to tell workers to go home.
There a millions of poignant stories out there that are worthy of being told. Preserved for history. I would like to try to tell those stories.
Where were you?
Thursday, September 6, 2007
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8 comments:
I was on the front lawn of the Scottish Rite Dorm at UT when I heard JFK had been "shot in San Antonio,"such was the confusion. By the time I walked to "Harry's Place," the library, I learned he had died. I went on to Latin class. We were all present save one: Linda Bird Johnson. I remember sitting numbly and silently before the black and white tv in the rec room for hours on end that weekend. A.
I was in 6th Grade Science class at General George S. Patton, Jr. Junior High School, Ft. Leavenworth, KS. I was -- and am --an Army "Brat." I think it was just after lunch that November day. Bill Martin was our science teacher, a quiet bald man, sitting in front of us while we were doing an assignment. The principal came over the PA and announced that President Kennedy had been shot and was thought to be dead.
We all looked at Mr. Martin. He stared straight ahead at his raised lab desk, looking over our heads toward the back of the room, then slowly bowed his head, resting it between his steepled forefingers, elbows on the table. I don't remember much after that, but I don't think there was any crying in the room, talking or anything. Just silence. I guess we were all trying to let it sink in, to understand the enormity of what we had just heard.
We had never heard anything like it before, nor much like it since. Maybe the 9/11 event is close to the same feeling. It was a sad, somber day and the wonder arose in many of us, "What will happen to us now?" And later many of us would watch Jack Ruby murder Lee Harvey Oswald in that Dallas Police Department hall you were standing in, George. On TV, the first murder ever televised...the day the news went live.
-- Buddy Lerch
I was just pulling into my driveway on my way home from my 11 AM class at the law school at UT when the announcer interrupted the radio program saying that the motorcade had been fired upon, and it was believed that JFK had been shot. I rushed into the house and turned on the TV and stayed glued to it until after the funeral.
JFK had been my first vote for President, and I had been excited by his approach. That day marked the end of the post-war "good times." I don't like what has followed nearly as much as what came before. It was a sad and somber day.
I was at that grade school in Nebraska.
I was not even a glimmer in my mother's eye yet (though I am fascinated with the era).
s.l.d. cowen
I had just finished eating a hurried meal after my classes at Wayland Baptist College in Plainview. My wife was hurrying to take me to work so she could go to her work.
It was cold that day,so I went out to warm up the car. I had the radio on when they broke in on the scheduled programming stating that JFK had been shot in Dallas.
I hurried back into the house and turned on the tv much to the chagrin of my wife who was trying to get out the door and go to work. I told her what I had heard and we sat down and listened to the reporters describe the rush to Parkland.
We then went on to our respective jobs,mine at Sears,hers at the First Baptist Church.
When I walked or rather ran into Sears I expected everyone to be drawn to the tv department where there were several tvs on.No one was watching.They didn't even know that JFK had been shot until I got to work.
Soon everything in the store had stopped and everyone was visually connected to horror playing out before us.
One of the first things that came to my mind,was a joke going around then that JFK wouldn't even have to bring the Secret Service with him to Texas.He was perfectly safe. After all, Texans knew who would be President if anything happened to Kennedy.------Goose
I was in civics class at Spur High School. I don't remember anyone crying after the announcement came over the intercom. We just turned into zombies. The next day, another announcement: school officials had determined that JFK would want us to go ahead and have the Football Banquet that weekend as scheduled.
jnetb
I was working for a radio station in Bryan/College Station. I was home eating a bowl of soup, listening to my radio station when I heard a noisy relay on the mike open. We had specific orders not to interupt the program in progress, as it was a paying program. That's when I heard the bulletin. There is an irony here. The program interupted was "Life Line" a extreme right wing program sponsored by H.L. Hunt. The whole purpose of "Life Line" was to bash JFK and the Democratic party. By the way, Bob Huffaker,,one of the authors of The Day the News Went Live left Bryan for Dallas for KRLD a few days prior to the assassination. His was the voice we heard when Ruby shot Oswald at the Dallas P.D.
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