Where were you and what were you doing the day Kennedy was shot?

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I was a third grader at Saint Joseph's School in Butte, Montana. That was back in the day when we still wore uniforms, the boys a blue shirt, salt and pepper corduroys, and a blue neck ties with SJS stiched into them. The girls dresed similarly only in blue dresses with straps that went up over their shoulders instead of pants.

As a Catholic, Kennedy was "our" president. The first Roman Catholic to become the President of the United States. A real step forward in a country always dominated by WASPS [White Anglo-Saxon Protestants] who had traditionally run everything in the country while at the same time often hating and fearing us because of our suspected loyalty to the Pope over allegience to our own country. At the time I only knew that wherever I had lived Cathoics were in a marked minority. So I was very proud that "one of us" had risen to such heights.

As I recall we even had a bronze plaque of him inside the schools front doors of the school with his famous saying: "Ask not what your country can do for you, aask what you can do for our country."

I remember coming out into the hall at lunch break only to find there a group of nuns weeping uncontrollably. This was vvery troubling in itself since they usually represented the firm authority figures in our lives. Anyway I knew: Something terrible had happened.

I asked a kid next to me what was going on, and he said, "I think the president's dog's been shot." I thought, "What? Surely the nuns wouldn't be so upset over the presidents dog." Then a nother kid, said, "No, not the president's dog! The President's been shot President Kennedy's been shot!" When I heard that I was in stunned shock, I remember wandering out of the building and across the street to where there was a little mom and pop grocery store, and just standing there on the sidewalk numb and stupified, trying to process the terrible news: "The President, "our" President, has been shot!"

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