I was a 12 year old kid in St. Monica's Catholic Grade School in Detroit. It was art class and I was sitting across from kid named Mark and we were supposed to be drawing each others faces. The tinny school announcement speaker came on and the principal, Sister Mary Edward announced gravely that the President had just been shot in Dallas.
There was a stunned silence and then Mark started to giggle, which in turn triggered a chain reaction of insane 12 year old idiotic giggling. The nun, Sister Mary Theonella went berserk, crying and screaming at the class to be quiet. But what could you expect? Things were never the same again.
2 comments:
God, that is so similar to what happened to me on that morning in '63! I was twelve, sitting in my fourth grade classroom when Principal Brake made the announcement over the intercom. We all looked around at one another, and then a kid in the back of the room started to cheer and said, "Yay!", which got his little ass snatched up by our very distraught teacher, who took him to see said Principal Brake before the announcement was even finished.
When we got home from school that day, a bunch of us gathered up in a friend's backyard to play tackle football, like we did any other day of the week after school. My older sister (eight years my senior) tried to stop me at the door to stay and watch history unfold on the television, but I had the game ball and the guys were expecting me, so...
Today I'm a news junkie, can't believe young people aren't more involved or more educated about issues, but your post made me realize just what it was like to be a kid on that day. I was there, man, and sounds like you were too.
Great post! Hope to link your site to mine if you don't mind!
Thanks for the link and thanx for your recollection!
I tried to keep my memory short and hopefully poignant.
The world today is too disconnected, we learn early on to lose empathy...communication has devolved into facebook blurbs and tweets...I NEED MORE!
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