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A cold day brought stark realities

I was 18, and working my first full-time job after graduating from Palatine High School. I was in the art department of General Telephone Co. in Des Plaines. When I came out of the darkroom, all my co-workers were at the far end of the room huddled around the radio. Someone told me the president had been shot and was wounded. I envisioned him with his arm in a sling, making a joke about it. When it was announced that he was dead, all the women burst out crying, and we were told to go home. On the drive home, every time I was stopped at a red light I would look over at a car next to me and see people crying.

I remember seeing Oswald shot by Jack Ruby live from Dallas. One of the saddest moments was Mrs. Kennedy, kneeling next to her husband’s coffin in the rotunda, pulling up her veil and kissing the American flag that draped her husband’s coffin.

The day of the funeral was very cold and crisp. I felt sorry for the soldier trying to control the riderless horse he led, behind the wagon that carried the coffin, and sound of the hoofs of the horses on the pavement. After a slight nudge from his mother came little John-John’s final salute to his father. America was never really the same, after that.

Randy Johnson

Palatine

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