Innocence Lost

This is my class picture of me in the 2nd grade at Franklin Elementary School. I was 9 years old and life seemed so sweet and innocent back in 1963. About a month after this picture was taken President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I heard the new from our principal who came into our classroom and told use our President had died. Then he told us all to go home. No details about how he dead or how it happened. It was the first time I ever experienced such loss and sadness in my life. When I got home my mother and father were watching the shooting and never discussed his death, even though they showed the murder - over and over again. I always found it strange that my parents didn't take the time to talk to me about the event. It was so upsetting. It was my first real encounter with death. We didn't even have a discussion at school. It's like my great-grandmother Hicks said, "Children should be seen, but not heard." That's truly the way kids were treated back in the early 1960s. How sad is that? I continued to watch the television footage for the next few days crying silently to myself, and listening to the only voice that seemed to try to help me understand, Walter Cronkite, CBS newscaster. That man truly was "the voice of America" back then. He was the only one who took the time to try and explain this tragedy to me.

After awhile we learned what happened on that horrible day, or at least what "they" wanted us to believe. There have been so many theories (some crazy, some that made you think) but honestly, I don't think we'll ever know why my favorite president was gunned down.

My innocence died on November 22, 1963, and that was just a preview to future assassinations and shocking murders to assault my young mind before the 1970s began.