The Day Kennedy Was Shot
The Kennedy Assassination is probably the most memorable event of my life, and the circumstances surrounding it will be studied long after we are dead and gone and will likely be one of the first events that our future time-travelers will visit. President John F. Kennedy was ambushed by a gunman or gunmen on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 PM Dallas, Texas time. I remember that day – I was in the 7th Grade at Ramona School in Norwalk, California and that morning we were all outside at recess. One of our teachers, Mr. Boersma walked out to the old basketball court, where we were playing, and told us that the President had been shot, and that we should all go right home. Then, visibly shaken, he turned and walked away, evidently to get back to the office to watch more of the news.
The week that followed was the darkest, most dreary week of my life. I mourned along with everyone else, but after a day or so I grieved not so much for our departed President any longer, as the fact that all of my friends were being held hostage in-doors, and all of my favorite television programs were cancelled by the round-the-clock coverage of the funeral and the national mourning. Actually, there was one brief respite, when one of the stations ran a movie titled “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima,” very late one night, about the three children in Portugal who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary.
I remember clicking through all of the broadcast channels over and over only to find the same image emblazoned on all of them. I can still see the caisson with the flag-draped coffin of our departed leader rattling down Pennsylvania Avenue, and Jacqueline Kennedy, standing beside the coffin, tears streaming down her face, so lovely and so bereaved in black. What particularly impressed me though, was the somber cadence of the military color-guard, marching alongside with measured steps, reverent, and respectful of their precious charge.
Many years later I became friends with one of the men who had been in that color-guard, when I was driving a taxi in Anaheim. His name was John M—–, and he had retired from the Army after many years, and hired on as a driver. Unlike most of the other drivers, he didn’t have a car. Each morning a call would go out to pick him up outside of his home, a condomium complex situated back of Disneyland. At night when his shift was over, he would catch a ride home with one of the night drivers, just leaving the yard.
I would see John occasionally in the taxi stand by the Hilton or the Marriott hotel, waiting for a ride to one of the airports. Often when I came out, he would already be waiting in line, talking with my drinking buddy, Vinnie, a jovial, but rough and tumble, bull of a man, a few years younger than me. Gradually, I learned that John had a German wife, and two boys and a daughter, and some St. Bernard dogs that he loved as much as his family. He had spent most of his time in the service in Germany, and was a Sergeant when he retired. I also learned that he was John M—– III, and that his father John M—– Jr. had been a career soldier and had fought in WWII.
Before long, Vinnie and John became close friends, and Vinnie began picking John up in the morning and driving him in each day to save him the cab-fare. It was at this point that I entered the potential box, and I knew it was just a matter of time before the keyframe came into view. Sure enough one day Vinnie was gone, having finally been tracked down by his estranged wife, and that evening John asked me if I would give him a ride home. It wasn’t out of my way, so I said, “Sure.”
I drove him home for several days, and finally one day he invited me to come up to his place for a beer. His wife had died, and he was all alone now. It was then that I learned that he had been in the color-guard in Washington D.C. when Kennedy died, and that he was one of the soldiers in the funeral procession. I don’t remember if I mentioned in conversation with him, that my dad had known Kennedy when he was in the Navy, but I told him that I had loved President Kennedy, and said how exciting it must have been to be present at such an important event in history. He looked at me strange, for a moment, and told me on the contrary that most of the soldiers in the guard had hated him and would rathered have been anywhere else.
Several more years went by and I began to research my father’s military service on the internet. One day while searching through the rosters of the men in the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, I happened upon the name of John M—– Jr. I tried to get in touch with John to ask him about it, but by then he had moved elsewhere.
Still, what a small world, I thought.
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