When the music stopped
and father were high school sweethearts who married and had children
young. One benefit to having parents ten years younger than my
friends’ parents was that music always played at our
house. The large maple stereo cabinet was never
closed, its mellow green light illuminating the
bold numbers with the red needle pointed at the top forty
station. When the radio wasn’t on, my parents played albums
that filled the bottom of the cabinet and overflowed to another one
across the living room. They loved show tunes from
Camelot, Whistle Down the Wind and later, Mary Poppins and the Sound
of Music. They adored Motown and the Supremes “Stop
in the Name of Love” played whenever they entertained
friends on Saturday nights. I remember when we all huddled
in front of the small TV to watch The Beatles invade the Ed Sullivan
Show, and a few days later, Dad came home with a 45 of “I
Wanna Hold Your Hand”. In the mornings before school, my
mother had the local AM radio station on and we heard easy listening
singles such as “Moon River”, “Strangers in the
Night”, and other 60’s tunes as we ate our cereal at the
kitchen table. I knew Percy Faith, Herb Albert, and Henry
Mancini. It was the soundtrack of our family.
On
an unforgettable Friday afternoon, a perfect crisp fall
day, my second grade class was interrupted by Mrs.
McCarthy, a teacher from across the hall. I watched as Mrs.
McCarthy motioned to my teacher, Mrs. Gadbeiso to come to the back of
the classroom. Behind a manila folder I saw Mrs. Gadbeiso’s
eyes fly wide open and then we were suddenly dismissed from school.
Mrs. Gadbeiso told us our president, John F. Kennedy, had been shot
by a gunman and that we were to go home to be with our parents.
I don’t know if we left in quiet orderliness or not but I do
know my sister and I were accompanied by my older brother on the
long walk home, a rare occurrence. When we reached the top
of our hill, we were met by my younger brother on his bicycle.
“Mommy’s crying”, he said solemnly. Together, we four,
raced down the hill to our house where we found my mother
sitting on the living room floor in front of the TV, dabbing at her
eyes with a Kleenex. She told us the president died
and hugged us to her. I remember that weekend was
long and sad and instead of music from the stereo, the TV played on
and on. We stayed in the living room for three days, visited
occasionally by neighbors, our uncle, my grandparents. Mom kept
coffee percolating on the stove all weekend and Dad ran out
for sandwiches and pizza. We waited and waited for a sight
of Mrs. Kennedy and her children to appear on the TV and when
they did, my mother dabbed her eyes again and again.
There was
no school on Monday and we watched the funeral procession and
were awed by the sheer majesty of the ceremonies. We
were mesmerized by the symbolic rider-less horse, the back facing
boot, and the haunting and plaintive trumpeting of
Taps. More friends and neighbors stopped by to drink coffee and talk. I am not sure if my parents were so affected
because JFK was a native son to our Boston, or if they liked him
because he was young. I never asked them if they
were Democrats or if they approved of the way JFK ran our
country. I think perhaps, they simply felt that something
horrific and inconceivable had happened – that such a shocking
act of violence could infiltrate the wondrous, innocent, and hopeful
world we lived in at that time.
next week was Thanksgiving and I’m sure we had turkey and fixings,
linen napkins and candles. My grandmother brought pies
and the percolator tapped tapped all day again. But even now,
none of us who remain, have forgotten that rapturously
beautiful and tragic Friday and the
unutterably sad weekend that followed. And in our house,
it was the one time the music stopped.
(N.B. There have been many JFK films but a brief scene in Mermaids (Cher, Winona Rider), captures 11/22/1963 perfectly.)
2 Comments
Anonymous
Such a memory. I too was told of the tragedy by my teacher. The ride home on the bus was quiet and eerie, and the weekend was just the longest ever. I don't remember if school was out on Monday, but I suspect that it was. What a terrible time it was.
Gail, northern California
You have described that terrible day perfectly. Fifty years hence and I can still vividly recall exactly where I was when I was told and who told me. And just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it did with that haunting image of John saluting his father.