On Friday, November 22, 1963, Dad milked the cows before leaving for Hayward to go deer hunting. At that time I was hauling two loads of milk each day, and would have to clean the barn when I completed my morning milk route. Shortly after 12-noon I was in the barn and started wheeling the manure out with a wheelbarrow, while listening to WISV, the Viroqua station on the barn radio. It’s now WVRQ. Sometime between 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m., programming was interrupted for a special announcement – President John F. Kennedy had been shot during a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. No other details were available at the time. I quickly finished the chores and headed for the house to see if there was anything on TV about the shootings. We could only get two stations out of La Crosse at that time, and everything was in black and white. Ma, Grandma Inga, and I were watching a CBS special report from Dallas, when Walter Cronkite came on, took off his glasses, looked up at the clock, and reported that President Kennedy had died at 1:33 p.m. (CST).
I had planned to go scouting for deer in our woods that afternoon, but instead watched the continuous coverage of the assassination news for the rest of the day until it was time to do chores and milk the cows. After milking, we were riveted to the news coverage the rest of the evening. Continuous live coverage of the events, including the shooting of Oswald, continued until after Kennedy’s funeral.
Can it already be 50 years since that momentous event that shook our world? I think everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since that day, but it still remains a watershed moment in our lives. Since that time we have followed the many stories about the assassination and the many conspiracy and multiple shooter theories. Movies and close to one thousand books have been written about the subject. With the 50th anniversary here, there have been, and will continue to be, many more stories and specials about that event.
In 2011, I attended a four-day national conference in Dallas, Texas. One afternoon we had free time to sightsee around Dallas. Several of us decided to head for Dealey Plaza, the site where Kennedy was assassinated. We rode the rapid transit train to near the plaza, found the Texas School Depository Building, and went up to the sixth floor museum. Most of us had been alive when Kennedy was killed and found the experience fascinating as the history of that time came alive again. The area around the sixth floor window where Lee Harvey Oswald had waited and fired the shots from, had been recreated to how it had been that day. As we looked out the window to the X’s on the road where the car had been as the shots were fired, I realized that a good, trained marksman with a telescopic sight on a rifle, could easily have made those shots as the car traveled slowly away from the shooter.
We toured the many exhibits on the sixth and seventh floor museum, and then went outside and walked down the sidewalk along Elm Street where the motorcade was traveling when the fatal shots were fired. It was eerie to look up the street to the sixth floor window where we had just been and picture Oswald aiming his rifle at Kennedy. We also walked up on the famous “grassy knoll” where many people still think a second shooter fired from. I stood in the spot where Zapruder stood when he took the video of the assassination that we’ve all seen numerous times.
We're on Elm Street, the grassy knoll behind us, looking
up at the Texas School Depository, shown below. The
window is the second one down on right of left building.
As we looked at and experienced standing in all the places that we had seen so many times in news reports, we tried to imagine if Oswald could have accomplished the assassination alone or was there more than one person involved? According to most official reports, he acted alone, but many people will never believe those reports. Sometimes it’s hard to separate truth and reality from myths. As humans we’re prone to believe what best fits what we think happened, based on our perceptions and beliefs, and it’s not necessarily reality-based. Perhaps part of our continuing fascination with this historical event is the mystery still surrounding it. How many people were involved and was there a cover-up by the government for some reason? As I mentioned earlier, close to one thousand books have been published on the subject of the assassination. Over 95% of those books were pro-conspiracy. I imagine this anniversary date will spawn even more books and specials on the subject.
I was glad that we took the time to visit this historic site when we had the chance. As someone who enjoys walking in the footsteps of history, this was a visit I’ll always remember. If you’re ever visiting Dallas, I’d encourage you to visit the site also, and remember that day when you first heard the news, “President John F. Kennedy has been shot.”
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