November 22, 1963

“If you were alive 45 years ago,” the radio-announcer said; “you probably know the significance of yesterday’s date.”
“Of course I do,” I thought to myself. “Yesterday was the date of president Kennedy’s assassination.”
I was in my sophomore year at Houghton, and was just leaving a class, probably in WC-5, in the basement of the John and Charles Wesley Memorial Chapel-Auditorium (we had to write this all out lest the college go completely bonkers), walking up the steps from the basement to the east entrance.
Word was spreading like wildfire.
President Kennedy had been shot, and was probably dead.
I stepped into the cold outdoors, stunned.
It was a gray overcast day, typical of November weather in Western New York.
Washington D.C. was far away, at least 500 miles.
Yet events were happening that effected me where I was.
It seemed like the dream had been punctured.
President Kennedy was not working out like we dreamed.
Too much a realist, party to the interplay of Washington politics.
But he represented a break from the exorbitant ‘50s; post-war extravagance and chest-beating.
He was Catholic; our first Catholic president.
Tub-thumpers were loudly beating the drums of the Papacy running the country.
But such was not to be.
Kennedy was more a politician — not a religious elitist.
He came to Philadelphia once in 1962, on July Fourth, to help celebrate Independence Day.
I drove up there myself in the puke-green ‘57 — don’t know how I finagled this.
I cheered as Kennedy drove by far away on Market St. in the presidential open-top Lincoln.
He was my president; representing a break from the overblown ‘50s.
His assassination symbolized the end of the dream; perhaps a return to the ‘50s.
Giant B-36s droning overhead in echelon formation. 89 bazilyun gallons of av-gas to fuel the “Big Stick.”
I worry about Obama; also a break from the past, just like Kennedy.

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I didn’t graduate with their approval. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

RE: “Tub-thumpers” and “not a religious elitist.......” —All my siblings are tub-thumping born-again Christians.

The “puke-green ‘57” was our family’s 1957 Chevrolet BelAir four-door sedan. It was actually two-tone green, but the lighter color was more yellowish, like vomit.

RE: “Don’t know how I finagled this........” —My parents were probably not around. I can hardly see them approving my taking their number-one vehicle alone.

“Market St.” is a main east-west drag in Philadelphia.