Election Campaign Buttons - Facts and Fun

I was 13 years old when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963. I remember that I was in my Math Class when the announcement came over the intercom that the President had been shot. I also remember my math teacher, Mr. C. fighting to hold back his tears as he spoke to a classroom of confused and stunned .... and crying 13-year boys and girls. We were in Jr. HIgh, (6th & 7th grades) ... the term used back in the early 60's, and we were a generation that was now being shoved squarely into the realities of a very tumultuous decade of American History. We left school that day to spend the weekend with the TV coverage, Conkrite, and parents who wiped their own tears and clutched our hands ... at least my parents did.

Mr. C, my math teacher, gave us an assignment over the weekend ... not math (which I hated, usually flunked and waited until the last possible minute to do), but a writing assignment. He told us to write about our feelings ... write about how we felt about the President's assassination. We brought the assignment in to the next class. He did not collect this assignment, instead he told us to keep it for the rest of our life.. never throw it away. Thank you, Mr. C .........

I tucked my paper into my jewelery box (where later the RFK button would find a resting place) and have had it all these many years. I have on occasion taken the now yellow binder paper out ... the writing in pencil fading and reread what this old baby boomer thought on her first day of reckoning with the adult world.

Please forgive the misspelling and grammar of a 13-year old :

"What I have learned and felt about the death of President Kennedy I think I will always remember. Really in a way the death of the President has been the fault of the whole nation. I think before that the American people never really did and want to co-operate with the government. With the death of the President I think that everyone has realize that there is much they can do and much they must and should do in order to run a good government. Also before the President death I felt and I think that most people did that the world was far apart. By this I mean that I felt that no one really liked each other. ( I mean between people in different countries - like the relationship of Russia and U.S.) With the death of Kennedy I think people all over suddenly felt a wanting and a love for each other. The whole world not only the U.S. has suffered a great loss. All the leaders of forgein countries knows that John F. Kennedy was a man striving for peace. All the other countries also want peace not only America. President Kennedy in any decision he made was for the best of the whole world and men like de Gualle and other dignatries know this. But the whole world I think has realized the President Kennedys death was for a worthy cause. His death has brought great knowledge to the people everywhere. I really can not explain what this great source of knowledge is and I don't think that many people could but I think that many people do feel inside a strange and more wanting, and helping relationship with people everywhere."

It's not profound, it's only the thoughts of a young girl trying to make sense of what she was seeing and hearing.

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