Where were you on August 28, 1963?

I was probably shopping for back-to-school clothes with my Mom in Webster, Massachusetts, getting ready for 5th grade to start the following week (in those bygone days when the school year sanely started after Labor Day), and counting down (though we didn’t know it at the time, of course) to the Kennedy assassination.

Um, I was in the recovery room in the maternity ward.

I was 26…

…years away from being born.

My mother wasn’t even born at that point.

I’m just a spring chicken, I guess.

My parents were only about 9–10 years old.

I was 12 years old enjoying the Summer in Cucamonga, California and in denial that my Mom and alcoholic Step Dad were getting a divorce at that time. I was oblivious to world affairs as I withdrew deep within myself. My poor older Sisters and Mom worked hard to move us but I refused to accept the reality of it. I even had a paper route and I just left all the customers and the paper company hanging in the lurch as my older Sisters dragged me to our new apartment about 10 miles away. No one packed any of my personal stuff. That was my responsibility. So I walked back to our old house to get my coin collection and found that my so called friend next door stoled the most valuable part of it. It was a long walk back to the apartment. It was sort of my own personal march of enlightenment so to speak.

My parents were only about 8–9 years old too and I has not exsit in the world. hehe.

My parents had gone to attend the funeral of my grandfather in Canada. I was a pretty mature teen for my age, and my parents considered me old enough to be left at home alone in Massachusetts. I spent the day in front of the TV, watching the events of the march unfold as they happened.

I’d been very aware of the civil rights movement from the earliest days, reading news reports in the newspaper and in magazines such as Life and Time. The March on Washington brought an intensity and immediacy to the experience of witnessing social change in our time. The events seemed real and no longer remote. They made a tremendous impression on me. Even though I was only a spectator watching a broadcast, I felt a part of it.

I always find it amazing that my mom (born in 53’) was around when such rampant racism was abound. It is actually really hard to get my mind around it.

Dad was about nine years old. Mom was about four months old. Dad was in California, Mom was in Germany. Beyond that, no clue.

It was four years before I was born. It must have been a crazy time, with some great inspiration thrown into the mix.

I was a week away from becoming a clump of cells inside my mom.

I was but a twinkle in my Dad’s eye.

I saw this question and immediately thought “JFK.” That’s all I really remember about that year. JFK, and my sister getting the tip of of her pinkie finger chopped off in the pneumatic hinge side of a storm door….the kind that slowly, slowly shuts until the last second when it SNAPS. Yeah. Chopped it clean off. And that was JFK’s fault too. I was 5 at the time, but that was my parent’s fault, not JFK’s. Oh…and I do remember finding the tip of my sisters finger about 3 weeks later, stuck to the door frame. That’s all I remember about 1963.

No, I don’t remember it, but in the 90’s I dated a guy who had grown up in Selma, Alabama. He was about 9 at the time and he has vivid memories of the turbulence and the marches and the meetings. And horses. White policemen on horses, trying to run people and little kids down.

The other day my son was visiting and I wanted to tell him about a cool dream I had. I said, “I had a dream…..” and he said, “Careful. Last guy who said that got shot.” MY SON IS A HORRIBLE PERSON WHO MAKES ME RFOL AT INAPPROPRIATE THINGS!!!!!

I was only 3 and a half years old. I was probably playing my wading pool topless.
I do remember JFKs assassination, vaguely.