Branford columnist remembers JFK’s death like it was yesterday

So much has been written, spoken and televised this past week about the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination and death, that I hesitate to attempt to add to the far more profound and able writers on the subject, and yet somehow I cannot allow the event to pass without making my own small observation.


It is only my senior age group that retains a vivid memory of that day. My sons were too small and have vague recollections while my daughter was not yet born.


The memory is as vivid as if it were yesterday; and yet 50 years ago, my life and the life of this country were so vastly different than they are today. We had just returned from living in Japan for an extended period and had barely settled into an apartment in Peter Cooper Village, a large complex in New York City.


I was on my way to pick up my boys from school and bring them home for lunch, and I had stopped first at the laundromat on First Avenue to drop off some small rugs. As I emerged from there, my eye caught a woman standing on the sidewalk, tears streaming down her face, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Concerned, I went over and put my hand on her arm and asked if I could help her.


“Haven’t you heard?” she replied, “The president has been shot.” We hugged, and then I walked the remaining block to the school where they were dismissing all the children, for the day.


We went home to remain glued to the radio and the television and soon learned the unthinkable; our young, charismatic president, so vital, so full of promise, was dead. Returning to one’s country, after a period of living abroad, is always something of a cultural shock in that you see both its faults and strengths in a new light. I could not perceive of how the country had changed so that this horrific event could possibly take place; and in the days that followed with the additional killings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, I came to realize the change was a permanent one.


Later, we would learn of the cruel set of circumstances that conspired to make history that day: Oswald’s recent job at the Texas School Book Depository, the motorcade taking a route passing directly by and finally, the overcast Texas skies clearing so that a decision was made to remove the bubble over the presidential limo.


Television, still a relatively new medium, brought the sorrowful pageantry of the funeral into our homes. Who can forget the riderless horse, Jackie’s grief-stricken face behind her veil and little John-John’s goodbye salute as the casket went by?


Historians have now revealed many unflattering personal facts about President Kennedy as well as determined that his accomplishments were mediocre. Perhaps, it really doesn’t matter. What is gone for good is a certain innocence we all had at that time; a wonderful, if unrealistic belief in ourselves and our country; the vision of America as a Camelot, died along with President Kennedy.


Certainly, we have made tremendous progress in many areas: women and minorities holding positions of power, unthinkable 50 years ago, and that is much to be admired and commended, but just as small children lose a lovely naivete when they learn that there are no fairies or Santa Claus, so too, did Americans lose a certain vision of ourselves and our country that I fear will never return.


Jean Cherni writes a column for the Sunday Register. Contact her, a certified senior adviser for Senior Living Solutions and Pearce Plus, at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 49 Rose St., Apt. 510, Branford, 06405.

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