Memories still sting 40 years later

BARBARA DIAMOND

Every year about this time, I begin to think of what was unthinkable

Nov. 22, 1963.

I was shocked to the core to hear the news out of Dallas, first

that John F. Kennedy had been shot, and later that he died. Of

course, I knew that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated, that Harry

Truman had been a target -- but that was history. The United States

was not a place where bullets, not ballots, cast the deciding vote.

I couldn’t tell you what happened in the rest of the world for the

next few days. My world was a 25-inch television screen. I saw

President Kennedy shot again and again, his wife reaching out to a

Secret Service man for help again and again. I saw his suspected

killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, shot again and again. I saw consummate

professional newsman Walter Cronkite struggling to control his

emotions when he announced the death of the President of the United

States.

And I saw, what I will believe to my dying day was the president’s

widow instructing her young son to salute the casket that carried his

father to his burial place in Arlington National Cemetery -- an image

that broke the hearts of millions.

Presumably my children were fed those few days. They may have even

gone outside to play -- though I doubt it. I know they watched some

of the events unfolding on the one television set in the house. Like

my parents before me, who had awakened their 6-year-old daughter in

the middle of the night to hear a radio broadcast about Hitler’s

historically stupid invasion of Russia, I wanted my children to be

aware of events that would shape the future of their country -- even

if it was then beyond their comprehension. And it was.

Years later, when John Lennon was shot, my youngest son, Paul,

told me that I could not possibly understand how he felt. Yes, I

said, I could.

Kenny, my middle son, a first-grader at the time, remembers

talking about the assassination later -- politics and history were

dinner-table conversation at our house -- but he has no memories of

those fateful days in 1963.

My eldest son, Kevin, 8 at the time, was more aware of my deep

dismay -- enough so that when the president’s brother was shot after

winning the California Democratic primary, he turned off the radio

after hearing the news to break it to me himself.

Paul, not yet in kindergarten in 1963, was with me at the

butcher’s when I first heard the news about the shooting in Dallas. I

remember saying, “That’s not funny.” Told it was no joke, I called

the schools my other two sons attended and asked if they were to be

sent home early. Advised the children were being kept till the

regular time, I went to the home of Gino and Irene Cimoli, a woman I

had known and admired since I was in high school.

In a world suddenly more precarious than I, in my arrogance, had

imagined, people I cared about assumed a new importance. Later that

week, I wrote letters to friends with whom I had lost contact, to

remind myself more than them that I thought of them with affection. I

wanted them to know it.

I suspect most people of my generation or the one just after mine

know exactly where they were that morning when the news flash came

out of Dallas.

Longtime Laguna Beach resident Ken Anderson worked for Ford Motor

Co. in Detroit in 1963. He was at the office when he heard the news.

“Everybody was in deep shock, even though most of them were

Republicans,” Anderson said. “It was bigger than that.”

Bette Anderson was home ironing.

“I liked to watch television when I ironed,” she said. “I was

totally shocked by the news. I stayed glued to the TV, hoping I would

hear that it was all a mistake. I don’t remember doing anything

useful or practical.”

Laguna Beach Reserve Police Officer Ben Teschner was working for

Chevron at 220 Bush St. in San Francisco when he heard the news.

“They gave us the rest of the day and the next day off,” Teschner

said.

He, too, was glued to the TV set.

“We saw Oswald shot,” he said.

Laguna Canyon resident Anne Quilter was a senior in high school in

Arlington, Va., when she heard the news and her world crashed.

“It was sixth period, and a roommate came in and said John Kennedy

had been shot,” Quilter said.

The news ended the sense of confidence in her future that was

slowly rebuilding after the Cuban Missile Crisis had undermined it.

“I really felt that John Kennedy was the first national leader who

respected the youth of this country and thought we could do something

beyond ourselves,” Quilter said.

“My world just caved in,” she said. “I was a gymnast and I went

down to the gym and sat outside the door for an hour and just cried

and cried. It was like I knew it was too good to be true.”

Quilter’s father, a career military man, took his devastated

daughter to watch the funeral procession.

“We watched the cortege pass from the White House to the Capitol,”

Quilter said. “We saw Black Jack [the symbolic riderless horse],

which was almost uncontrollable. We saw Mrs. Kennedy, and we saw the

children. “

Councilman Wayne Baglin was a student at Louisiana State

University in November 1963.

“I heard the news from other students as I was leaving class,”

Baglin said. “I returned to the dorm and watched on television. I was

then and continue to be a great admirer of JFK.”

Baglin had gone to LSU to complete his degree. The death of the

President changed his plans.

“Many people in the dorm were cheering,” Baglin said. “I got into

a scuffle with a few of them. A friend, who played football, came to

my rescue -- otherwise I was way outnumbered. I decided LSU was not

where I was most comfortable with my fellow students, and I returned

to Cal State Northridge.

“To this day, I cannot watch or read anything about JFK’s death,”

he said. “I am having difficulty even talking about it.”

Mayor Toni Iseman was also a college student in 1963. She

remembers the drums that beat as the slain president’s casket was

born down the streets of the nation’s capital.

“I was walking to class ... when I ran into a dorm friend, and she

told me -- I thought she was kidding,” said Iseman, who was raised to

pray for Democrats because they were sure to go to hell. “The big

debate on campus was whether the Nebraska-Oklahoma football game

should be played Thanksgiving weekend. It was decided that [Kennedy]

would have wanted them to play, and the game was played. I thought it

pretty interesting that football trumped everything.”

* OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline

Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box

248, Laguna Beach, 92652, hand-deliver to 384 Forest Ave., Suite 22;

call (949) 494-4321 or fax (949) 494-8979.