Juanita Salas was a sophomore at Robertson High School, immersed in her social studies class, when the principal got on the P.A. system to announce the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody was just shocked for awhile. They dismissed school right away,” said the retired teacher assistant with the Las Vegas City Schools. Like several others interviewed for this column, marking the 43rd anniversary of Kennedy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, Juanita has crystallized the events, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just as if it happened yesterday.”<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0As for me, in 1963 I was a newspaper reporter in another town. In previous columns I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve mentioned how the shock and horror of having our president gunned down by an assassin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bullet created a day I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll certainly never forget. Things at the Gallup Independent, where I was employed, couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been more hectic than if the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motorcade had passed through our newspaper office.
\nThe details were clear for Mary Tarango, who works as a secretary for attorney Michael Gregory. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was in school at Paul D. Henry. When we heard about it, the teacher asked us to observe a moment of silent prayer, and then we got sent home early. I remember feeling sad because we all considered him a great president. But we were probably more shocked than hurt, and I kept asking, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWho could do such a thing?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122”
\nGerda Zimmerman came to the U.S. to study at the Martha Graham Contemporary Dance School in New York City. She had seen films of the legendary dancer, and as a young woman made the decision to emigrate from Germany.
\nHer take on the assassination altered her opinion of America. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was on the street \u00e2\u20ac\u201d on Broadway \u00e2\u20ac\u201d when I heard about the assassination. There was much commotion on the street. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe that somebody had killed the president. People were very upset.” Zimmerman said that before the assassination, her conception of America was somewhat different, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more innocent.”
\nAnother student at the time, Robert Ortiz, was an eighth-grader at Bernal when he heard the news. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All of us were very sad. They must have thought there was no point in continuing to hold class, so they sent us home,” said Ortiz, who recently retired as a woodwork instructor at Luna Vocational.
\nMia Prieskorn, whose father Don Swanson owned and operated a laundry in Las Vegas decades ago, was working at yet another laundry, in Albuquerque, when she learned about the killing at Dallas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Dealey Plaza. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Somebody came in who had heard the news on the radio. We ran and got a TV \u00e2\u20ac\u201d from somewhere \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and started watching it.”
\nPrieskorn said her first reaction was disbelief, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and then I was just horrified when it sank in.” She said she hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been similarly affected until she watched the second plane crash into the Twin Towers in New York City, five years ago. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I realized it was real, I just sat down and wept.”
\nTo flesh out this column, I called dozens of numbers, mostly random, confident that anybody I spoke to, who was alive in 1963, would have a clear recollection of what he or she went through upon hearing the news.
\nOne person, however, said she had no recollection at all of the event.
\nA high school student at the time, she said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153events were just a blur.”
\nFinally, I had gotten in touch with the one person in the world unable to remember that day.
\nI prodded her: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you simply block it out?”
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No. I just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember that day. But I was in Dallas later on and visited the site of Kennedy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motorcade.”
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great,” I said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At last I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve located someone who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember anything about the assassination. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll really help the column.”
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use my name,” she said.
\nAnd I have to honor her request.
\nDarn.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2
\nThese are some of my reasons to be thankful today:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thankful there are midterm elections. Interesting how the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bipartisanship” has suddenly come into vogue with the Democratic party takeover of both houses. Strange that bipartisanship never seemed to be an issue before the recent election.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thankful that the Fox network and its publishing company HarperCollins decided against a two-part TV interview and the publishing of a book by O.J. Simpson, a purportedly hypothetical \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I Did It.” In one of America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most-celebrated trials, the former football star was acquitted of murdering his estranged wife and her companion but was successfully sued by the ex-wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family in a civil matter. His book was to be a denial of the killings, but, we are told, O.J. was to explain how he would have committed the crime, if he had in fact done it. The extra free time will allow O.J. to continue his search for the real killers. (Wink. Wink.)
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thankful for the plan of Rep. Charles D. Rangel, D-N.Y., to urge Congress to reinstitute the draft. That would give members of congress an opportunity to send their own children off to war instead of leaving the privilege solely to those of less financial means.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thankful for efforts to ban smoking in public places. There are those who insist \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not one shred of evidence that second-hand smoke kills.” Some of my relatives \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and possibly some of yours \u00e2\u20ac\u201d have died of lung cancer without ever having smoked. The assertion that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no evidence that other people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s smoke is injurious must be of tremendous comfort to those who are buried because of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juanita Salas was a sophomore at Robertson High School, immersed in her social studies class, when the principal got on the P.A. system to announce the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody was just shocked for awhile. They dismissed school right away,” said the retired teacher assistant with the Las Vegas City Schools. Like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1387,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/1387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}