Upon hearing of president Kennedy's assassination, I had a reaction similar to
Mike's. I was 6 years old and playing with my plastic WWII toy soldiers in our
living room/dining room floor in Cuba. My mother was in the kitchen and our
front door was open. Suddenly, our next door neighbor, a member of the CDR
("Committee for the Defense of the Revolution", a neighborhood spying
group) barges in, all excited hollering "mataron a Kennedy, mataron a Kennedy!"
(Kennedy has been killed). I remember my mother reacting with her typical
surprise "Noooo!". Like Mike I did not understand the significance of the
event, but I guess that, based in part on the ensuing conversation between them
and the several "Ay Dios mio" (oh my God!) uttered by my mother conveyed to
me that the news was not good. Keep in mind that about a year and a half
earlier the Bay of Pigs invasion had taken place and that was the basis for
another flashbulb memory of mine. Man-o-man, it was early morning and we woke
up to the sound of what we thought was thunder; my mother got up to close the
windows and realized that the thunder was the sound of cannon fire and screamed
something about being invaded. Planes had been flying nearby and we could hear
the distant sound of machine gun strafing. We lived about 10 miles from a
military air base.
Of course, I have to wonder how much of the above is a mere reconstruction. ;-)
Miguel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Palij" <[email protected]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Mike Palij" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 9:17:10 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [tips] Where Were You On This Date 46 Years Ago?
My own memory for when I heard about the Kennedy assasination is
as follows:
I was in the fourth grade in Catholic grade school and it was a sunny
afternoon. The nun who was our teacher had been called away from
class and we fidgeted, talked to each other, and fooled around until
she came back. She had a very serious look on her face and she spoke
in a low voice, almost a whisper. She told us that the president had been
shot. I don't remember whether she said whether he had died or not.
My own reaction was I didn't understand what this meant but I knew
that it was not good. I don't remember much else from that afternoon
nor do I remember whether I actually saw Oswald being shot on TV
a couple of days later. I don't remember many details but I do remember
the sadness and sense of loss that other displayed and which I eventually
took on. It would take a while for me to figure out what this all meant.
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