I can't see that date without being thrust back into an eight-grade math class, the place I happened to be when the voice of the school principal came over the PA system and announced that the president had been shot. We were immediately sent back to our homerooms and told to pray in silence. I remember thinking that if the president died, nothing would ever be the same again.
The nun who was my homeroom teacher sat quietly at her desk as we filed in, her eyes brimming with tears. Time seemed frozen as we sat there and waited for the news we all feared would come. And when, at last, it did, they sent us all home.
I recall thinking that normal television programming would likely be pre-empted for much of the afternoon. I never imagined that four the next for days I would be riveted to the TV set, watching events unfold: the swearing-in aboard Air Force One, Mrs. Kennedy in her blood-stained suit emerging from the plane, Oswald's death, the funeral cortege and that incessant beating of the drums as the president's casket slowly made its way to Arlington.
A few years ago, while helping my mother empty out her house, I came across some school papers she'd saved. One was a spelling test. I figured she'd kept it because I'd gotten all the answers correct.
Then I noticed the date I had neatly written at the top: November 22, 1963.
I tucked the spelling test into a folder to take back home with me, to remind me of a time before life changed. Forever.
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