My fifth-grade class had returned to the classroom from lunch and recess. It was a bright, crisp Friday afternoon in the Monongahela Valley. Our energy had been spent running around. As we settled in our seats, our teacher was crying.
Mrs. Bedogne cried several times a day. Someone gave an incorrect answer, made an error at the board in Arithmetic, or something like that. My first thought was that someone had fallen on the playground and scraped a knee.
But she announced that the President had been shot and was dead. Silence descended over the classroom. About a year earlier John F. Kennedy visited our valley and received a warm reception. The teacher asked who our President now was. My hand shot up with the correct answer.
Three generations of my family met for Friday dinner. Everyone was a staunch Republican, but all were shocked. Not Grandmother Turfa. She complained that her program (soap opera) was not on TV that afternoon. She refused to believe what happened in Dallas. Grandma immigrated about 60 years before from Austria-Hungary (we were Hungarians) with two of her brothers. Her news came from an American-Hungarian newspaper.
One day we will know what really happened on that terrible day in Dallas. The Warren Commission covered up a lot. JFK was hitting his stride in the Oval Office, and we will never know what he might have accomplished, or how the 1964 election could have turned out.
It is a day for reflection, sorrow, and to remember a time when the United States was not so divided.
RIP, Mr. President
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