Where were you when Kennedy was shot?

[Generals64]

I just started a new thread called "Where were you during historic events?"

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good show dude....

[PennyQuilts]

Challenger Explosion, I was home getting ready to go back to class. Watched it live on TV. It was horrible. I kept hoping my eyes were deceiving me.

OKC bombing, I was on the phone arguing with an obnoxious lawyer over at the Health Sciences Center. Didn't hear a thing. I was the second person in line to give blood and inside of two hours, when I came back out, there were ambulances as far as the eye could see.

9-11 - I was right across the river from the Pentagon and heard it hit. Just a couple of minutes before, I'd been on the phone with my husband who is in the aviation business. We were talking about the planes in NYC and I'll never forget what he said, "Keep it under your hat because we don't want to start a panic, but we've lost some planes..."

[Generals64]

Challenger Explosion, I was home getting ready to go back to class. Watched it live on TV. It was horrible. I kept hoping my eyes were deceiving me.

OKC bombing, I was on the phone arguing with an obnoxious lawyer over at the Health Sciences Center. Didn't hear a thing. I was the second person in line to give blood and inside of two hours, when I came back out, there were ambulances as far as the eye could see.

9-11 - I was right across the river from the Pentagon and heard it hit. Just a couple of minutes before, I'd been on the phone with my husband who is in the aviation business. We were talking about the planes in NYC and I'll never forget what he said, "Keep it under your hat because we don't want to start a panic, but we've lost some planes..."

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Hey girl, you're up rather late tonight aren't you? When you and the hubby come back to God's country for a visit.....We're going to have a bonfire and cook our own Schwab's Hot Dogs....

[papaOU]

Challenger Explosion, I was home getting ready to go back to class. Watched it live on TV. It was horrible. I kept hoping my eyes were deceiving me.

OKC bombing, I was on the phone arguing with an obnoxious lawyer over at the Health Sciences Center. Didn't hear a thing. I was the second person in line to give blood and inside of two hours, when I came back out, there were ambulances as far as the eye could see.

9-11 - I was right across the river from the Pentagon and heard it hit. Just a couple of minutes before, I'd been on the phone with my husband who is in the aviation business. We were talking about the planes in NYC and I'll never forget what he said, "Keep it under your hat because we don't want to start a panic, but we've lost some planes..."

Challenger, I was at work and heard it over the radio

OKC bombing, I worked on Skyline and Eastern. The business backed to the railroad tracks to the north and you an unobstructed view of downtown. The river or something absorbed the sound because we heard nothing. Got in the car to go home (worked graveyard) and they were talking about a possible gas pipeline explosion. Didn't seem as if people were taking it serious. Of course it was awhile before we knew the magnitude.

On 9/11 I was again getting off work. When they said a plane had hit the twin towers I thought maybe it was a light airplane. A two seater or such.

[PennyQuilts]

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Hey girl, you're up rather late tonight aren't you? When you and the hubby come back to God's country for a visit.....We're going to have a bonfire and cook our own Schwab's Hot Dogs....

I WAS up late!! I was bound and determined to finish up a quilt that has been sitting around needing a binding. I was posting while it was in the washer (I like to wash them when they are done to get them to shrink up and "pop" the quilting). The thing is so big I didn't dare walk off and leave it in the washer to go to bed. It would have gotten the thing off balance and walked the machine all over the laundry room. Since I had an early morning, I wanted to get it washed last night.

[papaOU]

What really struck me after it was determined to be a bomb in Okc, was "Oh my God! The United States has just became a part of the rest of the world!" I think that is why 9/11, the act anyway, did not have near the same impact.

[Generals64]

The Assasination of Kennedy is all over the History Channel....I don't know how Oswald or whomever was able to put 3 Rounds through that rifle that fast. It just doesn't make any common Sense.....And to be accurate also?????

[Prunepicker]

The Assasination of Kennedy is all over the History Channel... I don't know
how Oswald or whomever was able to put 3 Rounds through that rifle that
fast. It just doesn't make any common Sense... And to be accurate also?

I think the shooter(s) was/were in the sewer drain(s). You don't fall
backward when you're shot from behind.

[papaOU]

Know LBJ's favorite song?

"I Love a Parade"

[Generals64]

I think the shooter(s) was/were in the sewer drain(s). You don't fall
backward when you're shot from behind.

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that's kinda what I thought. I have a very close friend that was Johnson's Secret Service agent. Number one rule...we don't discuss Anything about Kennedy......Now, there's a real collectable.....I have a Crystal Bird signed (etched) from Lady Bird....Not many of those around town. I also have a Presidential Lighter from LBJ.......(Ronson Butane)....When my oldest son was born my wife was given a Presidential bracelet with the Presidential Seal....LBJ ...He's not the president any more is he????

[skyrick]

11-22-1963 I was at John Carroll, sitting in 5th grade math class after recess waiting for Sister Mary Geraldine to come in. She was about ten minutes late and it was pretty loud and rowdy when she came in. We were sure we were going to have to write something 100 times, but she just said, "President Kennedy has just been shot. You see what happens when you live in such a crazy world?" and ran back out. She came back in about ten minutes later and said, "The President is dead." All I can remember after that for the rest of the day is that every time I looked at Nancy Thompson she was sobbing quietly into a Kleenex.

Rick

[papaOU]

11-22-1963 I was at John Carroll, sitting in 5th grade math class after recess waiting for Sister Mary Geraldine to come in. She was about ten minutes late and it was pretty loud and rowdy when she came in. We were sure we were going to have to write something 100 times, but she just said, "President Kennedy has just been shot. You see what happens when you live in such a crazy world?" and ran back out. She came back in about ten minutes later and said, "The President is dead." All I can remember after that for the rest of the day is that every time I looked at Nancy Thompson she was sobbing quietly into a Kleenex.

Rick

I was at Sacred Heart. All the students were ushered into the gym. We were told he had been killed and school was dismissed.

[gen70]

It was rain'n that day in OKC.

[papaOU]

I was at Sacred Heart. All the students were ushered into the gym. We were told he had been killed and school was dismissed.

I only had a block to walk in getting home. I must have been in the 3rd grade.

I am sick of the "film" being shown over and over. Once or twice is enough.

Anyone engrossed with the head shot is sick.

And I'm a pretty liberal minded person.

[Generals64]

Well, it's that time of the year....Did Oswald do it or not???? never really know will we????

[Eldestof4]

11/22/63; Nothing too different from most other accounts. Mrs. Lee's 5th-grade class at Belle Isle (perhaps otherwise the least remarkable year of my education.) I guess someone came to the classroom door and told her, she told us and we watched the TV the rest of the afternoon. No sage adult told me I should be devouring every second of this life-changing event. (Actually, they might have, but I was too restless with no sports on the b/w Motorola to pay much attention.) On Sunday, I was outside playing football (for want of any of the NFL/AFL genuine article on TV) when Oswald was shot. But hey, we were Republicans and in our family, "democrat" was the severest of epithets. (My father and his father actually preferred it to son-of- this other mother- that.) Hence, not a lot of Kennedy worship around our home. (A few months later, as the Beatles were exploding, I changed my coiffure into a more downward and British swoop. My dad caught me going out the front door in high Mersey style and bellowed, "Get back in here and comb your hair! You look like go99am Bobby Kennedy!")

-0-

When the Murrah Building was hit, I had, as it were, gone left on the map and was long into fulfilling my Grapes of Wrath Destiny at a major Southern California newspaper (back when they had those--and CRT TVs) and was literally underground at Union Station, meeting a fellow guitar enthusiast who was on his way from Nawlins up the West Coast to Oregon. I heard the NPR report (did I mention I love my parents but have drifted from their political worldview?) as I drove out into the morning light.

But more interesting was a phone conversation between my dad and my aunt (his sister and only sibling). She worked at the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (across the street at the west end of the same block as the Murrah Building.) She and dad were talking to each other when everything McVeighed. She had just enough time to say something about the ceiling coming down into her hairdo before the line went dead.

Others in the OWRC Building died, but she got out with only the loss of a permanent, a pair of pantyhose from the flying debris and probably some sore feet from walking some distance north away from the scene. Her name is on the Survivors' Wall (SE corner) of the remaining Murrah basement: Mary E. Whitlow. (She and dad, 77 and 83 respectively, are still with us fourteen years later. So's Mom, although she was simply at home when the Ryder truck's security deposit was voided.)

[Prunepicker]

I was in front of the TV on a Sunday when Oswald was shot. Kennedy was
shot on a Friday. I remember because I went out an played instead of
watching TV. There were no cartoons or Foreman Scotty.

Oswald was shot on Sunday.

[flippity]

Kennedy - wasn't born yet
Challenger - I vaguely remember teachers turning on televisions in classrooms..i really don't remember much, I was in high school

Bombing...I was at my house, getting ready for class. I was getting dressed and getting my 2 yo daughter dressed. I lived about a mile away (as the crow flies) from the building at the time...the explosion shook our old house so hard, my toddler fell down on her butt and I had to catch myself from falling. It rattled the windows but didn't break them. My (then) husband called me right after - I thought he was calling about that but he asked me a question about the dryer, he was buying a part for it. I asked if he heard that..."Heard what?" I told him there was some very loud explosion that shook the house and he said it was probably a sonic boom...I told him, "That was no sonic boom"

When my husband found out what was going on, he went to the hospital..he was in medical school at the time. He went to the OU ER within an hour and they had everything set up to accept critical patients, and they waited and waited but no one ever came. I guess most of the first patients were taken to St. Anthony.

I took my daughter to her babysitter just down the street from me, and while there, the helicopter was just rounding the corner with the first vision of what happened. It was so shocking. I called my biochem instructor and told her I wouldn't be there to take the test, and when I told her why, she cancelled class altogether. I was downtown within 30 minutes, and it was a cluster. I didn't get close to the building, there was so much commotion, I thought it best to stay out of the way. I saw my stepdad, he's a cop and on the bomb squad...he had the bomb disposal unit truck, as they had heard there was a 2nd bomb. He didn't see me.

He was there every day after that for weeks, digging people out (parts, mostly). He still has nightmares.

[papaOU]

I was in front of the TV on a Sunday when Oswald was shot. Kennedy was
shot on a Friday. I remember because I went out an played instead of
watching TV. There were no cartoons or Foreman Scotty.

Oswald was shot on Sunday.

I was in the same mood.

What! No cartoons?

They just keep showing the Kennedy Archives films over and over....

Soon to become archive films.....

[jmpokc1957]

I was in the first grade at Rollingwood Elementary School. I remember that I was in a temp classroom in the cafeteria. As I was in the peak of the baby boomers I spent most of my school days in temp classrooms. I can remember people talking about it but that's about all.

Mike

[papaOU]

I was in the first grade at Rollingwood Elementary School. I remember that I was in a temp classroom in the cafeteria. As I was in the peak of the baby boomers I spent most of my school days in temp classrooms. I can remember people talking about it but that's about all.

Mike

how much time did you spend in the "office?"

[jmpokc1957]

how much time did you spend in the "office?"

Not quite sure what you mean by the "office". If you're talking about the principals office then yes, I made a few visits there!
I was an angry and rebellious one in those days. Mr. King was the principal when I was there. That would be about 1969 and the times they were a changing.

When I graduated from Putnam City High School in 1975 we had over 800 kids in our class. Lots of temp class rooms there.

In my senior year I went to the Foster Estes Vocational Technical Center in South OKC. That was a great experience. I don't know if that school exists anymore but it was well worth it. Good teachers. Of course, they didn't have to deal with the normal high school nonsense either.


Mike

[corpsman]

When I graduated from Putnam City High School in 1975 we had over 800 kids in our class. Lots of temp class rooms there.

In my senior year I went to the Foster Estes Vocational Technical Center in South OKC. That was a great experience. I don't know if that school exists anymore but it was well worth it. Good teachers. Of course, they didn't have to deal with the normal high school nonsense either.


Mike[/QUOTE]
If you went to the one on S. Bryant, it is still there. Remodeled and absorbed by Metro Tech.

[cindycat]

I was a freshman at NEO A&M in Miami. I was home for lunch. Mother came in and told me. They had interrupted "As the World Turns" with the news. When I got back to school, I saw my history teacher and told her. She accused me of lying to her. She later apologized to me in front of our history class.

Challenger - I was working at Tinker and had gone across the hall to see one of the engineers I worked with. We all stood there and listened to the radio.

Bombing - Still at Tinker. The wife of one of the guys in the office called and told him. He was our computer/communications specialist, so he set up the television in the conference room. The first of many hours of TV watching during that time. We lost our favorite security investigator.

[ljbab728]

I thought this might be an appropriate time to bring this thread back up for new posters here.