Eyewitness  by Denise Cassino

    Suddenly, the door flew open and our gym teacher announced, "The President
has been shot!" She was near tears and her voice broke slightly as she spoke. I was
surprised at her expression as her stout appearance and stern face never alluded to much
emotion within. "All students are to report to the auditorium immediately."
    As she entered, I was standing in front of the oversized mirror wedged in between a dozen or so teenaged girls all scrambling to restore their fallen bouffants. I had just glanced at the big clock that hung on the concrete wall of the girls’ locker room and saw that I had only minutes to get to my next class. It was about twelve-thirty in the afternoon, and I still had to attend "try-outs" for the school play before I went home that day.
    With worried looks, we slammed our lockers and shoved the padlocks closed as we hurried out the door, lugging books and purses. A soft but urgent whispering swept the hallways as all students moved in one direction, a sea of bodies, a cacophony of color. As we entered the auditorium, I saw Mrs. Beare, the oldest and most senior of our teachers leaning on the podium, which stood front and center on the expansive stage. She was a large woman, but looked diminutive alone there, amidst the huge lengths of dark wine-colored curtains framing the stage. She was in her sixties and wore her thinning gray hair pulled back in a loose bun with all but a few strands secured by Bobbie Pins. A long dress draped her large frame and hung to mid calf. Half-glasses perched on the end of her nose, giving her an owlish expression. As we took our seats, she placed her index finger pointing upward against her lips, to indicate her request for silence. With her other mottled hand, she held a small transistor radio to her ear in hopes of learning more about the tragedy that had befallen our great country that late November day.
    When the auditorium had filled and all the double doors across the back were finally closed admitting only a sudden shaft of unexpected light as the few stragglers that remained outside entered, she began to speak. Her voice was deep and strong and she managed to convey the terrible events without breaking. "Students, we have just learned that President Kennedy was shot today in Dallas as his motorcade passed through the downtown area. There are no suspects at present, and we don’t know his condition. He has been taken to Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Now, I will listen with you as the news unfolds."
    With that, she turned up the radio volume and placed its tiny speaker against the microphone into which she had just spoken. We sat stoically as the news dribbled in, mixed with confusing and contradictory reports as the newsmen attempted to ascertain the facts.
    The first factual information came over the television airwaves at 12:40 P.M. EST when CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite broke into As the World Turns with an audio announcement: "In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting."
    We listened to more garbled, static-fractured reports and then, we finally heard those fateful words:
"From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1:00 P.M. Central Standard Time, two o'clock Eastern Standard Time." Then Walter Kronkite paused and said, "Some thirty-eight minutes ago."
    Mrs. Beare’s chin dropped to her chest, and she dug a wrinkled hankie from the cuff of her sleeve and dabbed at the tears welling in her tired eyes. Finally, she blew her nose and said, "Students, this is a terrible day in American history. Our President has been assassinated."
    Sobs broke the eerie silence of the hollow hall and quiet weeping swept the room from every corner, every row. Girls held hands and boys pressed their hands to their faces embarrassed to shed tears in public, but torn by emotion and sorrow. We stayed in the auditorium until the school day ended about two hours later, listening intently to the unfolding story broadcast scratchily from that tiny radio.
    I did audition half-heartedly and unsuccessfully for the play, and went home, numb and shocked by the events that were difficult for a mere freshman to comprehend. What did it all mean? Who could have done such a thing? What would happen now? My family, like every other family in America and around the world, sat glued to the television as our leaders went through the motions of returning the murdered President to Washington. We watched as the somber motorcade rolled onto Love Field and the casket was raised into Air Force One. We were told that Lyndon Johnson had been sworn in aboard Air Force One. Later on, we heard a broadcast regarding the capture of a suspected assassin, identified as Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine alleged to be associated with left wing causes – a concept that meant nothing to me at the time.
    Oswald had been pursued into a Dallas movie theatre and a police officer had been killed during the capture. That night, we saw Mrs. Kennedy emerge from Air Force One in Washington, D.C., her pink suit and stockings stained with blood, her face blank and pale with shock and sorrow.
    Saturday dawned gray and gloomy, creating a somber mood for the sadness that engulfed the nation and its citizens. We munched toast and hot chocolate in front of our little console television. Businesses were closed. Our nation was in mourning. Our family huddled together seeking solace and warding off the sense of fear and instability that engulfed us. We learned that President Kennedy’s body lay in state in the White House, visited by former presidents, high officials and heads of state. Then, the casket was moved to the Capitol rotunda. For the next two days people queued up in orderly fashion, each person wishing to pass by the casket to pay respect to their fallen leader, the lines stretching ten miles through the cold streets of Washington. The repeated footage of the deadly motorcade ran endlessly, mixed with documentaries and special tributes. We finally slept, our eyes sore and swollen from the salty tears that ran freely and stained our young cheeks.
    On Sunday, we awoke, still dazed and groggy with grief and were told that the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, would appear live on camera as he was being led through the basement of the Dallas City Jail to be transported to the Dallas County Jail. The cameramen waited in the crowded basement as an agitated mass of people mingled and paced, anxious for his arrival. Suddenly, he appeared, a small, slender man clad in a dark v-necked sweater, handcuffed and flanked by officials, one wearing a large white cowboy hat, Texas style. They moved forward and then suddenly, a figure emerged from the crowd and before our very eyes and the eyes of the world, the man pointed a gun at the midsection of Oswald and fired! Oswald crumbled, clutching his belly, his face contorted in painful anguish. The crowded basement broke into sheer pandemonium and shouts of "He’s been shot!" echoed around the room and the world. We had all been eyewitness to the murder of the alleged assassin of the President of the great United States. Vigilante, Jack Ruby, a local saloon owner was taken into custody for the murder.
    That evening, television allowed us to view the President’s grieving family as they approached his flag-draped casket, his torn body concealed in a closed casket. Mrs. Kennedy and her young daughter, Caroline, approached hand in hand. Jackie knelt and pressed her lips to the flag while Caroline looked up at her in innocent consternation. We wept openly, heartbroken for the loss that child would long endure and for the loss of our country.
    One day ran into another but the worst day was that of the funeral, the horse drawn cart that carried the casket led a grim and solemn procession. One riderless horse pranced restlessly along side, with boots turned upside down in the stirrups, the symbol of a fallen soldier. We learned so many things that day, the traditions of a country that had emerged through the other tragic events that marked its growth, many emulating the funeral of another President who met an assassin’s bullet, Abraham Lincoln.
    The entire funeral cortege traveled on foot through the streets of Washington, D.C., led by the President’s brothers, Robert and Ted Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy draped in black, her swollen face covered by a diaphanous black veil. I’ll never forget the moment caught in the famous photograph when little John Kennedy, Jr., unaware of why, raised his tiny hand in salute as his father’s coffin passed by – the last time he would ever be in the presence of the father who openly adored him.
    Today, on those rare formal and ceremonial occasions that mark the death of a great American, when I hear the solemn sound of the funeral dirge that goes something like, "Pray for the dead and the dead will pray for you," I still recall those moments in November of 1963 as if they happened yesterday. When I am asked where I was when President Kennedy was killed, the memories come rushing back, and I still see it all so vividly in my mind even some forty years later. I believe that the events of September 11, 2001 will forever have the same effect on many Americans.

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