Jeez, seems like I'm a bit older than most of you -- except Kendall, of course... ;o)

I was a senior in college (Colby, in Waterville, Maine) when Kennedy was shot. Had just come back to the dorm after class and lunch. A friend in the dorm told me and my roommate that she'd heard it on the radio and we went to her room and listened to the radio reports all afternoon. That evening everyone gathered in the chapel for an impromptu memorial service. Everyone was terribly shocked. No one was thinking about who or what started the war -- just that this unspeakable thing had happened. I really wanted to go home (Washington DC), but couldn't, because it would have meant missing some classes, and there was a $75 fine for missing the last class before a holiday (Thanksgiving, in this case), and $75 was a lot of money for a student back then.

The next day was Saturday, and I regularly babysat for a professor's kids. I remember watching their TV -- people arriving at the White House in the rain -- and the kids whining in the background, "But I wanna watch Roy Rogers!"

It seemed to me then, and still does, that that's when America lost her innocence. If THAT could happen, then ANYTHING could happen. And of course, lots more horrible things happened later in the 1960s.

Wow -- 50 years next November 22.

--Nancy