Friday, November 22, 1963, began as ordinarily as any other school day.

That crisp N.Y. fall morning gave no indication that 60 years later it would be one burned into my consciousness. By afternoon, life in our country would never be the same.

The chill in the air and the lingering smell of burning fall leaves from neighbor’s burn barrels permeated through the windows of our ranch house. My mother had already raised the temperature on the Honeywell thermostat so the slight noise of the oil burner churned through the house.

Like most mornings I gulped down my tall glass of Tang in my favorite Flintstone’s jelly glass and played word games with my bowl of sugar sparkled Alpha-Bits before they got too soggy rendering the sweetened corn letters unrecognizable.

I was deep in thought about the colorful construction paper Pilgrim decorations  I would be creating in school for my classroom bulletin board.  The designated class artist, it was my special job to assist my grumpy third-grade teacher, a grey-haired battle-axe of a woman named  Mrs. Patton who wielded a wooden paddle and whose commanding presence and unforgiving temper rivaled her military namesake.

While some lucky kids got the coveted job of pulling down the classroom shades during an air raid drill, or were allowed to clean/beat the chalk off the black felt chalkboard erasers out in the playground, creating the holiday bulletin boards was my domain. With Thanksgiving less than a week away, it was none too soon.

Like most Fridays, the portable TV had been set up in the kitchen. Routinely, my mother would roll the portable Admiral set into the kitchen on Friday mornings so that our “cleaning girl” Willie Mae would not miss her favorite soap opera as she did her chores.

Adjusting the antennae, Mom was grateful for this new lightweight TV set that miraculously eliminated any interference caused by appliances, cars, or any time a neighbor used his power drill.

Watching television during meals was strictly forbidden in our house so a television in the kitchen on Fridays was a treat. Though I might have preferred watching cartoons,  I ate my eat my breakfast to the sound of Hugh Downs on the Today Show. The news, my parents seem to agree, was pretty much a yawn fest, with just a casual mention that President Kennedy and his glamorous wife Jackie were in Texas.

A Well Ordered House

As she did every Friday, Mom scurried frantically through the house, cleaning up and straightening messes in anticipation of the “girl.” God forbid the cleaning lady should think she didn’t keep a well-ordered home.

As I did every morning I kissed Mom goodbye, grabbing my brown paper bag lunch with my name scrawled on it in Mom’s distinctive handwriting. I tucked the stack of notebooks and textbooks perilously held together by a rubber strap under my arm as I ran to catch the school bus, nearly knocking over Willie Mae as she walked in the front door.

It would be the last innocent moment of my childhood.

Clockwise Top Left. Helen Wagner & Santos Ortega in the episode of “As the World Turns” interrupted by a CBS Bulletin slide as Walter Cronkite begins a report on Kennedy’s assassination. His updates were followed by commercials

With the TV set warmed up by 1:30 in time for As The World Turns, Willie Mae settled into the Formica kitchen table to tackle the silver. Daubing the pink oily polish onto the ornate silver candy dishes and bowls, she rubbed vigorously, dissolving the black tarnish to magically reveal its true shiny and gleaming self.

Hooked on the soapy trials and tribulations of the show’s characters, Willie Mae’s concern that day was whether or not her hero would remarry his divorced wife.

Actress Helen Wagner had just said, “I gave it a great deal of thought Grandpa” when the show was interrupted.  Suddenly at 1:40, a Bulletin card flashed on the screen.

The disembodied voice of Walter Cronkite announced: “In Dallas, Texas, 3 shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas.”

When it was done CBS cut to a commercial for Nescafe, but when it returned the country would never be the same. The last entertainment or commercial that anyone would see for three and a half days had run its course.

When I returned home that afternoon at 2:30, I was laden down with more than my stack of books. I was bursting to share the disturbing and confusing news we had heard announced in class and then over the loudspeaker at school. As an 8-year-old I had yet to make sense of a presidential assassination. Sadly neither could my teachers or my parents.

Walking into the kitchen I saw the seated, slightly slumped bodies of Willie Mae and my mother, huddled closely together around the glowing black and white TV. As tears streamed down Willie Mae’s face my mother’s hand rested gently on Willies, as she herself tried to hold back tears.

The silver would remain tarnished for another week. The same could be said for our country.

There would be nothing ordinary for the entire weekend.

Quite out of the ordinary, my parent’s portable 17-inch television set remained in our suburban kitchen since Friday. For 4 days its flickering presence uncharacteristically accompanied all our meals.

It was the weekend that never seemed to end, that began with a TV bulletin and ended with a burning flame flickering on television screens across the nation.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.