I was in second grade at Malad Elementary (Malad, ID) at the time. I remember our entire class walked over to a house kitty corner from our school, crowded into the living room, and was probably shushed by our stern teacher, Mrs. Hartley. This was obviously in the glory days of "AV" when the schools' only form of projecting visual images was to use a giant 16 mm projector--no TV's yet. We also got a good bit of radio (old programs sponsored by Mobil Oil and hosted by Arthur Godfrey which featured world travel which I dearly dearly loved) which makes me sound older than dust! The room was dominated by what seemed to be an enormous cabinet TV. I must have seen color TV by this time in my life (some friends of ours frequently invited us over to watch "Wonderful World of Disney" on theirs some Sunday afternoons), but it was still novel enough to hold great fascination. We were most likely seated a "safe" distance from the TV as Radiation Scare was huge back then. I remember seeing President Kennedy with his hand raised to take the oath at the podium, but my real interest lay in his two children--Carolilne looking a heck of a lot like my Kit American Girl doll now that I think of it, and John John in his Buster Brown shoes, shorts, and navy coat that hit him square above the knees. The Kennedys figure prominently in my youthful memories--their days in the White House, Cuban Missile Crisis (the practice bus evacuation during that period from my school scared me so badly I wet my pants!!) the assasination (I read The Warren Report cover to cover!), the funeral, Jackie's post JFK life, the death of JFK Jr. (see tomorrow's post), and the sole survivor bravery of Caroline.
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