Nutmegger

It is said that every American of a certain age remembers where they were when they heard that JFK had been shot. What do you remember?

I had been at the Girl Guides meeting in the village and walked home with my friend, eating a bag of chips. We didn't have a TV so my folks were usually listening to "Friday Night is Music Night" on the BBC when I got in -- but this time very sombre orchestral music was playing, interspersed with the news reports from Dallas.

jeffreyhy

I was in high school Spanish class. The teacher cried.

Regards, JEff

Bob

I still hadn't busted free of the balls :/

Englishmum

I was just a toddler when JFK was murdered in Dallas.

I'm listening to BBC Radio 2 in real time which is covering the assassination minute by minute....it is riveting with coverage of eye witness reports and radio news at the time.

I'm sure it will be on a podcast afterwards but it is on until 9pm UK time this evening and ends when the new President is sworn in:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hwky0/live

joto

We had recently got our first television and I was watching it in the evening when a news report came on. I shouted to my parents who were in the kitchen, either preparing dinner or washing up. I was in primary school then and didn't realize all the implications of it.

Pulaski

T'was well before my time, but the story has intrigued me for years. I have a copy of the JFK movie, with Kevin Costner, on DVD that I might just have to dig out and watch this weekend.

I have just started reading a book about the Zapruder film, all 26 seconds of it, and how the whole thing is allegedly a hoax.

Bink

I was thinking about re-watching JFK just yesterday. I always thought it was a good film but it's been a few years since I last watched it.

Pulaski

I have a copy of the "director's cut", which I think is about 18 minutes longer than the original cinema release, which was already 3 hours and 8 minutes!

robin1234

I was thirteen years old and at grammar school. Don't remember where I was and all the rest of it, but I think in general people were pretty conflicted about JFK and whether he was a good person; remember we'd recently been through the Bay of Pigs then the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think many people in Britain felt that if we suffered a nuclear war, the Americans in general and the Kennedy administration in particular would be more to blame than the Soviet Union.

Not saying any of that is right or wrong, just what I remember about attitudes towards Kennedy as President.

Cardienscarf

I was too young to remember but I have always been confused about the adulation for him. Wasn't he a lying, cheating bastard?

lansbury

I was in the UK. There was some quiz show with Hughie Green on TV and they took that off to show things about JFK.

Pulaski

You're in doubt about that?

I am fairly sure he was the most famous adulterer of the 20th century.

Cardienscarf

Rhetorical question.

Sally Redux

Slightly in his defence, apparently the drugs he was given for Addison's Disease made him extra horny.

robin1234

I've always wondered what would've happened if he'd not been assassinated. Probably won a second term. How would the next many years have been different; Vietnam War, for instance? Would we have got Nixon as President? And how would a Kennedy who served two full terms be judged?