November Memories (1963)
(Catching up on things)
Many people remember when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. I was in Language Arts class my junior year at Los Alamos High School. Just before noon there was a knock on the classroom door. Our teacher was summoned into the hall. A minute later she stumbled into the room with her hand on her breast saying “He’s been shot!” We all looked around at each other not knowing what was going on. I thought someone had been shot in the hall but I hadn’t heard any noise. Eventually she told us that the President had been shot. Since it was almost lunch period classes were dismissed and most of us wandered over to the cafeteria. Walter Conkrite's voice was piped into the room over the PA system. During lunch we learned of the tragedy in Dallas eventually realizing the President had died. I remember students filing outside sitting on the lawn and crying.
This was particularly difficult to process. JFK had visited the scientific labs and later our school in December of the previous year and had made such an impression on us. I remember listening to him at the football field. Seeing him and Vice President Johnson was so exciting. To see the President and such a vibrant man. His death deflated us.
I was in the front row of the crowd. It was so awesome when he came down and started to shake hands. I missed his hand but did touch his suit sleeve. A treasured moment. (See video minute 6:25 and beginning 10:00.)
The following weekend was so chaotic with the plane trip from Dallas to Washington, the bloody pink dress, the hunt for Oswald, his murder on camera by Ruby and then the state funeral including Black Jack the horse with boots reversed in the stirrups. The beautiful horse was a symbol of a fallen leader. We had a new President with both similar and new agenda(s). Talk about a gloomy November.
#November #JFK #JFKAssassination #HighSchool #LosAlamos #Autobiography
Beatles For Sale
2024 is coming to a close. The other evening I was looking back over the decades ending in the number four and realized that several of those decades were life changing for me. Another chapter in my haphazardly written autobiography.
1964 - In August my parents, my 14 y/o sister and I, a strapping youth of 17, moved from Los Alamos, NM to Kano the capital of Northern Nigeria. I was going to miss my senior year of high school and all the activities that year would bring. The following 12 months were one of the most amazing years I ever experienced.
Today is 4 December the 60th anniversary of the release the The Beatles' album Beatles for Sale on EMI's Parlophone label. Most likely my favorite Beatles album.
It was released just before the Christmas holiday. With large British population in Nigeria at the time there were many students returning home from the UK with lots of The Beatles' new album in their suitcases.
My parents and a number of other American educators were employed at the Kano Teachers Training College at the time. Most of those teachers lived in the American "compound". Soon after we moved in to our new California ranch style house I met the three young sisters living next door. One I got to know very well. Her older sister had become friends with a British boy earlier in the year who was returning home for the holidays. With him was Beatles for Sale.
The Kano County Club had a "children only evening". The music selection and dance floor was ours. The only record played was... Yup. Later in the week there was a party at someone's house while the parents were out. For Sale was all we heard in the darken house until someone turned on a light and "Turn off the bloody light" was yelled out. The light was extinguished and the snogging continued. A beautiful ending to 1964. Could not have had a better Senior year.
#Autobiography #Kano Nigeria #Beatles For Sale #Senior Year #Snogging
