On 1963

I was in 1^st grade, back in '63, and heard the news through the speaker on the wall that we got all our news from. School closed and we were hustled out of the building to our buses waiting at the curb. Our bus's crossing guard—a 6^th grader, probably very popular—kept singing that song with the line: “Deep in the heart of Texas.” I remember thinking how she seemed to think this was terribly funny.

Of course, they had only said he'd been shot—sparing grade schoolers the fact that a chunk of JFK's head had been blown away. I guess it would've seemed doubly funny to her had he been shot in the heart and in the heart of Texas. I wonder (every year at this time) if she remembers that bus ride the same way I do. I remember that—that and getting home and finding my mother crying on the floor in front of our little black and white tv.