So 48 years ago today...

I was at work (I had graduated from HS at age 16, it was later that year) and was in a training class in the basement of the building at 737 S. Flower St. in downtown Los Angeles...when the door opened and the BIG boss said, "The President has been shot."

In those days, there were no 24 hour news shows, no cell phones, no 24-hour radio news shows to tune into...so we stared at each other for a while and then went into the employee's break room, which housed the only television in the multi-story building.

We watched Walter Cronkite. 

And I'm pretty sure that NONE of us will ever forget where we were that day.

I was 10, in 5th grade in Gardena CA.  Ms. Mohar went out of the classroom for a break, or up to the office, and when she came back in she was crying.  She told us the president had been killed.  I thought it was sad, but didn't understand why she was crying about it.  At lunch, a skywriting plance made an unusual box formation in the sky and someone told me it meant the president was dead.  At least that's what I remember - it sounds strange to me now.

Oddly, I don't remember my parents discussing it - they were very far left politically, and I don't actually know whether at the time they were more upset with his death, or with the idea that Johnson was becoming president.  A few years later, in the 1968 elections, I was much more aware of their political radicalism (heated arguments about sticking to principles and voting for Huey Newton, vs. not "wasting your vote" by voting for Humphrey, or more accurately, against Nixon).  And in 1971, my father quit working and they moved into a commune on Venice Beach.

Anyone else have pinko lefty radical parents whose views are more extreme than yours?  Sometimes, I feel like Alex P. Keaton, even though my views are still considerably left of center on most issues.

 I think I was in 3rd grade, though I have always remembered that and assumed it to be so. Never fact checked.

I lived in the San Francisco Bay area.  I remember coming in and the Tv was on with the news. My mother was watching.

We watched as the next days unfolded and my mother ever after held Jackie up as an example of composure and motherhood.

I remember being upset.

I wasn't born yet , my sister was 4 months old and I was in my mother's womb. 

My Mother has talked about this day, the emotions etc many times.  I relate my experience to 9/11 (what I was doing, where I was, etc.) and the Challenger explosion to what many felt this date. 

We never forget some things in life, this is one of them for many.

Yes, my memories of the Challenger explosion an 9/11 are just as vivid.

I was walking back to school after lunch - 9/10 of a mile away, 3rd grade. We all got to school, and the teachers came out, several crying, and said school was closed. My mom came and picked up the kids from our block... both my brother and I were in school, so she was free, but the mom who had a car had 2 little ones so she borrowed the car to get us.

I remember them playing the Battle Hymn of the Republic on the radio, and one of the kids singing the kid version: Glory Hallelujah, teacher hit him with a ruler, and my mom exploding. My mom NEVER exploded - she's the most even tempered person in the world without being a wimp, and she exploded while driving! Freaked me out big time!

Challenger - I was teaching emotionally disturbed adolescents in an alternative school. The girls had lost a priviledge, and when the shuttle went down, one of them announced that she wished our staff had been on it so that she could have gotten McDonalds. Even the other kids, who, needless to say, were not our best friends, were put off by that.

 I was still a couple of years away from being born, but my mother has spoken about that day, and she remembers my grandmother, who wasn't even a citizen, (being from England), crying, and this was a woman who held her emotions in check for everything. I am glad you mentioned this today. It was a moment in history that certainly will not be forgotten.  

I wasn't even a twinkle in my fathers eyes yet, but I did get to visit the JFK museum at Dealy Plaza twice while visiting Dallas Fort Worth with my daughter for a cheerleading competition. We took turns standing on the X in the middle of the street between dodging cars so we could get our picture taken on the spot where he was shot.

I was five. Not yet in school, my mom worked, and my grandmother who kept me didn't own a TV---so I really think it was a couple of days before I understood what had happened. I do remember watching his funeral on TV, though.

I do have very vivid memories of the first moon landing, though. I was 11, and we were en route between my grandparents' house and home, and the radio was on. I kept urging my dad to go faster so I wouldn't miss seeing it on TV. In those days, our TV took a little while to 'warm up' and actually show a picture after you turned it on, and I was SO afraid I'd miss it!