Old Memories

On Nov 22, 1963, 53 years ago this week, I was having lunch between classes at the University of Arkansas in an old house near the intersection of North Leverett Avenue and Cleveland Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas—a place I shared with a college roommate. Several hundred miles away, a misguided psychopath was taking advantage of his lunch hour to unwrap a cheap rifle he had smuggled to work that day in brown wrapping paper.

            While taking our lunch, we tuned into one of the few radio stations around at the time, certainly the most popular. It was, of course, the famous KHOG, playing the sounds of the Ozarks. A voice broke into the music to announce that noises, possibly fireworks, had been heard in Dallas along the route President Kennedy, Jacqueline, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, Lady Bird, and others were taking during the President’s visit to that city.

            The music resumed. Then the voice broke in again to say that the President’s vehicle had been diverted to the nearest hospital. The music resumed.

            By now, we were interested. We forgot about lunch and waited for more news. After a while, the DJ started a song with the lyrics, “I gotta woman, way cross town, she’s good to me …”

            Then the voice broke in again, saying, “We have word that President Kennedy is dead.” The music resumed, “I gotta woman, way cross town, she’s good to me.” I'll never forget those words.

            What to do? With no communication available, I saw no option but to make my 1:00 p.m. class in Sociology. Besides, my roommate had just voiced an idiotic statement along the lines of “That’s what happens when you don’t listen to the will of the people.” There was no option of remaining where I was. So, I walked up Leverett toward campus. I came to a small Catholic church and saw vehicles parked in all configurations and people running into the church carrying rosaries. I continued to “Old Main” where Dr. Grant Bogue taught us Sociology. I found the mood somber, confused, and tragic.

            A well-dressed female student began to ramble about some bizarre numerology theory concerning leap years and the years in which American presidents were assassinated. What did Dr. Bogue think?

            “I don’t think,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes, “that is any more idiotic than some of the other theories we will be hearing in coming days.”

            How right he was.

            My last memory of that dreadful time occurred several days later, as a group of us enjoyed the rare availability of a TV, watching the final services and the sight of young John Kennedy Jr., saluting his father’s coffin. A voice from one of the “Christians” in the room suddenly burst through the somber mist. “I just wonder,” it said, “how many people will be ‘swupt’ off into Hell watching that Catholic funeral.”