50 years ago, I was in my 1st year of graduate school in Boston, Massachusetts.
50 years ago, President Kennedy was assassinated.
50 years is a long time but I still have one odd, yet powerful, memory of that day.
It was a Friday and in the days before ATM machines so in order to have cash for the upcoming weekend, I needed to walk to my bank and get some. It was a Friday routine for me.
I knew that Kennedy had been shot, and was dead. That had a major impact on my psyche…on the psyche of all I was with that day – but I still needed cash.
Walking to the bank – Shawmut Bank in Kenmore Square – was a surreal experience. I think I know what an out-of-body experience feels like after that day… Here I was, doing what was a mundane, but necessary task, and the President had been assassinated. I felt like like I was walking in some alternate time zone where life was ok…I wondered if the others walking or driving by me were aware of what happened as we all seemed so normal, doing normal activities.
This surreal experience can be recalled easily on the anniversary of the assassination – but is stronger this year, as it falls on a Friday – and it is the 50 year anniversary.
Sadly, little did I know that this was the beginning of a series of assassinations that rocked my days in Boston…..