November 22nd, 1963 Remembered 

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President, in Dallas, Texas. Pretty much everyone in the US knows where they were on that day and what they were doing.

I had not been a huge supporter of Kennedy, but in my family even my slight praise met with some resistance from my father, who aways referred to JFK as "That good-for-nothing Irish son-of-the-rich." My dad's side of the family had little use for the Kennedys, mostly stemming from Joe, Senior, having gotten some plum Washington job that, it was felt, should have gone to my grandfather.

I guess, like most of the people my age - I had turned 19 the month before - I was somewhat taken with the whole "Ask not what your country can do for you . . ." ethos and the fact that Kennedy was a lot cooler than other national politicians. I expected great things from him and his administration.

So, on that day, I was in the upstairs bedroom of a duplex apartment, part of a mansion built as a summer house for members of the Astor family in Astoria, Queens. It was not quite as grand as it had been in its heyday, but it boasted a good-sized living room, a dining room and kitchen on the main floor, actually the 2nd floor, and two bedrooms on the top floor. It was affordable for a young single mom and her 2-year-old daughter.

I had met the woman who lived there the week before in Greenwich Village, at a small storefront coffee house called, rather grandiosely, "The Cafe World." I had been quickly introduced by a mutual friend. The woman and I sat and chatted between sets by several folksingers we both knew. Eventually, she asked if I'd like to see her haunted mansion. What young boy could resist a come-on like that from a dark, rather exotic looking woman, dressed in a style several years out of date, but not stylishly retro?

By the time that eventful Friday had rolled around, I'd spent a week with her, being taught, with patient tenderness and a good deal of skill, the art of pleasing a woman and being pleased. We had not actually consummated our relationship at that point. 

It was early afternoon, sometime around 1:30 P.M. when the phone rang. My lady friend answered, spoke for a moment and put the phone down. "Turn on the TV," she said, "DG said that Kennedy has been shot."

Sure enough, anywhere you looked on the dial, the news people were talking of nothing else. It came in fragments, nothing like the way we get our news today. There was no live or even taped coverage of the entire motorcade, there were no cameramen rushing to the hospital, none of that. Just the news men, Cronkite, Huntley, Rather and others getting unconfirmed reports, tearing off flash bulletins from the AP and UPI teletypes. My lady friend and I sat at the edge of the bed, holding hands and with shocked expressions on our faces.

Then, at around 2 P.M. Eastern time, the news came that President Kennedy, despite heroic efforts of the staff at Parkland Hospital, had succumbed to his wounds. We looked at one another, I got up and turned off the TV, and in some unconscious human need for comfort and a restoration of some normalcy, we consummated our week-long bout of instruction and foreplay.

There was little else on television that weekend. Lots of pictures of Kennedy and his family from earlier days, coverage of LBJ being sworn in on Air Force One, with the widow of the late President standing near. There were even moments of silence and solemn music. The nation was in mourning.

I have been teased by some of my friends who said that it took a natural tragedy to get me to shed my virginity. After that day, nothing was the same, not for me or for any of us. It was, in truth, a loss of innocence in a great many ways. Fifty years ago. It seems like a lifetime and and yet only yesterday. The lady is dead, I am in my 70th year. And the world is a very, very different place than it was on that day in 1963.