Lou Reed "The Day John Kennedy Died" (Bonus Video Friday)

I was 11 years old, in sixth grade at St. Aloysius grade school in Columbus, Ohio, on November 22nd, 1963.  We got the news about President John F. Kennedy being assassinated over the school PA system from the principal, a priest whose name I don't recall.  I remember the nun who taught sixth grade, whose name I also do not recall, crying at the news.  She didn't sob uncontrollably, I think she tried to keep it together for our sake, but she cried for a long time as she asked us to sit silently and pray for our first Catholic president, dead now in a hospital in Dallas, Texas.

There are things in this life that I know and things that I do not know.  I know that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in shooting President John F. Kennedy.  He just wasn't that good a marksman.  I do not know whether it was government officials or members of organized crime or just American corporate bosses who commissioned the shooting but I know that it was one - or some combination - of those three.  I used to wonder whether I would find out which organization was responsible in my lifetime.  I really don't wonder about that much anymore.  I don't have that much time left to wonder.  It's been 50 years today: either somebody's REALLY good at keeping secrets, or I'm just a Catholic boy, thinking about this all wrong, and first Lee Harvey Oswald, and then Jack Ruby, just got off a couple of incredibly lucky shots.

Either way, I got cheated out of a future with two terms of President John F. Kennedy and no President Richard M. Nixon. 

But then, would I have gotten The Beatles, and The Who, and The Velvet Underground?

There are things in this life that I know and things I do not know.

inspirational verse; "I dreamed I was the President of these United States /
I dreamed I replaced ignorance, stupidity and hate /
I dreamed a perfect union, and a perfect law undenied
Most of all I dreamed I forgot the day John Kennedy died." - Lou Reed, 1982 

R.I.P. John & Lou

© 2013 Ricki C.