A November day that changed a generation
November in New England is not like November in Ottawa. The days are crisp and clear. Cool, not cold, in the morning and warming throughout the daylight hours. The nights, although longer, are still enjoyable.
It is football weather. And in 1963, when I was a boy of nine, we played a lot of touch football, in groups or in pairs in one backyard or another, one open field or the next.
The year 1963 was part of my American adventure. Our family had moved to Weston, Conn., with my father, who was employed by a precursor to the United Way campaigns we are so familiar with today. He worked in New York City, and every morning he took the train to Manhattan from nearby Westport like all the other men in their grey suits and carrying their black briefcases.
Weston itself was a surprisingly wealthy community then, and now, although we were not part of that set. It sits in Fairfield County, and, because of its proximity to New York, was host to many rich and famous people who would maintain summer homes. George Balanchine, the great choreographer lived there, for example, and Bette Davis. It was that kind of place. We kids never saw any of these people. They lived on large horsey estates with fences.
In general, those days are a bit misty now. I recall them as a happy time for the most part, an innocent time before the world changed.
Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, was a pretty normal day in Weston. I was in Mrs. Judelson’s Grade 4 primary-school class. I was one of those slightly chubby keeners at the front of the class who really liked his teachers, always had his hand up and wasn’t brave enough to sit with the cool boys at the back. Mrs. Judelson had bright red hair and a motherly demeanour. And every morning we stood up and said the Pledge of Allegiance … to the flag. And we meant it, even this Canadian kid.
Early in the afternoon, a knock came to the classroom door and our teacher left the room. That was a pretty rare thing, really. Our sanctuary was rarely disturbed. And the wooden doors were louder then, somehow. A few minutes later, she returned, clearly struggling with her emotions, and she told us that president John F. Kennedy had been shot and he was dead.
And we all went home to deal with our confusion and our shock. It was not a joyful departure.
I know the world greeted the death of John Kennedy with horror, but in New England, where the president was from, it was almost a staggering blow. Even in conservative, well-heeled Fairfield County, the president was one of theirs; one of ours, mine.
He was someone we looked up to in all manner of things. My mother even insisted on my getting a haircut like JFK’s — short, but not too short, parted on the left and brushed straight across — because she thought it would look good on my face, which was, in those days, was wide.
In the days before Nov. 22, 1963, the world seldom intervened in my life. There were only three television channels to watch, and the news was not as important as Bonanza or Gunsmoke or Yankees baseball.
But on Nov. 22, that day and for the next week, the news intervened. We were glued to those black and white images from Dallas. I saw — live — the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. I saw John Kennedy Jr. salute his father’s casket as it proceeded down Pennsylvania Avenue. I saw Jackie Kennedy and Caroline kneel in prayer as the casket lay in state.
It was an end to innocence in a very big way. The news was everything after that day.
The America I knew spiralled away into conspiracy theories and conflict over civil rights and the Vietnam War. Closer to home, the elder brother of a classmate walked into the woods one day and took his own life. I don’t know why.
By 1967 we were back in Canada, celebrating Expo 67, and forever changed.