It's A Good Age To Be!

   In just a little over three weeks from now, the world will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.


JFK, moments before his assassination and one of many
similar images you will see in the coming weeks.

   The date is November 22 and, coincidentally, it is also a Friday, as it was back in 1963. There have already been ads on T.V. for planned specials to commemorate the event and you can be certain that the media will be inundated with Kennedy images.
   I am one of the older of my peer group and because of this I am one of the few who can actually remember that day, with clarity.
   At the time, I was in Grade Five and was attending Braemar Public School in North Vancouver. We were all sitting at our desks when the intercom came on and the principal informed us the Kennedy had been killed. We were stunned but we were stunned in a ten-year-old kid sort of a way---it was more of a holy cow kind of a moment for us and the true solemnity of the situation was, I think, lost on us. One of the girls in the class broke into tears, however, and was excused. Why this had happened rather perplexed us until our teacher told us that the student was actually an American and that the awful news had much more import to her.
   As the weekend went on and we found ourselves glued to the black and white images on our T.V. screens, the holy cow feeling I'd had in my classroom totally disappeared as the gravity of the times sunk in.
   I am pretty well able to remember every little image from that weekend. Many of them became iconic and I can only imagine that in the lead up to the fiftieth anniversary they will be everywhere you look. I, however, feel privileged to have seen them as they happened.
   This is one of the things I treasure the most about being the age I am. I am able to say that I was witness to much of the history we now have venerated, analyzed, distilled and

Armstrong steps on the moon.

fashioned idols around. Occasionally I was witness to it as it happened---I watched as man first set foot on the moon and I watched as Paul Henderson scored the winning goal against the Russians in '72. If I didn't happen to be watching when the event actually occurred then I was immediately afterwards immersed in its wake and denouement.

Henderson in '72

   As much as history books and T.V. can attempt to recreate an historic moment what they generally cannot accurately recreate is the emotion of the time--the looks that might have been passed back and forth by total strangers, the utter joy or the total dejection. At some point in the next few weeks there will likely be a replay of Walter Cronkite, the famous CBS newscaster, announcing to the world President Kennedy's death. The words he used were straightforward. It was the look on his face that was harder to describe. It was the same look that many people had those days and if you weren't there to experience it then you cannot know it accurately.
   I like being able to say "I was there", even if only as viewer and from far away. As terrible or as joyous as a world event might be, when you are my age you are able to place it within the context of all that has gone on before. When you have lived through as many monumental events as I have, the monumental events of today are somehow greatly lessened and I envy the clear-minded eighty-year-olds who are able to remember back even farther than I am.
   This, then, is my little window--I am at that age where there is much to remember but I am edging closer to the time when there will be much to forget. For now, though, it is a good age to be!