Thursday, November 21, 2013

That Day in Dallas

Ask anyone old enough to remember Nov. 22, 1963 and they can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news that the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy Jr., had been shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.
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So much changed after that day – both for the nation and the world.

So what was life like in 1963? It was scary. The country was deeply immersed in the Cold War. People had built fallout shelters in the event of a nuclear attack. Children practiced “duck and cover” exercises at school and were issued military-style dog tags, ostensibly so their bodies could be identified , just in case.

A few other facts about America in 1963:
  • The population was about 189 million (313.9 million in 2012)
  • The median family income was $6,200
  • Gas averaged 29 cents a gallon
  • A new car averaged $3,233
  • The average cost of a new home was $12,650.
  • A loaf of bread was 22 cents
  • A postage stamp cost a nickel
  • The new Zoning Improvement Plan, or ZIP codes, had just been introduced
  • AT&T had introduced the touch-tone phone, successor to the rotary dial
  • The Instamatic camera and Lava Lamps went on sale
  • Troll dolls, created in 1959 by a Danish woodcutter, became a full-fledged U.S. fad in fall 1963.
  • Pull-tops on aluminum cans were introduced
  • Coca-Cola introduced its first diet drink, TaB
  • Oscar Mayer began airing the radio jingle, “I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener”
  • Showing at the movies: “Cleopatra,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” The Great Escape” and “To Kill a Mockingbird
  • On television:  “Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Flintstones,” “My Three Sons,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Perry Mason” and “The Jimmy Dean Show”
  • The number one song: Deep Purple by Neno Tempo and April Stevens
  • What is believed to be the first U.S. news story on the Beatles ran on NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report” the evening of Nov. 18, 1963. The morning of Nov. 22, the “CBS Morning News With Mike Wallace” ran a story on the group. The network planned to repeat the 5-minute segment on Walter Cronkite’s evening newscast. But a few hours later, Cronkite was on the air reporting the news that shots had been fired at Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas. All regular television-news programming was canceled for almost four days while the networks covered the assassination and funeral of the president. “The CBS Evening News” finally aired the Beatles segment Dec. 10.

The assassination changed the way we get our news. Until then, people trusted newspapers as their main news source, but after Nov. 22, television screens became a serious way, and the principle means, of getting news.

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But those were physical conditions and events. That day in Dallas changed other things too. It left us feeling vulnerable to the heartache and turmoil that was yet to come. It felt the country was falling apart: The murders of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy; Vietnam; campus unrest; racial turmoil; Watergate; assassination attempts on other presidents; more wars; political upheaval; a divided country.


Time moves on and we adjust and adapt. Somehow we get through it all and life goes on. But we are left cynical, doubtful, not trusting. We can get past most of it.

But it seems we are not able to get past Nov. 22, 1963. Not half a century later. Maybe never.

14 comments:

  1. I still enjoy watching Perry Mason. And I forgot about those Troll dolls - my sister loved them. Deep Purple by Neno Tempo and April Stevens doesn't get played enough on the XM Oldies station - too much "It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To" and Leslie Gore's follow-up, "Judy's Turn To Cry", which gets my friend Judy steamed up whenever she hears it.

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    1. I notice the oldies stations play the same numbers over and over. I wonder why?

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  2. A very interesting and thoughtful post, Sanda. The world changed that day, in a way not seen again until 9/11. I had not noticed the coincidental connection to the Beatles bursting onto the international stage. In their own way, they changed everything too.

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    1. Yes, so many changes were in the air during that time. Some of it good; other things were quite turbulent. I look back on those times with a nostalgic bent.

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  3. love this post SO MUCH!!!! Have been thinking about this day all day long. Thank you for all these facts. I know Jackie spent $120000 on clothes in the 60s a year...incredible given the average income.

    x

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    1. Thank you! and thanks for leaving a comment. Jackie did love her clothes, but she looked so beautiful in everything she wore!

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  4. I can never forget that day. Thank you for this post.

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    1. I have always been attracted to every bit of new information that has come out over the years about the JFK administration and that day in Dallas. I think I watched every special that aired leading up to the anniversary, and I don't normally watch very much TV.

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  5. You are right, the day stands out in my mind. Seems we left a kind of innocence behind but perhaps that's just me looking back through rose colored glasses.

    Thanks for the interesting post.

    Darla

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    1. I wonder about that too, Darla. Do we just glorify the past and make it seem better than it really was? Maybe it just reminds us of our youth and that's what makes the times seem so special.

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  6. Many people here also remember where they were on that day. I watched last evening on BBC news the ceremony held in Dallas for him.

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    1. Hi Judith, We saw so many specials on TV related to that day that I think I became a bit "overdosed."

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  7. Interesting facts about that year. Something that stands out is the picture of her in that pink suit returning on the plane where Johnson was being sworn in. That she was able to stand there with some presence and poise in that same pink suit after all she had been through that awful day is really, really quite remarkable to me.

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    1. I think about that too. At the time I couldn't understand how she could remain so stoic and composed after all she had gone through. But now I think I understand better -- that she was setting an example for the country and trying to contrast the dignity of her behavior in grief to the horrible event in Dallas. I heard the suit is stored in the Smithsonian and won't be displayed until 2114, a hundred years!

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