On this date every year, any adult over age fifty-five, will ask that question as we remember the day our world shook and as someone wrote "we suffered the loss of innocence." November 22, 1963 was a Friday. I was working on plans for our waterfront Communion breakfast to be held on the Sunday and a Maryknoll missionary friend home on leave from East Africa agreed to address our group and our budget allowed for a honorarium of fifty dollars. Then he called to say that his local parish pastor offered him the opportunity to speak at all the Sunday masses and keep the proceeds of all the collections - which dwarfed my offering so I released him from his promise and he provided a substitute missionary from Bolivia. After JFK was shot on the Friday all the churches overflowed on the following Sunday and my friend had a financial windfall to take back to Tanzania. So that a large scale tragedy on one hand resulted in a small scale serendipity on the other.
The National Football League decided to go ahead with their scheduled Sunday games and as I had tickets and a Bolivian missionary on my hands, I took him to the Eagles game and Franklin Field was packed with 60,000 attendees. It was then that word circulated thru the crowd that Jack Ruby had fatally shot Oswald on live TV. For those of us alive back then it was an unforgettable five days and the memories come flooding back with today's commemoration. R.I.P. JFK.
tjs
(The Blog will be silent next week as we celebrate Thanksgiving with family - resume in December)
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