November 23,1963

[PCIntern]

The Day After: Here in Philadelphia, it was a gloomy, overcast day with sprinklings of rain here and there. Although President Kennedy was already deceased, life went on. I had a scheduled violin lesson in Center City at the no-longer-extant New School of Music, which was located right near the internationally renowned Curtis Institute of Music. Now let it be stated that I had virtually NO talent for the violin, which was my instrument-du-jour, having failed at the piano and the clarinet, all by the time I was ten years of age. It is also the proper time for it to be stated that my much-older brother was a virtuoso concert pianist, and was studying with the luminaries of Philadelphia musical instruction in its heyday. So things were tough all around. For me that is, and I couldn't believe that the assassination of the President wouldn't get me out of my half-hour-from-hell music lesson.

After the nightmare that it always was, of the spinster teacher smoking like a chimney in the six by eight room, of the awful play, bowing, and timing, we met my (estranged) father at the Horn and Hardart's restaurant at 16th and Chestnut. This restaurant had an automat in the basement, a cafeteria on the ground floor, and a sit-down restaurant on the upper floors. Apparently, that day was no day for foolishness in the Automat, so we headed upstairs and as we climbed the steps, my mother remarked to my father that there was no one up there, for there was nary a sound emanating from the huge dining room.

Upon our landing at the top step, all three of us realized that she couldn't have been more wrong: there were hundreds and hundreds of people silently sitting at tables. All you could hear was the sound of crockery cups occasionally striking the saucers. Not a whisper. Just silence.

There were other memories of those days as well...

[Maccagirl]

1. Great story.

I remember watching the funeral and sitting on my father's lap (I was 7) and when little John, Jr. saluted his father's casket, my dad just went "Oh!" and two tears ran down his face. I had never seen my dad cry before. We must have been watching CBS because I don't recall seeing Lee Harvey Oswald being shot (I understand only NBC had that event live),

[RagAss]

5. Yes...I was watching when oswald was shot...My grandfather shouted out to my parents...

who were in the other room..."They just killed him...They just shut him up !"... I was 5 and I knew what this country was all about even then.

[hifiguy]

2. Self delete. Wrong thread.

[PlanetBev]

3. Very well crafted and poetic, PC

I almost felt like I was there in Philly with you.

I turned 13 five days before the assassination. I remember turning the dial back and forth on my parents old 1941 RCA radio, and on every station there was either assassination updates or funeral music.

[Itchinjim]

4. I was four years old. It is my first memory of a world that existed

outside of my toddler world. That my Irish-Catholic Democrat parents were very upset is what I remember most.

[RagAss]

6. Kicked and recced