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  “The President’s been killed,” was being whispered from one kid to the next. It was like a game of telephone and I wondered if the news was being exaggerated.

     It wasn’t.

     On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed and I learned a new word – assassination. A fourth grader at the time, the full gravity of it all somewhat escaped me. I don’t remember how long it took the news to get from Dallas to the Cincinnati news stations and then to the Concordia Lutheran Elementary School where I attended. I do remember clearly that I was three steps up the second of three flights of stairs that climbed between the first and second floor of our two story eight classroom building when the news reached my ears and the ears of the other ninety students in the whole school of eight grades. Something big had happened to our country. We kids also couldn’t watch cartoons or Leave It to Beaver for more than a week because documentaries about the President’s life dominated the airwaves.