As we will soon be reminded (ad nauseum) this month is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Democratic President of the United States. I was 10 years old and in the 5th grade at Bellaire Elementary School in White Bear Lake, MN at the time. Since MN is in the same time zone as Texas the event occurred right around our lunch time and we were in our classroom when our teacher came rushing in clearly upset about something. He rolled in a television and turned it on and we watched history unfold. There was an awful lot we didn't understand and the coverage was disjointed and truncated. The thing that I remember most is that there were no commercials! We finally had to go home since school was over and I am sure we watched the television for coverage of the event until it was time to go to bed.
Lot's of things have changed in the world in the 50 trips around the sun since that November day. All of us alive have had a corresponding change to our age. (Duh!) We have lived during the administration of the following Presidents who succeeded Kennedy:
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama
The Vietnam War
The Cold War
The Iran Hostage Situation
The Fall of the Iron Curtain
The Transformation of the USSR
The First Gulf War
The Rise of Terrorism
Desert Storm
9/11
Operation Iraqi Freedom
The Occupation of Afghanistan
During this time also the world turned to computers and have experienced the exponential change computers have brought to the world. No one had a clue what the internet was when Kennedy was killed.
Only 50 trips... loads of incredible change. What will happen next?
No comments:
Post a Comment