I Was Collecting Stamps That Day

copy-copy-lloydblog_title3.gifMy local paper has been running a “Where were you on November 22, 1963” features this month. Like most of us, I know exactly where I was, and it has a philatelic connection, but I’ve always had misgivings about it. But, after reflecting on the significance of the date, and realkennedy1246aizing that we can’t hold a 10-year-old boy to adult standards, I’ll tell the story.

Every Friday, Mrs. Meade, our 5th grade teacher at Roosevelt School in Ossining, NY, let us have the afternoon as “hobby time.” For myself and three or four of my friends, that meant stamp collecting.

In fact, I believe Mrs. Meade gave me my first first day cover; certainly, my first foreign FDC. I think I still have it somewhere.

Few fifth-graders, then or now, are into exhibiting, so it’s not as if we were going to show each other great rarities and scholarly philatelic research, kennedy1246band, just like adults then and now, our weekly “hobby time” stamp sessions had become largely buy/sell/trade sessions. Mrs. Meade wasn’t happy about that.

That afternoon, she came into the classroom and said hobby time had been canceled, because the president had been shot. I didn’t believe her. After all, no one shoots presidents. In fact, I’m not sure up to that point I knew of anyone who had been shot, much less killed.

So I figured she’d concocted this unbelievable, ridiculous excuse just because she was upset about our stamp swaps. Remember, I was 10 years old.

We returned to our desks and sat there in silence for the rest of the afternoon. I think some of the other teachers came into the room and talked with Mrs. Meade in whispers.

UC37We never had hobby time again, reinforcing my suspicion.

We also didn’t have school the following Monday, of course. I remember walking into our living room, and finding my mother weeping as she watched the funeral on television. “Why are you crying, Mommy? You’re a Republican.”

I was 10 years old.

2 thoughts on “I Was Collecting Stamps That Day

  1. I was in Regensburg, Germany fulfilling my military obligation to Uncle Sam. It was evening over there & I was attending a movie at the theater on base. I don’t remember the name of the movie. They stopped the movie, the lights came on & somebody came out on the stage & said the president has been shot. The movie continued & at the end of the movie they announced that the president was dead.

  2. I was a junior in high school that day in November 1963

    I was in study hall having just returned from lunch. I was busy studying a blond cheerleader named Sandra who was sitting across the table from me. She had her uniform on for the Friday night basketball game. Her sweater always seemed about 2 sizes too small and I was giving it a close look.

    Breaking my concentration was my social studies teacher and basketball coach Charles Riek. He burst into the large room crying and gave us all the terrible news. That the president had been shot in Dallas. About 20 minutes later he returned and said only “He”s dead!” While I know some schools let out early that day, ours did not.

    The Friday night game was canceled. I spent the weekend watching the rest of the events unfold on TV.

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