A slice of time, half a century later

PREFACE: Everyone of a certain age has a frozen memory of events that occurred 50 years ago today. These events changed the world, but not for the last time. My memory is no better than anyone else's, and everyone who was old enough to remember the day President Kennedy was shot can tell his or her own story. The story I am telling today is the story I know best: my own slice of time.

FRIDAY MORNING, NOV. 22, 1963: I don't recall anything about that morning. I was in college, and I would have had classes on Friday mornings, so I'm sure I went to class on that particular Friday morning. I don't remember what the weather was like. I don't remember talking to anyone in particular. I don't remember a single word uttered by any of my professors. What I remember came later in the day, and those memories seems to have blotted out everything else.

FRIDAY NOON, NOV. 22, 1963: Some of my friends from my dorm and I went to the Student Union on campus. The union was the center of campus life. It housed a spacious lounge where students could visit and study. There were meeting rooms for various campus organizations. There was a snack bar downstairs that served cheeseburgers and the best crinkle-cut french fries I've ever eaten.

The union also was where the main dining room was located. It served three full meals a day, and since most students lived on campus, they ate all of their meals at the union dining room.

The union also was the bailiwick of Mrs. Davies. Her official title was union hostess. She was a tiny woman about the age of our grandmothers. Her job, as the title implied, was to welcome visitors, give directions, look up information about scheduled events and generally serve as a mother hen to the students who were in and out of the building all day.

Mrs. Davies also was the butt of many attempts to play jokes on her. A student would walk to the union's main desk and hand Mrs. Davies a handwritten note. She would pick up the microphone for the union's public address system and tap it three times -- Bup! Bup! Bup! -- to make sure it was on. Then she would say:

"Attention. Attention. This is Mrs. Davies. Would Jacque Strappe please go to Room 104 for an important meeting? Thank you."

Mrs. Davies did not read every note handed to her, so the game was afoot. It was the goal of many pranksters to get her to say something outrageous over the public address system. Students in the dining room would join the laughter when Mrs. Davies said something she shouldn't have. Dean of Students William Holzapfel, whose office was in the union near Mrs. Davies' information desk, occasionally tried to put a stop to the juvenile behavior of the college's young men and women. He was not successful.

During this particular lunch, conversations were held at each of the tables that seated six or eight students. I have no idea what was on the menu that day. I have no recollection of what we were talking about.

Bup! Bup! Bup!. "Attention, This is Mrs. Davies."

Everyone stopped to listen. What goofy thing would she say next? We were all prepared for the punch line.

"The president has been shot in Dallas."

Everyone in the dining room joined the laughter. Boy, we thought, someone really pulled one off this time. And then Mrs. Davies was speaking again.

"This is not a joke. President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas."

This time there was no laughter, but everyone wondered what was going on. They were about to get an answer. They watched as Dean Holzapfel strode into the dining room. He was clearly upset.

"I regret to inform you that the president has been killed," he said. "Afternoon classes have been canceled. Please pray for the Kennedy family and for our nation."

Now there were quiet sobs in the dining room. Soon, students began to gather around a television set in the union lounge. TVs were fairly rare on campus. Each dorm had one. As it turned out, I had an old console TV with a screen about 10 inches across in my room. Pretty soon the room was filled with students, many who still could not believe what they were seeing and hearing.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, NOV. 22: The TV was not turned off, and wouldn't be for the next few days.

We watched, along with the rest of America and the world, as more information became available and more events unfolded: the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, the swearing in of President Johnson, Jack Ruby shooting Oswald on live TV, the funeral in Washington, D.C.

This was the first time that the medium of television had provided nonstop coverage. We could not take our eyes off the black-and-white screens.

The theater department at my college had scheduled performances of "Antigone" for that weekend. After much heartfelt discussion, it was decided to go ahead with the performances. The actors performed mostly to an empty theater. Everyone else was watching TV.

EPILOGUE: Sometimes it is difficult to gauge how much our world has changed in 50 years. But consider this: When President Kennedy was shot, TV assumed a new and important role in our lives. Today the world of communications is so different that it's hard to explain to younger generations what it was like in 1963. My folks didn't even have a telephone, so I couldn't call them when I heard the president was shot. Everything we knew about what happened in Dallas came by way of television. Newspapers gave us the front pages that we tucked away and saved as a part of history. But television grew up on Nov. 22, 1963. It showed the world the potential of instant communication on a large scale. It set the standard, that day, for the real-time sharing of events ranging from the World Trade Center to what we are having for lunch. Right now.

Bup! Bup! Bup! This is not a joke.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.