Paul Giorgio: JFK’s Assassination Through The Eyes of a Child

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Paul Giorgio, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER

50 years ago to the day, this Friday marks the anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Time has flown by in what seems like the blink of an eye. This week the pundits and talking heads will speculate on how America has changed because of that seminal event.

We ask ourselves what could have been-what would have been if JFK had lived and had been re-elected. We may not have had the Voting Rights Act or the War on Poverty; then again we may not have had the Viet Nam War which still today traumatizes the body politic of this nation.

I will leave it to others to ask and answer those questions.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was 12 and in the 8^th grade at Adam Street School. The principal walked into the room and told us the president had been shot and school was dismissed for the day. We walked home in clusters, some crying, not understanding what had happened. How could someone have shot our President? He was our President not in the universal sense but in the very parochial from Massachusetts sense.

He was our President, the first Catholic. Adam Street School was 80 percent Italian American, which made it almost 100 percent Catholic.

I remember going to a friend’s house to watch the news. We put on the TV and heard that the President was dead. It didn’t sink in right away. It didn’t sink in until the Worcester Gazette-the afternoon paper then, hit the streets and our homes with an extra edition. Six inch high bold black type-that’s what I recall-President Dead. Those two cold words.

We were glued to the television from Friday at about 3 PM until Monday night. We ate on TV trays in front of the Black and White Sylvania TV. On Saturday we drove downtown. This was a time when Worcester had a downtown. The stores were closed. The display windows which until the day before had been full of clothes or toys for Christmas where now dark, dark except for a solitary spotlight that shown on an easel holding a framed picture of President Kennedy draped in black bunting. Store after store- Denholmes, Kresge’s Woolworth, Ware Pratt, the Learner Shop, Shack’s, Barnards all closed-all draped in black, all displaying a portrait of an assassinated president.

Friday dragged into Saturday and Saturday to Sunday. Black and white grainy images of the President’s Body landing at Andrews Air Force Base, of the coffin being lowered and placed in the hearse. The arrival at The White House and the lying in state on the same catafalque that held Abraham Lincoln’s coffin 100 years before.

Sunday, I sat in my grandmother’s living room eating homemade pasta on a tray watching and waiting as Lee Harvey Oswald was brought out to be transferred. Then a blur- a shot. The anguished looks on the faces of the bystanders and of Oswald. The anchorman yelling-“He’s been shot, Oswald has been shot”.

Sunday, the President was brought to the Capital, once again to lie in State. Thousands of ordinary Americans paid their respects-the endless lines.

Sunday turned into Monday and the Funeral. There was no school as we all watched in disbelief. The memory of Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston saying the Mass can still be seen in my mind’s eye as he greeted the casket at the church doors. The muffled drums, the tear streaked faces, the Kennedy family followed by world leaders. DeGualle of France was there, so was Hallie Salassie of Ethiopia along with almost 100 world leaders. It was the largest gathering of foreign leaders in American history and still is.

The muffled drums, taps, the lighting of the eternal flame and muffled drums that still echo through the years. Sounds that still can be heard and seen in the eyes and ears of a 12 year old, who along with America was changed forever.

Paul Giorgio is a longtime Democratic Party Activist who has worked on numerous campaigns. He was a Lead Advance Person for President Clinton & Vice President Gore. He was Deputy Director of Special Events for President Clinton’s first Inauguration. He has been elected a delegate to numerous Democratic National Conventions and recently served as one of President Obama’s representatives on the Platform Committee. In 2013 he was chosen as a Presidential Elector. He is the President of Pagio, Inc., publishers of Pulse Magazine, Vitality Magazine and Worcester Medicine.

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