November 22, 1963
Mrs. Tucker had been walking around admiring everyone's work and it was about time she got around to me, but she wasn’t there.
In Mrs. Tuckers' first-grade classroom I sat gazing through the window as would be my frequent and occasionally chastised school habit over the next dozen years. The sun was shining brightly into the courtyard as Mr. Harvey, our custodian, was shoving trash into the big incinerator, and I secretly wished I was out there helping him. At home I helped dad burn leaves and such, and I’d be a good helper on this monotonous chore too, anything would be better than sitting inside on such a pretty November day.
Looking back to my desk at the turkey project we’d just completed, I had a last sniff of the sweet-smelling Elmer’s white paste before putting the lid back on and stuffing it into the storage area under my seat with my paper scissors and Big Chief tablet. Mrs. Tucker had been walking around admiring everyone's work and it was about time she got around to me, but she wasn’t there.
It was getting on about lunch time and I could smell the aroma of the De Queen school cafeteria wafting down the hallway all the way to me. Of course, I brought my lunch that dad made because mama was off with my oldest sister who’d just given birth to her first. A grin swept across my face at the thought that I, at such a young age, had just become an uncle, now where was Mrs. Tucker?
Looking around, she was at the classroom door, another teacher her hand near her mouth whispering something into Mrs. Tuckers ear, and then I saw the permanent first grade-teachers smile on her mouth fade, as tears began to well up in her eyes. Then I noticed the other teacher was crying too, what was going on? In the sunny courtyard Mr. Harvey continued to empty bin after bin of wastepaper into the roaring fire, smoke boiling out of the top of the high chimney as the chatty children, now all tuned into the two sniffling ladies, became unusually quiet.
Mrs. Tucker finally walked back to her desk and sat down, looking down, she hadn’t looked up at us since the messenger had departed. She found her Kleenex box and dabbed at her eyes and then the old speaker mounted high on the wall above the chalkboard crackled. It was the principal, Mr. Miller, clearing his throat over the mic, a sound we’d never heard before as his announcements in the mornings were strong, clear and delivered with deliberateness.
But his voice faltered, hesitated, he began by saying school would let out early that day, now, in fact. In the front office they were already busy calling our parents to come and pick us up, there had been an incident, President Kennedy had been hurt somehow and we’d get the afternoon off.
An excited chatter immediately broke out in the room, our young innocent little minds speculated the President was in our nurse's office being attended to, as we were when we scraped a knee on the playground. Mrs. Tucker didn’t shush us as the chatter rose.
Looking out of the window again, Mr. Duncan the gym teacher came out of the door into the courtyard and walked up to Mr. Harvey in the sunshine and said something to him. Mr. Harvey dropped the waste bin he was holding. Mr. Duncan picked it up and put it on its bottom again as Mr. Harvey’s face sank into his hands. Mr. Harvey shut and secured the incinerator's doors and walked with Mr. Duncan, both disappearing into the white doors to the south hallway.
Looking up after a few minutes and finally shushing us down, Mrs. Tucker instructed us to put away our materials and prepare to leave. In a moment we lined up in an orderly fashion and walked out into the hallway to the front exit of the school. All the children from all the other classes were moving up the hallway in a similar fashion, or coming down the stairs, quietly, quickly and orderly, just like a fire drill as we’d been instructed to do.
Outside we crossed the yard to the playground and were allowed to have free time until our parents showed up. Dad was working days at Texaco on Port Arthur’s west side, and I was told my Aunt Olga would be arriving to pick me up.
Aunt Olga was quiet on the ride to her home, there she let me have my uneaten lunch, and gave me a bag of Fritos, my favorite. And told me I could have anything I asked for as she turned on the big RCA black and white television. We could hear Walter Cronkite's voice long before the big picture tube warmed sufficiently to show images.
The whole afternoon the usual soap operas, local used car commercials and even Dialing for Dollars were absent as Walter went on and on about President Kennedy, whom I now knew had been shot and killed in Dallas. Dad came by later to pick me up, at home the sad news went on. The TV stations who signed off a midnight continued to broadcast, my dad and my middle sister Marilyn glued to the set, I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning a Saturday I was up early to watch the cartoons, but Walter was still on, more of the same news, a man had been arrested for the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald. They said his name over and over and each time the full name, Lee-Harvey-Oswald. It’s almost strange now that when his name comes up that I don’t think of the whole name, middle name included, it seared into my six-year-old memory.
All day Saturday I checked now and then, leaving my toys in my room to glance at the screen hoping the cartoons were simply running late, but no. More news.
Sunday morning, I jumped out of bed early again, certainly they’d forgotten about the Saturday cartoons and would then show them on Sunday morning to make up. No, more news. But now they were going to move Lee Harvey Oswald from the Dallas City Jail to a more secure location.
And so, waiting on cartoons I watched the screen as Lee Harvey Oswald was walked out in handcuffs, and a man in a fedora stepped into the frame from the right and shoved a .38 revolver into his gut and pulled the trigger, once.