A Sadness Revisited

I just returned from a business trip to Dallas/Ft. Worth. While there, I had some time off on Sunday afternoon so I decided to go see Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository. You may not recognize these names but it is where the assassination of President John F. Kennedy occurred. Although it was a beautiful, almost Spring-like day, a pall of sadness seemed to hang over the site as I walked around to the various historical markers and looked out the 6th story window from which Lee Harvey Oswald fired his murderous shots. 

November 22, 1963. I was sitting in an 8th grade math class in the early afternoon that day when someone ran into the room and yelled that President Kennedy had just been shot. Our teacher pulled a small transistor radio out of his desk and turned it on. Within minutes a choked-up announcer said that the President had died. I remember looking and seeing tears running down the teacher's cheeks. The rest of us looked at him and each other not knowing quite what to think or say. I do remember thinking that this sort of thing does not happen in the United States, surely not in America. 

Or does it? Sara Jane Moore tried to shoot President Ford and John Hinckley did accomplish doing just that with President Reagan with near-fatal results. We have been fortunate since then that no successful attempts have been made, although it's anybody's guess how many have been stopped just short by the Secret Service and local law enforcement. Which brings us to President Trump. 

The political atmosphere in this country is absolutely poisonous. Public figures are outright inviting the next Oswald to take a shot at President Trump. If it happens, would there be the shock and sorrow of 1963 or rather rejoicing in some quarters given prominent and smirking billing in the media? I am not an optimist by temprament. What I do know, though, is that as I walked around Dealey Plaza in Dallas last Sunday and the sad memories came back, the assassination of a President is something that I never want to experience again in my lifetime.