Opinion

Nov. 22, 1963 marked the end of the innocence for Baby Boomers

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Nov. 22, 1963. If ever a day lived in proverbial infamy, that was it.

Yet before that afternoon in Dallas, it was such an idyllic time. Baby Boomers were living the good life.

The war was behind us. We had survived the Day the Music Died. The future -- nicely wrapped up in space exploration, mini-skirts and rock 'n' roll -- looked brighter than ever.

No threat of terrorists. No airport strip searches. No cell phones, texts, tweets, email or Facebook.

No 24-hour news networks. Not even cable TV. After the nightly news and "The Tonight Show," TV stations played the National Anthem, offered a prayer and went dark for the night. Not that many of us even stayed up that late, staring at the grainy black-and-white TV of the time anyway.

Yep, it was a much, much simpler and innocent time.

We walked to school then. Went home for lunch and returned to school on a one-hour lunch break. Rode our bikes without helmets. Trick-or-treated everywhere, even after dark.

The Beatles had yet to invade the U.S. It was, after all, Lesley Gore's party, and she sang, "I'll cry if I want to." And "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," featuring the unlikely casting of Spencer Tracy and every comedian in Hollywood (including The Three Stooges), was topping the movie box office.

In my own backyard, the Chicago Bears were on their way to the first of two world championships in my lifetime, relying (as usual) on tough defense and the pass catching of a young tight end named Mike Ditka.

Being in elementary school in the western Chicago suburb of Broadview, my young life pretty much revolved around school, girls, sports and my paper route -- not necessarily in that order.

But on Nov. 22, 1963 that all changed. Life as most of us knew it would be different from then on.

Except at good, old Lindop School, where unlike most of my local contemporaries who answered a query about where they were and what they were doing when President Kennedy was shot (see story, Page 1A), I was stuck in the Central Time Zone and standing along 17th Avenue on safety patrol duty. It was a pretty cool gig for a pre-teen. Got to wear an Army helmet painted fluorescent orange with a matching shoulder belt while empowered to keep the kids at bay or stop traffic as necessary.

That is where I stood when I first learned that President Kennedy had been gunned down in Dallas. I remember it was a younger student who bounded past me, excitedly announcing the president had been shot.

Like several others I talked with earlier this week, I waited for the punch line. Shot with a rubber band? Shot with a peashooter? Shot with a BB gun? For it was inconceivable to us that the president of the United States could be shot and killed before our innocent eyes.

Now 1 p.m. CST, I trudged the block and a half back to school not the least worried that anything so horrible had transpired.

But when I entered the building, teachers were huddled together, talking in hushed tones, wiping tears from their eyes and obviously consoling each other.

As I mounted the stairs to the upper level that housed sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade classes, it became more apparent that something indeed terrible had occurred. As we settled into our seats, Mr. Gunderson, the principal, came over the PA to somberly report that President Kennedy was indeed dead.

As we sat quietly at our desks, a dose of reality washed over us. The classroom door rattled open and our math teacher, Frank Skezak, strolled in to break the silence.

"Put your books away," he ordered, pausing as we all thought math class was being canceled.

"It's time for your semester math test."

The future of the country, if not the free world, was dancing in our heads at that moment, and we were now being asked to solve story problems.

You know the kind: "If Train A left the station doing 30 mph and Train B left the station doing 50 mph, what time would it be happy hour in the club car?"

Somehow we muddled through despite all the distraction and finished the math test, wondering all the while what we were missing as others all around us were glued to the TV.

Our afternoon was supposed to end that day with a class party to celebrate reaching a fundraising goal for our class trip to Detroit (why anyone would want to go on a field trip to Detroit is another question lost to the ages). Despite room mothers having snacks and drinks ready to go, the party was summarily canceled (as it well should have been), lest we appeared to be having a good time on such a devastating occasion.

It did teach us one thing: Not even in math class do things add up as they should. Perfect numbers, like perfect men, are rare.

One lone gunman. A disputed number of gunshots. The "Magic Bullet Theory." Even the assassination would be a math test of sorts.

I believe it was Einstein who said, "So far as the theories of mathematics are about reality, they are not certain; so far as they are certain, they are not about reality."

So thank you, Mr. Skezak, for a life lesson still remembered 50 years later. But I'll never forgive you for the B-.