Let’s get this going again (my life, part 1)

OK. so it’s been a few weeks since my last blog post. What happened? Well. life got busy (appointments. grandkids, etc.). I finally got to go away for a weekend (after it had to be postponed). And, if I’m being honest, golf started for me. I recently took my first lesson in a while, and I’ve been spending (lots of) hours trying to learn a new swing. I have been working on some new content, but it’s not ready yet (I think I’m trying to be an editorial writer rather than a blogger sometimes). So in the meantime, here’s what I decided to post. I had begun to write a “memoir” a couple of years ago because I saw that a few others that I knew had done it, and I thought it was a good idea. It too needs work, but I wrote some entries toward it, and I’m going to present one today. I’m trying not to make it a straight biography, but I’m focusing on incidents from my life that I remember and/or helped to define me. So I hope you’ll consider reading this one; it was the first biographical entry of hopefully many.

I decided to start my memoir with my earliest memory. For reference, I was born in 1960. The oldest memory of my life was the assassination of President John Kennedy. As you probably know, it occurred on November 22, 1963, so I was 3 1/2 years old. The memory I have is being in the living room of our duplex apartment (this I will attempt to describe down the road) watching TV with my mother when a newscaster (I want to say it was Walter Cronkite; I’m not sure of that, though he certainly was on the air reporting on it) was saying that President Kennedy was dead. Interestingly, I only remember the part about the President being dead and very little about the shooting itself. I don’t know why that is, but I was kind of young at the time.

Now, you may be thinking; did he really remember this tragedy when it actually happened? The incident is so strong in my brain that I certainly believe that I did. I absolutely believe it is possible that a person of this age could remember something of this magnitude. And again, the only clear information I remember was that I was watching TV, my mother was there, and that a person said multiple times that Kennedy was dead. I have no clear memory of the time of day, but I’m pretty sure it was before dinner, and I don’t remember my sister being there, so it likely was early to midafternoon (I know now that President Kennedy was pronounced dead at about 1 PM CST, and it was a Friday; thanks Wikipedia). I have no idea what TV show was on when the news broke.

So maybe there is some doubt as to whether I really remember this tragic day. Perhaps I dreamed it a little bit later in life, or maybe I watched a program related to the killing later in life (this is absolutely true; I suspect most of us have). I’ve told my wife about this memory, and she is quite skeptical. Of course, when my mother once stated that I could read maps at age 2 (and I was an avid collector of maps when I was young, and they were free at the gas station), my wife practically burst out laughing. In this case, I don’t believe it either, although I most definitely was fascinated by and did stare at maps a lot. I suspect that I could actually read them by age 5 or 6. All this being said, the imprint in my brain is so strong and remains so at age 64 (hoping that this means that dementia is still a few years off), and the people who know me well will attest to my very good memory skills (play any song that was on the radio from about 1957 – 1975, and the is a 98% chance I will know the title and performer/group within 10 seconds), that I consider it likely that I actually do remember watching the JFK assassination when it happened.

There will be more of these posted sporadically in the future. I hope you find them somewhat interesting. Those of you who know me might learn something about me you didn’t previously know.

#President John F. Kennedy

#assassination of President Kennedy

#Wikipedia