Fifty years ago today

[Vidor]

Aldous Huxley died! I'm sure it was front page news. After all, the man wrote "Brave New World".

[Vidor]

CBS.com is going to stream four days' worth of 1963 coverage starting at 1:38 Eastern. I guess that means they won't be including the initial bulletins breaking in to "As The World Turns" while they waited for a camera to heat up in the CBS newsroom. There used to be hours of CBS coverage on You Tube but they decided to be dicks and yanked it--there is still one video with the first hour, including the soap opera. The NBC videos from Nov. 22 are still up.

[Vidor]

And remember, folks: Oswald acted alone, and conspiracy theories should be treated with no more respect than one treats birthers, truthers, and vaxxers.

[heyzeus]

What's a vaxxer?

[Vidor]

What's a vaxxer?

Jenny McCarthy and all those other morons that say vaccines cause autism, so you should just let your baby die of whooping cough.

[IMADreamer]

I had an English 280 class in college that while being English the theme was almost entirely JFK and the assassination. It was one of my favorite classes. The professor was phenomenal and really up on the subject. Ultimately he believed Oswald acted alone.

[Jocephus]

it was mcdowell

[Radbird]

While most of you pups weren't alive back then, it's one of those moments that is frozen in time if you were (think 9/11). This article in yesterday's PD sums it up well for those of us who lived through it. Almost sounds like I could've written it.

Gauen: Still answering the call of Nov. 22, 1963

First of all, for my family he might as well have been a saint. My Bohemian/Irish Catholic grandparents had his picture on the wall alongside the pope's. A Catholic president was truly something they never thought they would see. He and his "beautiful wife and family" were spoken of in reverential terms.

I was 10 years old in 4th grade at Twillman Elementary in Spanish Lake. After lunch our teacher was summoned out of the classroom. 20 minutes later she's not back and we're like WTF happened. Some kid in the hall opens our door and says "they've shot the president!!!". A few minutes later teacher returns and without saying why tells us class is dismissed for the day - everyone go home. We ask her if it's true. She has obviously been crying and she says "please just go home now". The hallway is pandemonium, full of speculation (he's okay, he's dead, Mrs. Kennedy was shot too, yada yada). I found my older sister and we went to pick up our little sister in kindergarten. When we got to her classroom, I asked the teacher "is it true? is he dead?" She told us not to tell anyone, but yes it's true. I immediately ran out into the hallway yelling "it's true! a teacher just told me!! he's dead!!!"

Saturday we went to Grandma's house. She cried when we showed up and had taken his picture off the wall and put it on a table in the living room surrounded by flowers, rosaries and crosses. I was watching TV on Sunday morning while my mom and sisters were getting ready for church when Ruby shot Oswald. I screamed so loud they thought I was the one who was shot. Then the rotunda. Then the funeral procession.

I'm amazed at how crystal clear these memories are all these years later. I remember little snippets of the MLK and RFK shootings, but nothing like this. When I moved to Dallas 9 years later to attend SMU, the first place I went to after moving into my dorm room was Dealey Plaza.

Understand that most of you are probably tired of the almost constant coverage this week but for me, it's almost as though I were 10 years old all over again. Thanks for reading.

[Jocephus]

i can't imagine the effect of seeing ruby shoot oswald back then on live tv

[Vidor]

i can't imagine the effect of seeing ruby shoot oswald back then on live tv

I wonder if that "Mad Men" clip with Betty Draper is out there anywhere. "WHAT IS GOING ON?"