Bob CollinsI was just a kid 46 years ago today. Fifth grade. I’d been allowed out of school early to get the bus to Rocky’s Barber Shop for a haircut. Haircuts were that important back in 1963. When I walked in, everyone was listening to the radio — WFGL, a radio station I’d work at 14 years later. Rocky was cutting hair half-heartedly, and nobody was saying anything.
There wasn’t a TV to watch; businesses didn’t have TVs in the workplace back then. So we only heard what millions of others — I’m guessing, mostly women — saw in the now-famous image of Walter Cronkite informing the world that someone had killed our president.
It’s impossible to overestimate what the Dallas Morning News today referred to as “the cloud of grief” that descended, and put November 22 on a very small list of unforgettable dates on the calendar, at least for my generation.
