Nov 22, 1963 Remembered

[yvesmary]

I suppose to most of you on this forum this is just another date in the history books.

But to a young, impressionable teenager, who never thought much past school and girls, this was an earth shattering moment that will never fade away.

So I was wondering for the younger folks what event has shattered your innocence?

 

[Harlock999]

Reply removed

 

[yvesmary]

November 2, 2004

So what happened if I may ask?

 

[Frost]

Lots of us younger folks aren't born with any innocence to shatter anymore.

 

[Hermit]

November 2, 2004

So what happened if I may ask?

A day I celebrated. :bounce:
No President Kerry. Yeah!

 

[Greenleaf]

Can't think of any one event. Everyday reality seems to wear you down, even as a kid with an age in the single digits. Funny how youthful innocence is celebrated while stupidty is scorned (or celebrated even more so) and delusions are medicated in the nuthouse. Lose that innocence early and often--it's a weakness.

 

[Greenleaf]

Ah, and the day after Kerry lost, I finally dropped out of junior college and went to a bar for my usual poison. Quitting school was good, but we still had Bush and I'd just had my favorite cat put down. Maybe the vague, lingering belief that it maybe mattered who was president was a bit of innocence. Glad that was put down in due time.

 

[Puffy]

It was a day that none of us in this country had experienced before.The idea that our president would be killed had never entered our minds.We saw ourselves not as a country of violence but one where democary ruled.It's hard to believe that so many years have slipped by since then.If I could say just one thing political here,It seems to me that the two parties were more willing to work together then than they are now.I don't know how our country got so divided.There seems to be no middle ground these days.

 

[Lupulus]

If I could say just one thing political here,It seems to me that the two parties were more willing to work together then than they are now.I don't know how our country got so divided.There seems to be no middle ground these days.

It would be nice to go back to those days, but I think that they were an aberration; perhaps a lingering effect of having pulled together for World War II. The 20th century has had the most polite politics of the entire history of the United States, especially in the 1950s and early 1960s. Even the rancor and divisiveness we see in Washington today is nothing compared to what was happening in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

 

[Doc Manhattan]

Every time this anniversary rolls around, I'm reminded the staggering fact that of 44 Presidents, 4 have been assassinated, and at least another 3 were spared only by luck.

Whatever I may think of any one President's policies, it always involves responsibility and risk I cannot fathom. They are all men "who more than selves their country loved."

 

[puros_bran]

Lifes Terminal.. aint none of us getting out of here alive.. He went out at the top of his game, virtually ensuring a heros welcome for eternity...
No sad old dieing President trying to act important (Bush/Clinton/Bush).. No tragic disease eating him awayt (To many to list).. and all but the most anti-democrat look on in fondness (I believe because of the image he presented and his being shot in office)
the only bad thing is he will never rest in peace.

 

[SmokeyTweed]

I personally have never had a moment like that. Even when the 9/11 happened i was sadly playing videogames for a couple of days straight to be honest. So i found out on the 13th(embarassing i know). But as for a polarizing moment the closest and earliest i can remember would oddly enough be the Quebec referendum where they voted to split away from Canada. Of course i was young and didn't consider that perhaps them leaving would lessen the amount of money we give to them each year.

 

[Greenleaf]

This is the danger of remembering events like the Kennhedy assassination or 9-11. It conjures up emotions or thoughts of conspiracy theory. Remember the word "solidarity?" Either way, we're missing the point and assuming the position. It's been said that the political parties won't work together, but they are very much cooperating and one in the same. They get things done every day, the things they are actually supposed to get done. It really doesn't matter who is president anymore. None of this does, nor just about anything but a cool smoke in a comfortable chair. This cup of Folger's I'm drinking is a more relevant than all the Kennedys.

 

[Skip48]

To be totally honest this one didn't rock my world at all, but there is a good reason. A month before this I lost my dad at the same age as Kennedy was, 47 years old. I was crushed so when Kennedy was shot I was still somewhat numb and didn't care.

I knew it was a big deal and all that, but my heart was already taken and was full of loss. I was just 15 then.

Skip

 

[yvesmary]

This cup of Folger's I'm drinking is a more relevant than all the Kennedys.

The younger people today don't realize what a chaotic decade the 60s was. It seemed like a nightmare that would never end.

After this Robert Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther was shot, the race riots in LA and Detroit, soldiers killing students on campus, kids burning their draft cards. We won't mention Vietnam. The whole country seemed like a punch-drunk fighter about to go down.

But we got through it and anything that happens now doesn't seem so calamitous.

 

[Greenleaf]

This cup of Folger's I'm drinking is a more relevant than all the Kennedys.

The younger people today don't realize what a chaotic decade the 60s was. It seemed like a nightmare that would never end.

After this Robert Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther was shot, the race riots in LA and Detroit, soldiers killing students on campus, kids burning their draft cards. We won't mention Vietnam. The whole country seemed like a punch-drunk fighter about to go down.

But we got through it and anything that happens now doesn't seem so calamitous.

Good point. I think also, having grown up in the '90s when the economy was good, our first recession of the century has all the more disillusioned young people like me. Eleven years ago I worked 45 hour weeks and could get another job whenever I wanted. Life for unskilled laborers has taken a horrid turn. It's just sickening to think about. That's, I guess what I mean about everyday life wearing you down. I've got 40 hours now, but it's pretty hard to care about anything in this decade or previous ones.