Sister Mary Patricia, and older woman with deep frown lines wearing a habit stands at the front of the second grade classroom as she does every day at St. Greggory’s elementary school in Dorchester, MA. It’s a small room filled with tiny wooden desks barely able to fit a piece of paper on. Two chalkboards sit at the front at the room while the rest of the walls hold crosses or cursive letters of the alphabet. The young students scribble silently in their daily journal when another nun who usually watches over the class down the hall burst in, tears in her eyes.
The two quickly exited to the hallway and even behind a heavy wooden door slammed between them, the classroom quickly filled with the wails of the nuns. Moments later a small TV was wheeled into the room. Robert, one of the third grade students at the school, glanced around at his classmates and laughed. It wasn’t often class got derailed to watch TV.
The small box flicked on to the greyscale footage of a grey haired man in a white button up and a slim black tie sitting at a desk. “There has been an attempt, as perhaps you know now, on the life of president Kennedy. He was wounded in an automobile driving from Dallas airport into downtown Dallas along with governor Connolly of Texas. They have been taken to Parkland hospital there where their condition is yet unknown.”
A heaviness fell over the room as the students watched their caretakers fall apart watching the TV. Robert squinted at the small screen for second before raising his hand.
“Did the president die?” he asked, not waiting to be called on.
Sister Mary Patricia spun around and shot him a look. “You should be watching the television,” she said.
The nun turned back around glassy eyes glued to the television once again. Almost immediately after an announcement came over the intercom saying school was being let out early.
Excited about the early recess Robert hopped on his bike and joked around with his friends as they rode through the streets. It was an unusually warm day in November, but the usually bustling neighborhood seemed almost deserted. He figured this must be what it’s like while they’re in school.
“Do you think the president is okay?” one of his friends asked.
Robert frowned. All the adults were acting hysterical, but the news had said there was an attempt on his life, not a successful one. Plus, he was already at the hospital. Robert simply shrugged to his friend while another boy also ignored the question saying they hope they kill the man that did it.
Across town in the same Boston neighborhood Maureen was also headed home from school. The Paul A. Dever school in Columbia Point couldn’t afford televisions so Maureen had to resort to pestering her older brother who walked home with her.
“My teacher was crying Cliff,” she told him again.
Her brother nodded. He walked at a much faster pace than usual. Maureen had to jog to keep up. “Did Ginny and Anne get out too you think?” she asked him. Her brother didn’t answer. They walked in silence the rest of the way home.
Inside Maureen was greeted by her family gathered in the living room, the TV up full volume. Cliff rushed over to join while Maureen sat on the floor by her sisters. Even her great aunts and uncles were in here, but no one said hello when they came inside. They were supposed to be at work. With them in here the already small room felt so stuffy it was hard to breathe. She wanted to ask her sisters what was going on but the only sound in the room besides the TV was the muffled sobs of her step mother.
“From Dallas Texas the flash apparently official President Kennedy died at 1pm central standard time, 2pm eastern standard time,” said the news anchor.
The sobbing grew louder, not only from her own living room, but from other parts of the triple decker. Her father got up and lit a cigarette and her youngest sister burst into tears. Maureen didn’t know exactly how to react, but she was glad the man who did it was in Texas so he couldn’t hurt her or her family.
Both Robert and Maureen, who would normally be out at this point, hanging with friends or playing baseball sat inside their homes. The usual siren of knocks on the front door after school were replaced with silence. No one went in or out. All nine children in Robert’s family, who would usually be shooed out by their mother sat still and silent in the living room.
What felt like instantly after the president was announced dead the TV switched to shaky cam footage. There was mumbling but above the crowd of reporters and police packed into what appeared to be a narrow hallway you could hear one man ask, “Did you shoot the president?”
“I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir,” the man answered, his southern accent clear.
“Bullshit,” Robert’s mom responded. His father gave her a disapproving glance before turning his focus back to the television.
“They got him?” Robert asked his father. Vincent Carolan frowned over at him as if to say ‘shut up and pay attention’ before his eyes flicked back to the small television screen.
Maureen watched the man on the screen get paraded in front of the reporters. They were holding their cameras inches away from his face. The sound of the photos being taken was almost like background music.
“Did you kill the president?” the reporter asked. At the sound of the word kill Maureen’s oldest brother Cliff winced.
At his answer her youngest sister Anne smirked. “He sounds stupid.”
Her response was answered with a harsh punch on the arm from her brother. The smirk dropped off her face as she resumed watching the program.
The days that followed were more of this. Unopened front doors once everyone was back from school. Mourning in near silence at the dinner table, and a television that never seemed to be turned off, in fear of missing an update. The update to come would be referred to then and now as “the shot heard around the world”.
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