The Day the Basketball Teams Cried

One minute you can be a grade eight student
playing in a basketball tournament,
and in the next minute,
your world can change forever.

Wolfville High School Girls' Basketball Team

Photo from the Glooscap Yearbook, June 1964

My team was playing somewhere in a basketball tournament.

My memory says we played at East Kings District High School,

but I can find no record of such a school on line.

The school I remember did look a lot like

West Kings District High School.

And perhaps it was.

The current event of the day overwhelmed my memories.

West Kings District High School

Source: School Website

Truly I can't remember much of that fateful day

except young girls from all over the Annapolis Valley

crowded into a classroom,

looking at a tiny black and white television,

and crying ~ sobbing in disbelief and grief.

I was one of those players, and 
I remember the news reports

that rocked my world. 

The first JFK assassination bulletin

Source:  You Tube ~  King Daevid MacKenzie

We were not Americans.

We were Canadians.

We were not adults.

We were young teenagers.

It did not matter.

We cared deeply.

President Kennedy was someone 

who touched our hearts,

and we couldn't believe his light

was gone from our world.

President and Mrs. Kennedy

Main Street Dallas

Just Minutes Before the Assassination

Source:  Wikipedia

The tournament continued.

Nobody wanted to play.

Girls, teams, came in and went out of the classroom.

I remember nothing of the competition,

just the crying in the darkening room

as the day crawled into night

and my heart ached.

JFK ASSASSINATION BREAKING NEWS REPORTS- 

NBC, ABC, CBS…

Source:  You Tube ~ CHRAMO PRODUCTIONS

I won't presume to speak for my fellow players,

I can only report their stunned and grief-filled reactions.

But for me the world darkened.

People remember JFK for many reasons, but
I remember him for hope and optimism.
I remember him for bringing us back
from the brink of nuclear war.

President Kennedy challenged us 
to ask what we could do for our country
to reach for the moon, 
and to stand for freedom and justice for all.

Nuclear disarmament, service, space, and civil rights
captured my imagination because of JKF 
and have inspired many things I have done in my life.   

I remember when he was elected.



                       Kennedy                                                          Nixon

Presidential election results map. 

Blue denotes states won by Kennedy/Johnson, 

Red denotes those won by Nixon/Lodge. 

Orange denotes the electoral votes for Harry F. Byrd 

by Alabama and Mississippi unpledged electors, and an Oklahoma "faithless elector". 

Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

Source:  Wikipedia

I remember President Kennedy's Inauguration 
when he said,

“And so, my fellow Americans: 
ask not what your country can do for you--
ask what you can do for your country.”

All Americans would do well to remember his words today,

especially our leaders.

Chief Justice Earl Warren

Administers the Oath of Office

to the 35th President of the United States of America.

Source:  Wikipedia

I remember when President Kennedy 

launched the Moon Race in September 1962

and committed the USA 

to reaching the moon by the end of the decade.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency."

John F. Kennedy,

Speech at Rice University, Houston, 12 September 1962

Source:  Wikipedia

Earthrise from Apollo 10

Source:  Wikimedia

I remember the tense, tense days 

of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962,

and the day I came home from school

and my mother said,

"President Kennedy saved us from nuclear war today."

Soviet submarine B-59, 

forced to the surface by U.S. Naval forces 

in the Caribbean near Cuba. U.S.

October 28-29, 1962 

Source:  Wikipedia

I remember the traumatic Civil Rights Era

and President Kennedy's Civil Rights Address

on June 11, 1963 when he proposed

what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Kennedy called on Americans to recognize civil rights 

as a moral cause and not a legal issue:

"We are confronted primarily with a moral issue.... It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.... One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs... are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice... this Nation... will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.... Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise."

Source:  Wikipedia

President Kennedy Delivers His Civil Rights Address

Source:  Wikipedia

I remember Camelot.

The Kennedy's at Hyannisport, August 1963

Source:  Wikipedia

The Kennedy years in my young life

were a time of hope and optimism

when anything seemed possible.

It was incomprehensible that President Kennedy

could be gone in a heartbeat,

that the world could feel colder, darker, 

and more dangerous

in a moment.

I did not understand then what 

the assassination of President Kennedy meant 

politically, economically, socially,

or in terms of national security and foreign affairs.

I only knew that someone who inspired me

more than anyone else at that time was gone

and that if President Kennedy 

could be shot down in a Dallas street

then anything could happen to anyone, 

anywhere, anytime.

Source:  You Tube ~ antdavisonNZ

Source:  You Tube ~ WSJDigitalNetwork

Heroes die,

and it's left to us 

to live fuller and more meaningful lives

for having known them.

Thank you, JFK, for empowering my life.