The Day Kennedy Died
On that Friday morning in late November I remember my mother stoically ironing my white St. Mary’s shirt and dark gray trousers. My mother always did her daily ironing in the beige kitchen, and this chore included my brother’s high school clothes too. While she took care of this menial task with experienced precision, I would invariably sit like Mahatma Gandhi with my legs crossed on the floor by the vent in the dining room, allowing the heated forced air to warm my young prepubescent body, eat three maybe four Pillsbury cinnamon rolls with gobs of white sweet icing dripping off the sides and read the sports section of the L.A. Times. I remember there was a small yellow clock on top of our refrigerator which sat just inside the kitchen to the left and as I scanned the standings of the football, basketball and hockey teams, I would check and recheck the time which I could see clearly from where I was sitting. Since school started promptly at 8 with Mass in the church, I needed to get dressed by 7: 40 in order for my father to get me there on time.
On this particular morning I remember I was feeling good health-wise, and I also recall that I was actually ready for my geography test on Spain, scheduled for that afternoon. As we drove to St. Mary’s School in the beige Impala, my cigarette smoking father always kept the radio tuned to KRLA since my brother and I had constantly needled him to turn it to that station whenever we rode in the car. The five minute ride to St. Mary’s required three turns and three stops, and during that brief journey in late November, I vividly recall hearing April and Nino singing “Deep Purple” as I munched on part of my lunch for the day-a Hostess chocolate cream-filled cupcake. After getting dropped off in front of my classroom on Newlin Street, I bid my father farewell, went into my classroom, Room 14, to drop off my book bag and plastic lunch pail, and then I proceeded to go to mass as usual.
Ancient Father Karp, with his fuzzy curly hair rising magically into the airy heights of the sanctuary, said morning Mass that day wearing a blood red chasuble in honor of the virgin martyr, St. Cecelia, and he had four 8th grade altar boys wearing black and white kneeling behind him on little white pads at the foot of the big white marble altar. To be sure, all us Catholic kids were suitably impressed by this panoply of bright colors and sacred bows, and flickering candles and folded hands. Meanwhile, Father Molthen, with his right arm gesticulating mellifluously, was playing the organ and leading the girls choir all at the same time. I recall sitting between Eugene Labonte and Tommy Kiefe at that particular Mass, and across the center aisle were all the girls in their plaid uniforms with their little plaid beanies atop the crowns of their heads. I had my eye on Mary Beth Olah that morning like every other morning. Her white hairless legs had a remarkable clean shine to them as she knelt there during the consecration of the host.
After Mass, my class returned to Room 14 and ate breakfast at our desks. usually I ate nothing since I would eat whatever Hostess cupcake my mother happened to drop into my lunch pail while riding to school in the Impala, be it a snowball, a twinkie, or my preference-a chocolate cupcake with those little white swirls of frosting on top. I just sat in my desk and watched everyone else eat their breakfasts with patient indifference. Most of the kids ate cold cereal and fruit packed in Tupperware. But Debbie Kwast always had a smelly hard boiled egg that kind of grossed me out. I was probably the only kid in Mrs. Whiting’s class who daily broke the sacred Catholic rule of not eating before communion, but I didn’t care. I figured Jesus would forgive me for this small venial sin as long as I confessed it to the priest every month just before First Friday Mass. Usually this indiscretion cost me only two “Hail Marys” while on my knees at the communion rail.
After breakfast Mrs. Whiting would begin the instructional day with reading. Normally we would all take turns standing and reading aloud from our 6th grade reader-an anthology of hopelessly trite stories written by priests and nuns about Catholic children trusting in god for everything in life. Then at 10 o’clock the other 6th grade teacher, Sister Therese Marie, would trade places with Mrs. Whiting and come in to teach us from the Baltimore Catechism. Afterwards, there would be a fifteen minute recess outside on the church parking lot. There was no grass whatsoever at St. Mary’s; just hard rocky asphalt with hundreds of painted white lines to mark all those numerous parking spaces for Sunday Mass.
After recess we’d all line up in two straight lines; girls in front and boys to the rear, and when all was quiet and those lines straight as the lines on the parking lot, Mrs. Whiting and Sister Therese Marie would signal us to silently and briskly march up the Newlin street sidewalk and into the school building. After finally settling down, Mrs. Whiting would launch into her English grammar lesson for the day. This lesson would last until 11: 30, maybe 11: 45. It was during Mrs. Whiting’s lesson on adjectives that our principal, Sister Bartholomew, interrupted the proceedings with a message to the school via the PA system. “May I . . . uhh . . . may I have your . . . attention please?” Usually whenever Sister Bartholomew spoke to us through the speaker above the crucifix of a bloody dying Jesus, her voice was staid, poised and in complete control. But on this morning in late November, I noticed that she was unusually ruffled, confused and basically at a loss for words. And she stumbled and stuttered noticeably. “Uhh . . . students . . . w.. w.. we’ve had a report that . . . uhh . . . President Kennedy. . . . President Kennedy.. uhh.. has been s.. s.. shot.”
At that moment, Mrs. Whiting put her hand to her mouth as if choking on a chicken bone, dropped her teacher’s manual onto the tile floor of room 14 and said: “Oh my god! No!” Then she stepped out into the hallway of the building and started to cry in the arms of Sister Therese Marie. When I first heard the news I was happy because this meant I would no longer have to endure Mrs. Whiting’s grammar lesson and, quite possibly, we would all be allowed to go home early. Then Sister Bartholomew came back on the PA system, much more poised this time, to finish giving us the latest news. “May I have your attention. The radio reports indicate that our great president has been shot in Texas. But he is still alive. I would like to now direct all the teachers to escort their classes to the church, and there we will pray for President Kennedy’s recovery.”
And so, in two straight silent lines, the 800 students of St. Mary’s School grimly marched with hands folded in fervent prayer to the big cavernous brick church across the parking lot from the school. As we exited down the ramp of the school building, I was amazed at what I saw. I’ll never forget the sight as long as I live. With the small first graders in front and the tall 8th graders at the rear, this long continuous procession of scrubbed uniformed Catholic children stretched at least two hundred yards across that expansive parking lot, reminding me of two lines of blue sweatered ants triumphantly marching into someone’s wide open cookie jar. In front of me walked Eugene Labonte. And because of his shortened right leg, he wore a big heeled black boot to compensate, and on the bottom of that heel was a metal tap. And so as we all marched in silence, save for Eugene Labonte’s version of “Taps,” I and everyone else wondered if the President would still be alive when we got back to the classroom.
At the front entrance of the church, a statue of an ascending Virgin Mary greets all who come to worship. As we passed by that day, I noticed her enfolded hands and her eyes turned upward to heaven. To the left of her statue on the brick walkway I also noticed the indelibly splashed remnants of a pile of vomit that one of my 5th grade classmates, Susie Lou Graybill, had left there the year before. I felt sick to my stomach as I entered therein.
It was an extremely difficult thing to do, but I managed to pull it off: I flunked Religion class at St. Mary’s School in January of 1964. I did manage to bring all my other grades up a notch or two, but I received a definitive fat “F” in Religion on my report card from Sister Therese Marie for the second quarter. And even back then as a twelve year old boy, I knew the reason why. And it had nothing to do with refusing to answer my workbook questions for homework. And it had nothing to do with my refusal to memorize the Baltimore Catechism. It was all much deeper than that. Which takes me back to the church on that dark November twenty second when the entire school congregated in solemn intense prayer asking God and all the saints to spare President Kennedy’s life. As soon as every one of those 800 Catholic school kids got on their knees inside the church, Father Karp appeared from the sacristy wearing his white stole emblazoned with two black crosses. And for a solid hour we repeated the prayers recited mechanically and somewhat painfully by this monotone priest: Two dozen “Hail Marys,” two dozen “Our Fathers,” two dozen “Glory Bes,” and finally we recited the seemingly endless Litany of the Saints. Never have my knees felt so much pain as they did that day when we prayed and prayed and prayed for the wounded president. How could I forget it?
“Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy . . .” At this point I remember I allowed my eyes to wander around that vast church, and I stared in wonder at the big hanging lights and translucent multicolored stained glass windows of Christ’s Passion . . . “Christ, graciously hear us. God the father of heaven, have mercy on our president. God the son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on him . . .” and I stared at the statues of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist and St. Francis of Assisi with a single little bird sitting unafraid on his outstretched hand . . . “God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on him. Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on him. Holy Mary, holy mother of God, Holy Virgin of virgins, have mercy on him . . .” And then my eyes looked across the aisle at all the girls on their knees praying with those plaid beanies on their heads. And I stared for quite awhile at the white shiny legs of Mary Beth Olah as she knelt there with head bowed. . . . “St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, all you holy angels and archangels, all you holy order of blessed spirits . . .” Then I lifted my eyes to the high, far away ceiling of the church, almost as high as heaven itself, or so I thought back in 1963, and I saw myself flying effortlessly like an angel, from stained glass window to stained glass window . . . “St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, all you holy patriarchs and prophets, St. Peter, St. John, St. Andrew, St. James, St. Philip . . .”
By this point my mind had gone back in time, back to my days before moving to Redding, to the time when I first traveled up there with my mother in 1960 on the double decker greyhound bus to scout the area. We had stayed in an old dreary dark hotel room sans a TV set and I remembered spending most of my time staring out of the window at the surrounding mountains and the stars in the black night . . . “St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simon, St. Thaddeus, St. Matthias, St. Barnabas, St. Luke, St. Mark, all you holy apostles and evangelists . . .” And then I remembered being at the Redding train station early in the morning before the rise of the sun, waiting to get on board for the long ride home to LA. Not a soul around. My mother was inside the depot using the restroom and I was alone in the darkness . . . “All you holy innocents, St. Stephen, St. Lawrence, St. Vincent, St. Fabian and Sebastian, St. Cosmos and St. Damian; all you holy martyrs . . .” But I wasn’t alone. For by the tracks was a lone casket, draped by an American flag. Red, white and blue it was . . . “St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine and St. Jerome, St. Martin, St. Nicholas and St. Dominic . . .” And I thought about the dead person inside that casket at the depot in the darkest part of night. And I wondered what it was like to be dead. I remembered that I wanted my mother because I was afraid . . . “All you holy bishops and confessors, all you holy monks and hermits, all you holy virgins and widows, all you holy men and women, saints of God, make intercession for him, our president.”
Finally it was over, and in two straight lines we marched back to our classrooms. When we arrived, Sister Bartholomew came on the PA system and announced in the saddest tone of voice I had ever heard that President Kennedy was dead. While Mrs. Whiting and some of the girls in my class quietly weeped, I sat back in my desk and shook my head in total frustration. I remember thinking to myself: “All that praying to practically every saint in the Catholic Church for a solid hour on my knees. And for what?” That handsome guy, who so impressed Mrs. McGehee on that hot summer’s afternoon in 1962 when we watched the all-star game on Mrs. Koontz’ new color TV, was dead and gone . . . shot in the head in Texas. I lost faith after that day, and decided the Catholic religion was powerless to stop tragedy and death. And so, when I received that “F” on my report card, it didn’t bother me at all. After all, I figured Jesus would forgive me for this small venial sin as long as I confessed it to the priest before the next First Friday Mass.
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