The question “Do you remember where you were when _______  happened?” is so banal as to be little more than irritating.

The better question is when did you know that _________ happened?

For example, I know precisely where I was when in 1945 two Soviet army groups attacked the city of Berlin from the east, south, and north as part of the their Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation as well as where I was on VE day (May 8 1945).  And I know just as precisely where I was on August 6 and August 9 1945 when the United States visited nuclear Hell upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively and I know where I was on VJ day (August 14 1945).  However, I didn’t know when any of those things happened until several years later because I at the time I was alive in Colorado Springs but as yet unborn.

Probably the most frequently asked question of my time is, “Do you remember where you were when Kennedy was killed?”  In my case, I was with my mother at Sears in Ft. Worth’s Seminary South shopping center choosing new shoes when someone quite clearly announced over the PA system that President Kennedy had just been shot in Dallas, which sent an emotional  shockwave right through everyone in the store.

I was lacing up a shoe when the announcement was made and my mother asked in rapid succession, “What?  What was that?  Did you hear that?  What did he say?” and without even looking up I very matter-of-factly said, “They just shot Kennedy.”, to which my mother responded “What do you mean?” and I looked up at her and said it again.  Later on, she told me she didn’t know which most startled her, the announcement or my nonchalance.

That, then, is where I was when it happened, but the where has nothing to do with knowing when.

It was general election season and Kennedy was trying to shore up down-ticket support at a time when the political atmosphere, not just in Dallas and Ft. Worth but throughout Texas, was more than charged – It was venomous.  Newspapers and on-air news readers had since sometime in September been pondering whether Kennedy would make campaign stops in both Ft. Worth and Dallas and speculation about how he might be received in either was rife.  What’s more, Dallas was in some circles being called he Murder Capital of the United States and there were way too many people who felt all to free to say, “Somebody oughta shoot that bastard.”

I was then a freshman at Arlington State College (later The University of Texas at Arlington) and I spent a lot of time between classes and even instead of going to class at the Episcopalian Student Union – Canterbury House – learning the ins and outs of Contract Bridge.  On the morning of November 22, I was there getting ready to go to class when another student and Canterbury House regular – a Senior majoring in Marketing – and the only other person there, got up and headed out saying he was going to head over to Dallas to see President Kennedy.

As he was heading for the door I asked what I thought was a rhetorical question.  “Gonna go see him get shot. Huh?” which so infuriated him that he spent some minutes upbraiding me for my stupidity and impropriety before he left.

So, for me, the when of the matter was before I went to bed on Thursday, November 21 1963.