The day the whole world changed for me

 

 

November 22, 1998

 

They played the tape of the CBS report I first heard 35 years ago today, an echo through time that only Baby boomers can really understand, the same voice bursting out from the small box speaker above the class room crucifix saying three shots had been fired in Dallas at the President.

The announcer did not say he had been hit or that he was dead, not during that first broadcast. Sister Superior perhaps knew more when she put the microphone next to the radio in her office, but said nothing of her own, she and the other nuns obviously shocked that the first Catholic president should become such a target.

Hearing that exact broadcast now, startled me.

I am alone in a empty house in Jersey City, waiting for my friend, Burger king John to arrive with painting gear. Until a few minutes ago, the heat did not work so that house was cold, and though the realtor's husband came and turned on the heat, I still do not know if it works. A week ago, we turned the heat on only to find that the head kept rising until the walls grew warm and the valve spouted water.

So I turned off everything and sought someone to tell me why this happened, and the man left without giving me the reasons. I needed to go on with my preparations for life here, assured that nothing will go wrong again in the future.

The voice from the radio reminded me of that time when I felt exactly the same, when further news accounts came back saying that the president was shot, then dead, and the subsequent investigations leaving me and my generation with more questions than were answered, leaving us with the fearful prospect that we could not be assured of anything when it came to our future.

The death of the president changed everything, altering the world in which we lived from one of certain progress to one in which progress was not enough. Up until then, we lived with the idea that if we made things modern enough and studied an issue long enough, we could build for ourselves a perfect world.

This was an illusion, but one that most white Americans shared, taking the death of the president to shatter for us. My life and the lives of my friends have been shattered every since, and now, as I sit, waiting for the temperature to rise enough to trip off the thermostat, I feel that same uncertainty, wondering what will happen when the movement comes for my expectations to be satisfied.

Will the heat turn off, or will I have to turn off the system again and seek additional help, help which has until today refused to come, even though I've called plumper after plumper. I could stop this waiting by turning down the thermostat, but I fear to know too soon what could be bad news.

I do not want three shots to ring out over Dallas. I do not want the hear that voice again telling me about it as I sit in sixth grade in St. Brendan’s. I do not want to go downstairs at the appropriate time to find that the gas remained ignited when it should have turn itself off.

I want life to work as I thought it would. I want to be certain about the basic things, the important things so that if I choose I can avoid the danger that lurks outside my door, the gun shots over Dallas, the furnaces that won't turn off.

But alas, danger in our lives lurks on both sides of the door, inside the class room as well on the streets of Dallas, and nothing can keep us so safe as to keep us from worry.