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Topic: 50 years Ago Today

Paul Adsett
Film God

Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted November 22, 2013 06:46 AM

50 years ago today, Nov 22 1963, President Kennedy was assasinated in Dallas. Many of us, I am sure, remember that day like it was yesterday, and know exactly where they were standing and what they were doing at that particular moment. I had just been in the USA two weeks, and was working at Sylvania in Williamsport Pa. The whole plant came to an immediate halt and workers crowded around a black and white TV. When it was announced that the President was dead, people just left the building in tears and shock.
Another significant event that day, Walt Disney completed his tour of Florida and committed to making Orlando the future home of Disney World and Epcot. Walt was told the news of the Presidents death when his plane landed in New Orleans on the way baxk to California.
Florida and the World were both changed forever that fateful day.

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Maurice Leakey
Film God

Posts: 5895
From: Bristol. United Kingdom
Registered: Oct 2007

posted November 22, 2013 09:36 AM

That day was also a Friday. I was driving to do a film show for the IFL (International Friendship League) in Taunton, Somerset. Just after 6.30 pm GMT the car radio announcer broke in to deliver the sad news.

I may have been the first to give the details a few minutes later when I arrived at the club headquarters. As more came in they were also informed, the whole room was in a state of shock.

I can remember that vividly, but cannot remember what 16mm films I showed that evening.

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Maurice

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Lars-Goran Ahlm
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 205
From: Åmål, Sweden
Registered: Jan 2010

posted November 22, 2013 10:38 AM

This is my oldest news memory.
I was only three years, one month and twenty days old when it happened but I still remember the TV news and the extensive coverage in the Swedish newspapers the following days.
I may not have understood everything but remember how all grown-ups where devastated and shocked and that made me realise that something really terrible had happened.

My next news memory was not until five years later when Czechoslovakia was invaded and the "Prague Spring" was crushed.

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"The trouble with these international affairs is that they attract foreigners"

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted November 22, 2013 11:47 AM

I'm just a little too young. I was born in 1962 so JFK to me is more history than current events. What is shocking to me is that something I grew up with as a recent happening is now a half century down the road.

Time catches up to all of us!

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Larry Arpin
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 953
From: Sunland, CA, USA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted November 22, 2013 12:06 PM

My family and I were on our way to Oregon. I remembered it like it was yesterday. I was 11 years old.

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Janice Glesser
Film Goddess

Posts: 3468
From: Sunnyvale, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2011

posted November 22, 2013 02:39 PM

Hard to believe it was 50 years ago. I was in my high School German class when the annoucement came over the PA system. I just remember the gasping from classmates and then an unsettling silence of disbelief in the room and in the hall. I made it to my next class...but then we were told we could all go home. My family spent the next 3 days around the TV trying to process what just happened. At that time and all the years since it still felt so unreal to me... until a couple years ago I visited Dallas. I stood in Dealey Plaza where the President was shot...stood on the grassy knoll...and looked out the 6th floor book depository window which is now part of a JFK museum. This all finally made it real to me and helped bring some closer...but it will never be forgotten.

[ November 22, 2013, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Janice Glesser ]

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Janice

"I'm having a very good day!"
Richard Dreyfuss - Let It Ride (1989).

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Graham Ritchie
Film God

Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006

posted November 22, 2013 04:16 PM

Wintery Friday night, attending the Boys Brigade, 10yrs old, Glasgow, Scotland. I don't think anyone back then could believe that could happen and were in shock. The 1960s was also a dangerous time, with what had happened regarding the Cuba Crisis, the cold war, the distrust and the real possibility of a nuclear exchange between Russia and America.

The assassination of President Kennedy was a moment in time that shook the world.

Graham.

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Bill Phelps
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1482
From: USA
Registered: Jan 2009

posted November 22, 2013 04:48 PM

I have some family in Burleson Texas which is a suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth and back in 2006 we rode the train to Dallas and wandered about town and went to Dealey Plaza to see where it happened. I was born in 1968 but I have always been fascinated by the Zapruder film and I had my super 8 camera with me and I stood about where he stood and filmed the same panning shot down the street and to the freeway underpass...it was very sad to stand there and imagine what had happened that day...

Bill [Frown]

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