I remember where I was, sixty years ago today, when I first heard of President Kennedy’s death. I was in my fourth-grade classroom at St. Isabella, in Marin County, north of San Francisco. It was about ten in the morning when the parish priest called our teacher out of the classroom. He gave her the bad news and then she told us. I was shocked, not so much by the news. I do not think that I even understood what I was told. No, I was shocked by the reaction of my classmates.

In particular, that of Lawerence. His desk was next to mine, and he immediately began bawling his eyes out. His howl, the loudest of all, was painful to hear, and it still haunts me to this day. Inconsolable, he was eventually excused from class and sent to the office. The rest of us were instructed by our teacher to bow our heads and pray for the president. I do not remember anything further from that day, all of it being buried under sixty years of other memories, but I do still remember Lawerence and his anguish in that moment.