Since I was only five years old, my memory of that day is dim and rather muddled.
Happiness, I suppose, crowds out the bad feelings. Mom and Dad both worked. She sold dresses at a big store downtown. She always looked pretty when she left me at the nursery school each morning where I sat on the floor playing with trucks and building blocks. Mom wore bright red lipstick and rouge on her cheeks. When she hugged me good-bye she smelled of roses. I didn’t know what Daddy did at work, mostly sat in an office and talked on the telephone. Later I figured out he sold insurance.
Anyway, on this cloudless, briskly cool day in late November—it was a Friday, I remember now—I didn’t go to the nursery school. Mommy dressed me in clothes I usually wore to Sunday School. Instead, all three of us climbed into the car and drove downtown, left the car in a big lot and walked several blocks to a park where all these streets came together.
About halfway there, I tugged on Daddy’s sleeve and told him I was getting tired walking all that way. He smiled and lifted me to his shoulders, and the rest of the way I was taller than anyone else on the street, and there were a lot of people on the street that day. Daddy always carried me on his shoulders the very first time I would say I was tired. To the day he died many years later I never admitted to him that I wasn’t really that tired. I just liked being so high above everyone around me. Like I said, happiness.
When we arrived at the park, we saw it was filled with all kinds of people—young, old, white, black, some were dressed nice like us and others had some pretty raggedy shirts and pants. I don’t remember ever going there before. Daddy told me we had driven through the park to get on the big highway many times but I was usually busy playing in the back seat. Looking around I saw one tall brick building with people leaning out of all the windows. There was a big sign on the roof.
“What does that sign say, Daddy?”
“Hertz.”
“That’s a funny name.”
“It’s the name of a car rental company,” Mommy said.
“I don’t know what rental means,” I replied.
Before Daddy or Mommy could explain what rental meant, the crowd started yelling and jumping up and down. I saw a lot of people with cameras. By the time the police on motorcycles began riding by, the noise was so loud I couldn’t hear anything Mommy and Daddy were saying. Even Daddy jumped a little when this one big car with no top slowly turned the corner and to drive towards us.
Shots rang out. They sounded like firecrackers. Before I knew it, we were on the ground, and Daddy was on top of me. My first thought was that Mommy was going to be mad because my Sunday School clothes got dirty. Then I started crying. I didn’t know why; maybe because everyone else was crying. I even saw tears on Daddy’s cheeks.
I am now an old man. People always ask me what I remember about being in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza on the day President Kennedy was shot. The only thing I really remember is the happiness I felt being on Daddy’s shoulders. I know they wouldn’t be interested in that. Instead, I tell them, “I saw the nice lady in the car with the pink hat.”