Important Days--Where Were You?

Of course no one in the class had ever heard of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. So much for my allusion in my grade ten English class to the day he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963. And in case you don't remember him either, he was the President of the United States at the time.

I told my students that my world was a different place in 1963. My sense of it as a safe place had not been shattered. Assassination was unthinkable, unheard of. I hadn't reached the age of cynical adulthood as I sat in my grade twelve French class and listened to our school principal, Fergie or Chrome Dome as we knew him (really Mr. Ferguson), announce over the P.A. system that Kennedy had been shot. Sue Fraser ran out of the classroom in tears. Several other students started to cry. Our teacher, Mr. MacGregor, tried to reassure us and then went on with conjugating irregular verbs. In a day when no one virtually left the classroom, students were out in the halls, crying, trying to get over the shock as they rushed by our open door to the washroom beyond. Finally Mr. MacGregor closed the door and went on but my mind was whirling with the news.

After class only one topic came up. On the bus home, only one topic. When we got off the bus at five o'clock Mom had the tv on and we began watching the saga unfold. By this time, Kennedy was close to death or had already died and we soaked up each new tidbit of information as it was announced. Here was death on a huge scale. Not that there were many people killed but that the method was so unheard of, and when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being transferred by state troopers, the drama increased our disbelief to a record level. The picture of the funeral that everyone remembers is of little John-John saluting his father's casket as it rolled by on the caisson and into the history books. Jackie stood beside him, a strong but broken figure in black, her face hidden by the black veil. I wondered how she could do it.

Eventually our lives got back to normal, I graduated from high school, went to university, and in my first year at residence, the lights went out. The power was off everywhere. We gravitated to the stairwells as there were emergency lights there and most of us talked and laughed, finding the fun in yet another event. Others, however, got off by themselves and used the dim emergency lights to try to study for tests the next day. Talk about dedication! And there were even bodies huddled in the corner sleeping, like street people, as though afraid to be alone in the dark. Finally one of the girls came up the stairs and told us what she had heard from the battery-op radio in the basement that the guys were all gravitating toward. All the power was out on the whole Eastern seaboard from Canada down through the States! We were amazed. What could have done that? In the height of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Cold War, anything could have happened. Did Kruschev hit the button? Was there an exploded nuclear bomb polluting the atmosphere? Did someone turn off Niagara Falls? We spent hours talking about the possibilities, finally heading for bed as sleep overtook us. In the morning life returned to normal. The excitement was over and we headed off to class, our exciting night receding into memory.

Move forward again in time and place to 1979 and our home in Southern Ontario. We have two lovely children now and are listening to the television warn us about bad weather, possibly tornados, stalking our area. Hubby and I take a trip outside in the stillness, putting away lawn chairs, picking up toys, putting the car in the garage and closing up the doors. I wonder if the tornados will hit us. Will they suck all the water out of the pool and dump it as rain? What will happen?

We head inside talking about safety measures. If we hear something, run to the basement and get into the fruit room. Six-year-old Beth is with us and I get her into her jammies but bring her back downstairs to sleep on the couch beside me as we watch television and listen to the wind outside. Periodically one of us goes out to check things, but we are safe so far. As the news comes through that several tornadoes have hit north of us, our worries shift to our 9-year-old son away at Camp Bimini about 45 minutes north of us. Is he okay? Who would know? I call my family home (close to Bimini) and talk to my brother. He knows nothing about Bimini but from the reports the storms hit further away. We are somewhat reassured but still would like to know for certain. Watching tv we get confirmation of the storm hits. Thankfully none of our family is affected. We hear of the force of the storm with barns and houses leveled, trees uprooted and strewn like toothpicks fallen from a box, the pictures unclear in the dark but showing the devastation nonetheless.

In the morning we survey our property. The water is still in the pool, the fledgeling trees still growing in their places and all is normal. We are lucky. I talk again to my brother who has news that Camp Bimini is fine. To hear the certainty is a great relief. We take the car and try to get close to some of the destruction but can't as barricades are keeping out the onlookers, and rightfully so. As the week goes on, though, we are able to tour Harley, county road 14, Oxford Centre--very badly hit, Hickson, and the other affected areas. The cleanup has begun even as people try to recover emotionally. A man from our area is dead after his van was picked up by the tornado, carried quite a distance, and dropped in a field. We pick up my parents, returning from Europe to Pearson airport in Toronto and Dad is enthralled with the scene as we near home. Grain fields are flattened and ruined, pastures are beginning to come back to normal and the corn, which had been totally flattened so I thought it would never come back to life, is rising in great semi-circles across the fields. Imagine the stalks curved in the middle like huge sickles as the strong roots hold and the corn, over several days, gradually rights itself.

As I think back on these events, I am struck by the resilience of people, like those corn stalks, in recovering from bad things. Hard as it may be we seem to be able to walk on, walk on, with hope in our hearts as the song says and we never walk alone. Think of the way that 911 brought people together, first in disbelief at the events, in stopping the terrorists on one plane, in rescue efforts at ground zero, and then in recovery. And, of course, everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. We were in Prince Edward Island on a golf course when the planes hit the World Trade Center. Where were you?

And so I realize that bad things happen in every generation to everyone. They scare us, they sadden us, they level us to the ground but we seem to find the strength to go on. Think of the tsunami, and of the pictures of the aftermath of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or of the Chernobyl leak. Or hurricane Katrina's assault on New Orleans. Yet people find a way to go on and face whatever.

And now? My problems seem insignificant. I think I'll shut up.