November 25, 1964
Pep rally and Faculty-Student football Game today. The J.V. cheerleaders are good but not very good. Of course they are better than I am. I have a feeling we lost a great team last year. Richie Peagler, Jim Carter, and Lenny Knaggs were pretty good.
I went to see “How the West Was Won” with Bob tonight. Boy, was it good! And only two (Count ‘em) two swears in the whole 3 1/2 hours - what a miracle! Well, tomorrow I help out at the hospital.
November 25, 2022
Sometimes the most interesting thing about my diary is what I didn’t write. In 1963, one year earlier, the Faculty-Student football game was on Friday, Nov. 22. The entire school was out on the athletic field, half-heartedly watching the game (we were NOT a football school, as my paean to the previous year’s hoops team proves.). My friend Claudia was listening to her (forbidden) transistor radio and started crying and loudly announcing that President Kennedy had been shot. Before long, no one was paying attention the game, which went on until suddenly it didn’t.
Students who rode buses left; those of us who walked or drove went into the school to follow the news. I was in Mr. Wilbur’s classroom when we heard that the President had died. My brother Bob and I walked home. When my mother came home from work, she described the scene at the local hospital. Some of the patients had their televisions on, and the nursing staff had their hands full keeping people calm while half-watching the news themselves. Mom was in a patient’s room when the President’s death was announced. Screams and crying could be heard all down the halls. Seconds later, another nurse bolted into the room, blurting, “He’s still alive on channel 2!”
That evening, my brother drove me to our church on the village green so I could play music on the carillon. “Nearer, my God, to Thee”, “Abide with Me”, and, of course “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” — the Navy Hymn, forever linked to John F. Kennedy and that day.
A tiny extraneous comment: What a delicate flower I was, counting the swear words in movies!
More about "How the West was Won": clearly the New Milford was not a first-run house, for this film released in early 1963. The run time was 2 1/2 hours, not 3 1/2. So much for time flying when you are having fun, I guess.