SO CLOSE TO LEAVING. TOO FOND OF STAYING

 4551

I missed one day of school during my entire 1963-1964 school year. As the day dawned clear and a bit cool, I wasn’t feeling well, and I asked my mother if she would allow me to stay home. It seemed a shame to ruin my perfect attendance, but my mom realized I wasn’t a “sluff-off,” (as we referred to a slacker) and she nodded her approval. (By this time, re. last chapter, we were on better “footing” again).

I happened to be watching television about the lunch hour, comfortably situated in our family’s business office, sitting in my mother’s typing chair, and with my feet propped up on her desk.

Suddenly, there was a news break; something which rarely happened in those days. In recent years, we may see two or three so-called “news breaks” a day on networks like CNN or MS-NBC, but fifty years ago the old television cameras had to be warmed up prior to a coming on the air with a live broadcast. Thus, (as I recall), on this particular day a photo of Walter Cronkite was posted on the screen with live audio feed.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Walter Cronkite. I’m coming to you with what appears to have been a shooting in Dallas, Texas. We’re in the process of validating the following information, but it appears President Kennedy has been shot by an unknown assailant in the City of Dallas. There are also reports that Governor Connelly of Texas was also hit as their vehicle drove past the Texas School Book Depository. We will be joining you in a live, extended report momentarily.”

After a few minutes, live footage of the world famous newsman flickered on the screen. The veteran anchor was obviously anxious, and he stumbled over a few of his words. And every half minute or so, he pulled his glasses off his face and spoke directly into the camera. Cronkite repeated his previous remarks a couple of times with minor variations. It was definite now. The president had been gravely wounded, and his limo had just arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

The minutes ticked by and sometime after 1PM Eastern Time, old Walter confirmed what, based on the news reports, Americans expected to hear.

“It has been substantiated now,” and taking off his glasses, and looking up at the clock on the wall, “President Kennedy died,” his voice faltered, and tears appeared in his eyes, …“President Kennedy died at approximately 1PM, CT.”

The date was November 22, 1963, not unlike an equally traumatic day which transpired two decades earlier, “A Day that will live in Infamy.”

Over the next 72 hours, America witnessed Lee Harvey Oswald arrested and accused of the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, we watched fascinated as our beautiful, cultured first lady stepped off Air Force One, her beloved husband’s blood obscuring the natural color of her legs, we watched the accused assassin  gunned down on live television, the funeral of our beloved president was televised, and while millions lingered in a state of shock, his mortal remains were interred on a hillside in Arlington National Cemetery.

Whereas, all of America endured the foregoing tragedy and resulting trauma, the following event, though local in nature, proved more impactful in terms of its influence on me, as well as on hundreds of my fellow students and their families.

It was Friday, December 4^th, 1963, (almost 2 weeks after President Kennedy was assassinated).

Our school day ended at 3:15PM; always did throughout my junior and senior high school years. While in recent times our local high schools are released at 2PM, the school day begins much earlier now than when I was in school. 

As it had for literally dozens and dozens of years, the old Summerlin Institute school bell rang out its daily blessing, (and believe me the end of the day was considered a blessing to all but the most studious of students).

My friend, David, and I hurried out of the classroom, stuffed a couple of textbooks and other miscellaneous papers and pencils in our lockers, and hurried down the covered, outside hallway to catch Bus 149. We’d rode that bus for as long as I remember, though I would be hard pressed at this juncture, to tell you the driver’s name, or even his or her gender. But I expect that particular individual has long since gone on to their reward; (or lack thereof).

Our buses parked adjacent with Broadway, one of Bartow’s major streets. There was a stretch of asphalt, perhaps thirty feet wide and a hundred feet long, which paralleled the street. Every weekday, twelve or fifteen buses rolled up about 3PM and parked in perfect rows, empty for the moment, but ready to receive the teaming masses of loud, and sometimes obnoxious students, eager to get home.

Just as David and I reached the end of the covered walkway

… it happened.

Suddenly, slightly diagonal and to my left, I witnessed a car leaving the road. The front end slammed against the back bumper of a school bus, hitting it a glancing blow. I stood there transfixed, having just stepped onto the bus tarmac. So like those nightmares in which one feels incapable of moving, I stood there speechless. David stood as immobile as I.

And rather than stopping, the car accelerated and gathered speed. As the late model automobile neared my friend and me, one option presented itself. And while what was occurring around me was far from humorous, I knew I had to “get out of Dodge.”  But I wasn’t going alone. Not by a long shot. When the vehicle was eight or ten feet away, I grabbed David’s right arm and jerked him away from the trajectory of the automobile. The vehicle passed so close, I sensed the change in air pressure, and I might easily have touched it. We might have been its first victims.

I immediately turned to follow the car’s progress. It had transcended the pavement, now, and was rushing headlong through a long strip of grass which bordered the tarmac.  What I saw now both amazed and confounded me. The front end of the vehicle plowed into a fellow student, and he almost seemed suspended in midair a moment, before crashing against its windshield.

 If I live to be 103, I shall NEVER forget the events of that day. I witnessed everything, at least everything I had any intention of witnessing, since in the space of a few seconds, I had reached a momentary, though very conscious decision to avert my eyes from those things which were happening around me.

The entire affair was over in less than a minute, but it may as well have been a year in terms of its cruel impact on countless human beings. As I discovered later, 17 students were struck, plowed under, and/or dragged by the wayward vehicle. One young man pushed a couple of girls out of the path of the car, was somehow impaled by a concrete post, subsequently dragged across another stretch of pavement.

 As it the facts played out, an elderly lady had been driving her husband home from a doctor’s visit. He had contracted a terminal illness, and no doubt, she was naturally distracted from the task at hand. As she lost control and slammed into the rear of the school bus, one mistake compounded into another, and instead of braking and bringing the vehicle to rest, she engaged the accelerator.

Ronnie was the only fatality. The other students sustained varying degrees of injuries, including broken arms and legs, but all experienced full recoveries. Yet I think the psychological and emotional impact of that event was geometrically greater than any physical trauma my classmates endured, and resides with them a half century later.

My mother has told me that as I walked into the house that day, my normally dark complexion seemed several shades lighter, and without so much as a word, she knew something terrible had occurred.

As a substitute teacher, I had the opportunity to serve in numerous primary and secondary schools in our district, and I occasionally taught at my alma mater. Sometimes I shared the events of that long-lost day with my students. Sometimes I didn’t. But when I did, I was so often met with the sense that it had been too long, and my pupils were altogether unable to relate to my story, and I think it simply passed over their heads. And I think they’d rather employ their time with cell phones and I-pods and pop magazines, and all that other peripheral stuff that fills up an adolescent life, than consider anything so ancient as a story that has no relevance to them, though it occurred within feet of where they now sit.

But there are those among us who will never forget, and there are those among us who will recite the story again, and I like to think there are still those among us who have taken time to memorialize that day in a genre, (such as the written word) which endures.

Nonetheless, I can only wonder whether this account might be the last surviving, full account of that terrible day, and if by chance it is, I am glad I am given the opportunity to entrust it to you, and leave it to your care.

by Bill McDonald, PhD

(from "Snapshots of a Life")