I was nine years old in November 1963
We were living in Plattsburgh, New York. A small town. A cold place. The kind of place where seasons mattered and adults still believed the world had rules you could count on. I was in the third grade. A slow learner. I didn’t know how to read yet.
No one knew why.
Dyslexia wasn’t a word anyone used then. It wasn’t a diagnosis. It wasn’t a framework. If you struggled, you were labeled. Quietly sometimes. Cruelly other times. You learned early that confusion was something to hide, not explain.
So you learned to watch instead.
I watched adults. I watched rooms. I watched faces change before words ever arrived. I learned atmosphere before language.
That’s why I remember November 22, 1963 the way I do.
It was the day before Thanksgiving.
I didn’t understand politics. I didn’t understand the Cold War. I didn’t understand Dallas or motorcades or why men wore dark suits on television. But I understood something was wrong.
I remember sitting in class when the teacher was called out into the hallway. There was nothing dramatic about it at first. Just a knock. A whisper. A door closing behind her.
When she came back, she was crying.
Not politely. Not composed. She was trying to keep herself together and failing. That mattered. Teachers didn’t cry. Not in front of kids. Not like that.
She told us we were being dismissed early.
No explanation. No discussion. Just a sudden end to the day.
And then the world changed.
What followed wasn’t a holiday. It was two weeks of something I had never experienced before and have rarely seen since: collective mourning. Black-and-white television stayed on. Adults spoke in hushed tones. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Radios murmured in the background. Flags were lowered. Churches filled. Time slowed down.
There was sorrow — deep sorrow — but there was also something else.
Anger.
Confusion.
Fear.
Not loud fear. Not panic. But the kind that settles into rooms and stays there. The kind that makes adults quieter and children more alert. The kind that teaches you, without words allows it, that the world is not as solid as you thought.
At nine years old, I didn’t know the phrase “loss of innocence,” but I lived it.
A man had been killed. Not just any man — the President. A symbol. A promise. A direction. And if that could happen, then what else could?
That question never left.
I didn’t process it intellectually. I processed it physically. Through posture. Through tone. Through the way people moved differently for weeks afterward. Through the way trust cracked, just slightly, and never fully sealed again.
That moment shaped me.
Not politically — structurally.
Because when you’re already struggling, when reading doesn’t come easily and the world feels one step ahead of you, moments like that carve grooves into how you understand reality. You learn early that systems can fail. That authority can vanish in an instant. That safety isn’t guaranteed just because adults say it is.
And yet — you also learn something else.
That people endure.
I’ve lived long enough now to recognize the pattern we’re in today. The stress feels different. The noise is louder. The pressure comes from every direction at once. We’re being pulled sideways by information, outrage, speed, and uncertainty.
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But the human response is familiar.
People aren’t disengaging because they don’t care.
They’re disengaging because they’re overwhelmed and trying to preserve something intact inside themselves. They’re stepping back from noise, not responsibility. From chaos, not conscience.
That distinction matters.
Back then, after the assassination, the sorrow was unified. The country grieved together. Today, the strain is fragmented. Everyone feels it, but not in the same way, not at the same time, not with the same language.
Still, the effect is the same.
When the ground shakes hard enough, people stop asking abstract questions. They ask instinctive ones.
What still holds?
What can I trust?
What matters if this gets worse?
Those questions don’t show up in polls. They show up in behavior.
I’ve seen this country at low points before. I’ve seen it scared. I’ve seen it divided. I’ve seen it pulled apart and stitched back together — imperfectly, but with intention.
What we’re living through now feels like a structural turn, not a passing storm. Like a massive ship adjusting course long before the obstacle is fully visible. That kind of turn takes time. The momentum doesn’t stop immediately. The water still churns. The decks still feel unstable.
But the rudder has moved.
People sense it.
And they don’t convert, not yet. They wait. They watch. They orient themselves before they decide what they believe, who they follow, and what they’re willing to stand for.
That’s not apathy.
That’s instinct doing its job.
Instinct is not noise. It’s the weighted sum of lived experience trying to keep us from repeating mistakes when logic alone is insufficient.
I carry that nine-year-old boy with me — the one who couldn’t read yet but could feel when something mattered. The one who learned that sorrow has gravity. That anger has direction. That silence can mean more than speech.
That moment became part of what I built.
My patience.
My caution.
My refusal to confuse speed with wisdom.
My insistence that orientation comes before judgment.
I believe this country will steady itself again. I’ve seen it do so from darker places than this.
But it won’t happen in the middle of the shaking. It will happen when people sense the danger has passed enough to breathe — when they can stand without bracing every muscle.
Until then, the task isn’t to shout louder.
It’s to hold steady.
To name what’s real.
To reduce harm while clarity catches up.
To refuse the noise without abandoning responsibility.
That’s how civilizations survive their turning points.
And that lesson, learned at nine years old, in a quiet classroom, on a cold November day, has never left me.
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