Although some may expect a speech about JFK today, you won't be seeing that here. That’s being done by CNN, the History Channel, and every other cable network in the country. Heck, I'm surprised that Scy-Fy isn't doing a JFK Zombie Special, featuring Lincoln and Sharknado.
Instead, I want to point out the importance of today as a starting point.
In Dallas, 11/22/63, the world, as our parents and grandparents knew it, changed forever. It was, what some have called, the "end of innocence". And it truly was. If the President who saved us all from the "Cuban Threat" could be gunned down that easily, what could happen to the lowly citizens?
It was frightening. Most of the people reading this post can equate the feelings they felt on 9/11/01 to the way it felt back in 1963. How could the country move forward? Nothing would ever be the same again.
But this was just the beginning. By November, 1963, Americans could hardly locate Korea, a place where war (sorry, “police action”) was waged, on a map – much less Vietnam. They knew that we had been challenged to walk on the moon, but it was so far away and the man who had given that challenge had just been assassinated.
Television was a living and breathing machine, and by 1963, most households in America had one. The moment Walter Cronkite told the world that President Kennedy had died, Americans took a huge gasp of air as one people. Aside from events like the moon landing and 9/11, the country united has never been seen again.
But 11/22/63, was not just the end of something – it was the beginning of something much larger. Our country, in a matter of seconds, had left its childhood behind. The adolescence began with 3 shots, and would quickly move forward. A few months after Kennedy’s funeral, Ed Sullivan introduced The Beatles to America. The “long-haired hippies” burst onto the scene with their loud guitars and catchy lyrics. The rebellious period, which had started nearly a decade earlier with Elvis, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, had finally taken hold.
Teenagers were disenfranchised. New voters had such hope in the future that Kennedy had promised them; but instead, they were left with another old, white guy to carry the torch – Lyndon Johnson. Parents struggled to keep control of their children and their own future, as hippies were sneaking off to concerts and poetry readings by Ginsberg and Kerouac. They were getting high on the words even more than the pot they brought along with them.
Janis Joplin was quickly gaining popularity in a small Texas town and would soon become known in California. The Doors, The Stones, The Dead, and many others were building empires they didn’t even understand yet. The music said all that the people were feeling. Folk singers were putting their poetry into verse and no one fully understood what was happening. The country seemed to have little guidance and, other than the space race, no one agreed on anything. Martin Luther King made his presence known in a big way and Malcolm X was building Black Power. The landscape of America was changing and it was a force no one could stop.
Somewhere in the middle of all of this, that little country on the map – Vietnam – became much bigger. The hippies were being forced away in droves and those that didn’t go fought their own battles at home. Protests, marches, and rock-and-roll were the guiding forces for those hopeful young voters that were abandoned when Kennedy died, and were finding their footing in other ways. They had a cause and they took it up because they believed he would have. They found hope in the words of Martin Luther King and they found family in the music. In 1967, the Monterrey Pop music festival went on and people like Joplin, Townshend, and Hendrix took the stage to tell the country exactly how they felt. By this time, Robert Kennedy was showing up to be a true competitor to Johnson and the disenfranchised hippies thought they had a chance. “Civil Rights” was becoming more than an idea and a year later would become a reality – well, a start anyway.
In 1968, hope was shattered again when Martin Luther King was gunned down, followed a few months later by JFK’s little brother, Bobby. The news from Vietnam was heart-wrenching and Americans were still lost. When leadership was failing, they still had the music. And, even more, they had NASA. We were up there floating Americans around the stars, but that still didn’t seem real – it seemed impossible even to the people in the capsules.
Then, finally, some relief occurred. 1969 brought Woodstock and the moon landing. Once again, the people were brought together and as the decade ended, the battles being fought at home and abroad seemed to be getting somewhere – sort of.
Since the 1960’s, our parents and grandparents – many of them part of that long-haired hippy cohort – struggled to create a different world. The music guided it all; but, the world was moving fast. The technological age approached faster than any one could have imagined. With one small step, and about a decade, personal computers became a true possibility. Video games were brought into the family living room, and cable TV allowed not only the news 24/7 with CNN, but the music became more than the radio with MTV.
In the 20 years since Kennedy’s death, so much had happened. We were in space so often that people didn’t care anymore – until our cockiness got the best of us. Kids were learning computers and typing took on a whole new meaning. So much change – so fast. The country never looked back, except in the music which will never fade away.
The Berlin Wall crumbled and all of a sudden the Soviets became Russians. The map, which so many took for granted, changed so quickly that teachers had to change their lesson plans daily to keep up. The country was powerful and the people were different.
Music was changing, but it never forgot its roots. Cobain told the world how alone we all felt and Weird Al did a parody of it. Films were all about history and not all of it was good. Independent films took on Hollywood, and the movies improved because of the competition. This was a different world and I’m not sure anyone recognized it.
Today, on 11/22/13, I received a notification on the small computer in my pocket. It told me that CNN was about to start its commemorations of JFK and that I should watch it. I was at work, so I opened an app on my phone that allows me to work my DVR from anywhere so that I could watch it tonight. At the same time, on a break from meetings, I googled stuff about the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special that will air tomorrow (yeah, that’s another beginning in 1963). I then went into a meeting and realized I had forgotten to send an email, so again I pulled out my phone and sent it quickly.
All of these actions occurred on a device the size of a calculator, which holds more power than an original IBM that took up 8 rooms 75 years ago. This little device, that I use to check Facebook and order take-out, is actually too advanced to put Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969. It could do it, but the Android robot would be bored with the process.
“How did we get here?” I think to myself as I type this on one of the 4 computers I own. “If this can happen in 50 years, what will the world be like in 2063? And will we be in our adulthood yet as a nation or will we still be fighting over the perfect presidential prom-date?” I’m not sure where we’re going, but I’m excited to find out.
However, I do know where we’ve been – and it all started on November 22, 1963, when three shots rang out in Dallas.