Storm Damage
(Harbert, Michigan) When Natalie asked me to go out this dark and windy November morning to take a picture of the tree that was damaged in the November 17 storm, I thought of another dark November day when I was 13.
That would have been Friday, November 13, 1963 when I was an 8th grader at Alice L. Barnard Elementary School in Chicago. As was our custom, we had walked home for lunch in our sylvan Beverly neighborhood on the far southwest side of the Windy City.
All was well as my brother and I walked back to Barnard for an afternoon of what for me would be educational movies in Betsy Keller’s classroom. Brother Donald was in 6th grade so he was probably in for something equally as interesting in Jean Harrington’s classroom.
We talked as we walked about how disappointed we still were that President (John F.) Kennedy had not come to the Army-Air Force Game at Soldier Field in October due to a crisis in someplace called the Republic of Vietnam. They had published the route of the motorcade in the newspaper, and we had parked in such a place as to be walking along the route to Soldier Field when the World War II hero and our 35th President passed on the way to the big game.
Alas, we reached the stadium before the President did, but Dad noted that we were sitting just below the box in which President Kennedy would be perched.
Perfect.
Then they announced that the President had stayed in Washington due to a crisis in some place called Saigon.
Oh well.
Dad said we would see President Kennedy another time.
And even though Dad was a loyal Republican, I know he liked and admired President Kennedy, for, after all, both were Naval officers who had served their country during World War II. Lieutenant Kennedy served in the Pacific on PT-109 and Lieutenant McKelvy served in the Atlantic with Utility Squadron 15.
Dad was sure we would see President Kennedy again, because he most certainly would have to campaign in Chicago and Illinois for re-election.
So we were regretting our missed meeting with President Kennedy and longing for another chance to see him as we crossed the schoolyard toward Barnard Elementary School that cloudy day in Chicago.
Imagine our surprise then when Mrs. Keller herself appeared at the door, and announced: “The President has been shot.”
She and the other teachers hurried us into our respective classrooms, and Mrs. Keller brought a radio into our room and tuned to the heartbreaking news.
We listened in stunned silence as we heard the unfolding story from Dallas, Texas.
Mrs. Keller cried.
And so did we.
We cried and groaned and gasped that day and all through the somber and shocking events that followed in the days ahead.
Storm damage.
That’s what this is, I thought on November 22, 1963.
Storm damage.
And that’s what this is, I thought on November 22, 2013.
