Flashbulb memory: I was 15, sitting about halfway back on the right side of my high school math class. Miss Reese was trying valiently to drum Algebra II and trig into our brains. Without any warning, the PA system comes on with live radio news broadcast about the shooting in Dallas. Teaching stopped. At first, we didn't know what it was about. But very soon we realized the president had been shot. A few minutes later, the announcer said he was dead. The school day dragged on, and after-school events were canceled, except for marching band practice. There were objections, and eventually, the music director caved in. I walked to a friend's house after school got out, and my mother picked me up there. Everything seemed hushed, surreal, at least in my memory. We were glued to the TV all weekend, through the return of JFK's body to Washington and those images of the casket being lowered from the jet, with Bobby and Jackie nearby, to the endless replays of Oswald's murder, to the lying-in-state and the funeral in brilliant sunshine. All still very vivid.

I was four. I knew it was an important event because the TV was on during the daytime and that had never happened before in our household.