flashback, life, memories

1963

I’ve counted several times, and yes, November 1963 was sixty years ago. Those were days when the world experienced sadness in a terrible collective way. It was a time when kids had nuclear drills in school, when people were supposed to have fall-out shelters in their backyards. (We didn’t. We had a cellar with a metal cabinet, where we stored canned vegetables.) It was a year past the Cuban Missile Crisis, when my family huddled around this same TV set and listened to President Kennedy tell us about submarines and nuclear weapons. And we were a few scarce weeks away from hearing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and discovering The Beatles.

1963.