A LOOK BACK.....
Forty years ago today, I was a computer operator working for a natural gas utility. On November 22,1963, I was on the 8th floor of the Pacific Mutual building at the corner of California and Kearny Streets in the middle of San Francisco's, financial district, shoving 80-column punched cards through an IBM sorter, and then through a check-writing machine that produced dividend checks for the 65,000 shareholders every three months.
Sometime between 12:30 and I:00pm the mail boy entered the computer room and announced that the President had been shot. Immediatley someone produced a small transistor radio which all seven of the computer staff then gathered around to hear news of the shooting. A few minutes later an announcement came over the radio that the president was dead. About an hour later the Secretary of the corporation made a walk through all the offices to announce that all work for the remainder of the day was being suspended.
As I waited for the city bus to take me back to my apartment across town, near the corner of Sacramento and Divisidaro Streets, I noticed the newspaper racks at the bus stop. Both San Francisco papers had already put the copies on the street that proclaimed, in screaming headlines, "President Asassinated." I remember thinking how quickly the newspaper racks were filled, a mere two hours after the event had occured.
For the next four or five days, TV images dominated our lives. Nothing else, it seemed, was being shown. And the sounds that eminated from our sets are today, still easily recalled---the constant, repetitive sound of the drums, and the ever present sound of horses hoofs as the casket was pulled along Pennsylvania Avenue.
At age 27, having just completed a four-year stay in the Air Force, followed by two years at Ohio University, I considered myself a political neophyte.
11:44:57 AM 
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