Bill O’Boyle: 59 years and still much is unknown

Nov. 27—Those of us old enough to remember, have never forgotten what happened on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963.

On that day, 59 years ago, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.

And to this day, many documents from the JFK killing remain under lock and key by the U.S. government.

Some documents have been released to the public, but not all of them — some 16,000 records remain detained in the National Archives, even though they were scheduled to be released in 2017.

Published reports have stated that when JFK was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza, there had been more than a half-dozen active assassination threats known to the Secret Service at the time.

Authorities say they uncovered several assassination plots in Tampa, Florida, and in Miami, a few days before the attack occurred in Dallas, in which an ex-U.S. military sharpshooter and Soviet sympathizer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested.

When all the records will be released is not known — as unknown, perhaps, as who actually did kill JFK and who was behind the conspiracy.

So I hopped into the Way Back Machine and traveled back to Thursday, Oct. 27, 1960, when JFK, then a young presidential candidate, passed through Wyoming Valley on his way to victory in the November General Election.

Kennedy, then a 43-year-old senator from Massachusetts, was just a week or so away from becoming the country's 35th president.

I was a 10-year-old, fifth-grade student at Central School on West Shawnee Avenue, and we were released early to allow us time to get down to Main Street to catch a glimpse of JFK as his motorcade was passing by.

Getting a glimpse of Kennedy was not on my mind. I wanted to shake his hand.

So when the bell rang and we were released, I ran over Shawnee Avenue to Downing Street and kept running. About halfway down Downing Street's steep incline, my knee locked and I went elbows over ankles, landing on my knees. My pants were split open and both knees were bleeding, but I didn't stop. I could hear the crowd cheering from afar so I ran faster.

I got to Main Street and looked to my left and I could see the first vehicles heading toward me. I ran past the old Ward P. Davenport High School to Wadham Street and I worked my way through the crowd to get closer.

I could see Kennedy sitting on the back of a convertible — Congressman Dan Flood was seated on the rear passenger side — and JFK was waving to the crowd and shaking hands. I stuck out my hand and JFK touched it and briefly gave it a shake.

This memory is as clear today as it was back then. It is something I will never forget because it's a reminder of days gone by.

Oh, to go back to those days. To live in an America that had so many values and when family was real and meaningful.

Kennedy was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he said, "Ask not what your country can do for yo — ask what you can do for your country."

It was the way JFK spoke, the words he said that made everyone proud to be an American. He instilled in us the pride that we so sorely need today.

I remember going home after the motorcade passed and faded down West Main Street. I walked up Academy Street, over West Shawnee and up Orchard Street to Second Street and around the corner to my house at 210 Reynolds St.

My mother was there and she looked at me and my torn pants and bloody knees and wondered what happened. I told her I just shook hands with John F. Kennedy. She asked if his car ran me over. We laughed.

The world of 1960 was filled with hope and promise. Kennedy was the symbol of not just what we all could be, but what we all should be.

A little more than three years later, on Nov. 22, 1963, I was sitting in Mrs. Bogdon's eighth-grade English class when she was called out of the room. She returned in tears and told us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed by an assassin in Dallas, Texas.

I was stunned. We were sent home to watch the television reports of that day in Dallas. Walter Cronkite, the CBS news anchor and icon, was so shaken by the news that he had to pause, take off his glasses and wipe away tears to deliver the news.

We were glued to the TV, as was all of America.

This was a great loss for the country and the world.

Maybe one day we will know what really happened in Dallas and who was responsible.

I will leave you with this JFK quote and hope today's "leaders" adopt it:

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future."

Reach Bill O'Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.