History often turns on certain points in time, with dramatic events that send us on a course that seem drastically different than the one we imagined ourselves to be on beforehand. Perhaps it’s an exercise in futility to wonder what the world might look like had these events not taken place but one can’t help but imagine, if only for a moment, an alternative history. For instance, how would our country look today had Lincoln not been assassinated or if the events of 9/11 had been averted? Pearl Harbor?
Of course, I’m writing this today on the day marking the 50th year since President John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas back in 1963. That day seemed to mark a swing in our consciousness from which I don’t think we’ve ever fully recovered, leaving me to wonder how the last 50 years would have differed had not JFK been killed. Where would we be now?
The ripples from this event are many. How would Viet Nam proceeded? Would there have been the same escalation and would there have been the same sense of outrage from the youthful protesters of that era? Would the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy taken place? Did JFK’s killing somehow enable these other assassinations?
I find my head swimming with what-ifs and coulda-beens when I ponder this. More than my simple mind can handle. But sitting here this morning, fifty years after that day in Dallas, I can’t imagine a scenario where our world is better now than it would have been had that day not taken place. I know there is no room for such regrets, that we are where we are and no amount of despairing will change the course of history we’ve followed to this point. But, if only for a moment on this single morning, I would like to think of what might have been. Perhaps, if string theory somehow applies, there is a parallel reality where the events of that day never happened and our arc through history was much different. I know that I would like to see that …
Redtree Times 
On this date 50 yrs ago I was in the 4th grade in Geneva, OH. As the years passed I’ve seen the documentaries, read the books, bought into the conspiracy theories…denied the conspiracy theories, and like you wonder what might have been. A few years ago I was in Dallas and visited the 6th Floor Museum. It wasn’t until that visit that the whole thing caused me to have an emotional response….but it will never make any sense.
You’re right, Kurt. We can examine and re-examine every moment of that day and every day after and it will never make any sense.
On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Redtree Times
“I can’t imagine a scenario where our world is better now than it would have been had that day not taken place.”
As sad as that day was, and as bad as things may seem now, I think it’s very easy to imagine how things could taken a turn for the worse. Back then we’d practice “duck and cover” under our school desks . . . . just in case. Kids don’t do that now.
I understand your point and also understand the shortcomings of JFK’s presidency. But I don’t think that JFK’s death lessened in any way the threat that we perceived which led to “duck and cover” then. However, we still “duck and cover”– only it is for done school shootings and not Soviet missiles. I don’t know which would be the more terrifying to a child.
I was in 8th grade. My dad had picked me up from school and had taken me to the orthodontist — I was getting braces. We were pulling into the school parking lot so he could drop me off when we heard on the radio that Kennedy had been shot. I remember being ashamed and embarrassed that the event had happened in my state. In those early hours following the shooting, nobody knew anything for certain–Who was shot and how badly — Governor Connelly was also injured in the shooting. — and even though Kennedy was pretty much DOA, there was about an hour when nobody knew it except the doctors and there was talk that he might just be wounded. Then on the evening news, Walter Cronkite gave his report, and if Cronkite said it, then it must be so. And those awful images of Jackie in that bloodstained pink suit. John-John was too young to take it all in but for Caroline it must have been the stuff of nightmares. I can still hear the drums in the funeral procession, and that riderless horse with the boots turned backwards in the stirrups being led behind the caisson. Has it really been 50 years? Where does the time go?
I think time passes in a much different manner when it comes to events like this that so permeate our psyches. It does seem strange that 50 years have passed.
On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 8:57 AM, Redtree Times
http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2013/11/22