When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, Walter Day's 9th grade Civics teacher, Mr. Burke, led the classroom in a lively discussion on how an event like this would impact our lives forever. We would always remeber exactly where we were at the moment we learned the President had been shot. And, many of us -- if not all of us -- would tuck away the daily newspapers that reported on the event. It may only happen a few times in our lives when we were alive to witness major historical events unfold like this.
Not surprisingly, Walter and all his fellow students at Pickering Junior High School, in Lynn, Massachusetts, were soon putting their "Assassination" newspapers in plastic bags to preserve the event as family herilooms.
A few days later, the ongoing discussion generated by the event inspired a fellow student to bring in two mujch older newspapers: Boston MorningJournal from 1863 and a Harper's Weekly from 1864. Day was hypnotized by the papers. The smell and the feel of the newspapers as well as the amazing moods generated by the old papers as they evoked memories of times past.
past history
