Where Were You, Roy Rogers?

I was eight years old and in third grade on November 22, 1963. My younger brother was home sick and I was envying him even though he wasn’t feeling well to get out of bed when I’d left for school. I don’t remember what I was supposed to be doing when the principal’s voice came over the intercom to announce President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, TX. There was a gasp. Our teacher quieted us and said we should keep working. She stepped into the hall. By the time she got back, I was already spinning a movie in my head. Everything I knew of the southwest had come from watching Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger and western movies on weekends. Texas? A vast expanse of prairie and desert with tumbling tumbleweeds for miles around. There on its dusty way was a stagecoach carrying President Kennedy and the other passengers to their destination: Dallas. But wait! Here came a bunch of villains galloping their horses and every last one wearing a black hat and brandishing a gun! They forced the stage to a halt and announced a robbery. But the President got out and defied them: “You’ll get no money from me!” he declared. One of the bad guys shot him. The rest of them robbed the passengers. But wait! Over the hill came a streaking barking dog followed by Roy Rogers on Trigger. The dog, of course, was Bullet. Roy was followed by Gabby Hayes and their friends. The bad guys took one look and urged their horses to run away. Roy stopped to check on the President. He had a lightly bleeding crease on his head. “It’s nothing,” he cried. “Go get them, Roy!” And so Roy, Trigger, Bullet, Gabby and the boys raced after the bad guys. They were caught, rounded up and safely under guard when the principal’s voice came over the loudspeaker again. I saw the teacher had returned and was pacing, hands clasped. “President Kennedy … is dead.” No! I felt like I’d been punched hard in the stomach. It can’t be! He wasn’t supposed to be dead. Roy was supposed to save him from the bad guys! Where were you, Roy Rogers? The teacher told us to put our heads down. She turned out the lights and went back into the hall. I could hear sobbing from the hall, from more than one person. Were we released early from school? I don’t remember. The house was silent when I went inside. My brother was still in bed, too sick to watch TV. My deaf mom didn’t watch TV in the middle of the day. Captioning didn’t exist then. She came out of the bathroom and I tried to tell her what happened. She didn’t use sign language with us kids. It was all lip reading, a frustrating way to communicate. She didn’t understand at first, probably because I was babbling. I slowed down and repeated. She was shocked and unbelieving. We both ran to the TV and turned it on. It stayed on around the clock all weekend and into the next couple of days. I saw the funeral, especially drawn to little Caroline and John Kennedy Jr. I remember him saluting his father’s casket as it passed by. We were also watching when Lee Harvey Oswald, captured after murdering a Dallas policeman and accused of assassinating President Kennedy, was being moved through a crowded basement. Jack Ruby suddenly appeared, his arm rising up. “Gun!” my parents screamed. I watched Oswald slowly collapse to the floor. It was all so unreal. I was shocked by how Dallas appeared. It wasn’t some cow town I’d pictured in my silly little movie. It was a city. Had Roy gotten lost somewhere on those busy streets? I couldn’t fathom it and I couldn’t ask anyone. But, Roy Rogers, where were you? I remember it all like it just happened. It’s imprinted onto my brain. If I got dementia or Alzheimer’s would I lose that memory? Or is it there forever?