Taft College (a two-year community college) was situated next to the high school in Taft. They shared many of the same facilities. My chemistry class was in the science building at the high school. They had a similar relationship with Taft Union High School District Transportation Department. The high school bus picked up high school and college students from outlying areas some as much as 30 miles away. It seems strange now but back on Nov. 22, 1963, I caught the high school bus as usual out on Lincoln Highway near where we lived at 1-C Camp.
Nov. 22, 1963 started out as a normal Friday although it didn't stay normal. I attended classes until someone came around in the early afternoon and let everyone know that President Kennedy had been shot. Classes for that day were cancelled. For some reason the high school buses were not running on the same schedule (high school may have been dismissed earlier) so I remember walking the two and one-half miles home. I stopped by my father's office on the way out of town but he couldn't break free so I finished my walk home. (At least it wasn't uphill in the snow.)
I had a lot of time to think on my walk home. I do remember it as a sad time. It was disappointing that someone felt it necessary to kill our county's leader.
I don't remember much else about that historic day. We didn't have a television back then so most of what I remember actually was from television clips years afterwards. We did get a newspaper (The Bakersfield Californian) so we kept up with the news that way although back then news would have been at least a day late. I think that class was cancelled on the day of the funeral. With today's 24 hour news coverage people would have a more visual memory of all of the history.
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