Fifty years ago today, my mother picked me up early from the first grade. I can't remember why. But I do remember being with her that day at American National Bank in Bowling Green, Ky. I stood beside her while she made a deposit at the teller window. An announcement was made over the bank’s loudspeaker. Immediately afterwards, the room exploded with loud, harmonious wails of torment. All the women around me cried and screamed and grabbed onto one another. About twenty feet directly behind me was another roll of teller windows, parallel to the ones where we stood. I turned to see a lady collapse. She beat the floor repeatedly with her clutched fist, and screamed, “No, no, no.”
I looked up at my mother. She gazed around the room, herself fighting to hold back tears. I asked her what had happened; she didn’t answer. I grabbed her dress, jerked it hard to get her attention, and asked, “Is the world ending?”
My family was not churchgoers, so I’m still surprised I asked that question. I suppose there is some innate fear or knowledge in all of us that the world, or at least our world, can suddenly come to an end. The fact that I thought the world was ending the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated shows how much our world has changed. I cannot imagine this kind of reaction to any assassination today. Even during 9/11, I did not witness this kind of hysteria. We think we’re progressing with all the technological advancements in social media, but the only thing we’re making advancements in is our ability to desensitize ourselves to murder, death and mayhem. We have an illusion the world is a better place. But the way I see it is that it has simply grown from its adolescence to adulthood.
I was a child before the announcement was made that day in the bank. I became a man when I watched that lady fall to the floor. Childhood was better.
