*steps around the inevitable conspiracy theories and insults and sneering*

I was in Grade 3 in Montreal, Quebec. Our elementary school had lockers in the hall just like the "big kids" had in the high school. My friend Marilyn and I were at our lockers getting ready to walk home when boys from grade 7 (then elementary school went from K - 7) came running down the hall, yelling that President Kennedy had been shot. We were very upset by that - which sort of mystifies me to this day. Why were little girls in Montreal so affected by that?

We ran home crying - Marilyn ran in her building and I ran around the corner another 2 blocks to mine. I bolted up the stairs to our apartment, opened the door and almost tripped over the floor polisher that was laying there, abandoned. My mom used to wax the floor and then use the electric polisher to buff it - I stepped over it and found my mom and the neighbor from downstairs watching our little TV, transfixed.

The neighbour's TV was broken - and she had come up to watch her favourite soap opera. While Mom was doing the floor, the neighbour called her to the TV.

I also saw Oswald get shot - live.

They say smells are on the strongest memory triggers - and to this day, when JFK's assassination is discussed, I smell Beautifloor wax.