Sixty or so years from now, do you think we—that is, our children and grandchildren—will remember where they were when bullets went flying in Butler, Pennsylvania?

Will the Butler County Farm Show resonate the way the Texas Book Depository still chills after all these years? Will we still ponder the what-ifs—what if bullets had missed in 1963 but had not missed in 2024?

The Kennedy assassination was the fulcrum, the pivotal, turning-point moment of our generation, the teetering balance wheel where everything tipped in a new direction and nothing was the same as before.

It’s why we still remember the moment so distinctly. And why each time something similar happens—RFK, MLK, Malcolm, George Wallace, Ford, Reagan, now Trump, many too many—we reflexively go back to November 1963.

I was a freshman in college, in the men’s locker room after a required gym class. We were changing back into street clothes when whispers started getting louder.

The president was shot? Not remotely possible. He was too young, too vibrant, too much an embodiment of our hopes, of our boundless future. Not remotely possible in an America that was yet to be riven apart, an America that still seemed almost somnolent.

We stumbled out into the street and the whispers became exclamations became affirmations became untenable.

Where were you when you heard?

We all remember because the shock was so great. Alas, we’re not easily shocked anymore.