Where were you on November 22, 1963?

Fifty years ago today, at 11 o'clock in the morning, I was sitting in the coffee shop of the Barcelona Hotel on Miami Beach where I served as the pr director, chatting with the hotel's social director and photographer, when a staff member ran in and gasped "The President has been shot!". The scene is engraved on my brain.

Much like anyone who was alive in 1963 and heard that unthinkable news, we were paralyzed for the moment, then together we rushed to the one place in the building where we knew there was a television set. . the hotel bar. Gathered around the black & white tv set, with tears in our eyes, we heard the announcement that the President was dead.

When I think back to that terrible day now, I also have a vivid picture of JFK campaigning for the presidency a few years earlier and visiting Miami. My sister Fran and I heard that he would be making a stop at the 163rd St. Shopping Center in North Miami. I played hooky from work and picked her up to try to get a glimpse of him. In those days security was very lax and we heard that his entourage would be making their way down Biscayne Blvd. so we parked our car on the side of the road, put the top down on my 1959 Dodge convertible, and sat up on the hood like two groupies. We waved like crazy as his open car passed us and were positively dazzled when he waved back. That scene is also engraved on my memory.

Strange how certain events remain vivid through a lifetime. Almost everyone remembers every detail of where they were and what they were doing when 9/11 occurred. That goes for me as well. Tragedies seem to make the deepest impressions.

It's hard to believe that fifty years have passed since that day in Dallas. Listening to all the memorials on television, the sadness of the moment returns.