Nov. 22, 1963, I had no early classes, so I was poking about my room, getting ready to walk to campus, the other side of downtown. I had the radio on, but was paying no attention. I heard a shriek from downstairs. After a moment or two, I decided I had better go investigate. My landlady was quite a drinker and not always steady on her feet. I thought perhaps she had fallen and needed help. Just as I started out the door, the radio programming was interrupted. The DJ or whatever – I forget what I was listening to – said the station had gotten word that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. He allowed that if it was a joke, it wasn’t very funny. Almost immediately, he interrupted again and said that it had come over the wire service and must be authentic. I never got downstairs. My landlady had seen it live on TV; that was what I had heard.
I listened for a while and then set forth for campus. Downtown Reno was surrealistic. Even then, the place never shut down. But on this morning, downtown was empty. There was no traffic. There was no one on the street. The clubs’ doors were open, but they too seemed empty. Even the gaming tables had been deserted by their dealers. It was like some science fiction movie – Quiet Earth, perhaps. Actually, the clubs weren’t completely deserted. All the people had gathered at the bars where there were TVs. Campus was deserted too, and all classes had been canceled.
A few days later the clubs closed for the first time in many years for the official day of mourning. But it was just like Sunday anywhere else, not half as strange as the 22nd