I had an after school job at the Mace supermarket on the Glen Road.
I can answer that question “Where were you when JFK was assassinated?”
I was on one of my delivery jaunts, on a “Granville”* bike.
I remember overhearing a passer-by telling a man across the street what had happened.
“Kennedy? Shot? Where?”
“In the head.”
“No, where was he?”
“Texas.”
“Seen that in cowboy pictures. Lot of gunslingers there, you know.”
I knew it was fairly important news but I was preoccupied with my own fate at the jaws of a yapping dog behind the railings of a house in Fruithill Park.
I was scared stiff and could not pluck up the courage to open the squeaky gate.
Luckily, after tense minutes the owner joked: “His bite’s worse than his bark.”
She called off the dog and beckoned me up the driveway. I delivered her box of groceries, she put a half crown** tip in my sweaty hand – big money back then - and I scarpered before the dog was let loose again to bite lumps out of my arse, legging it, knowing that oil-free hinges would squeal the mutt back into action.
Phew!
I had escaped with my life. Unlike the poor President.
*Granville is a delivery boy character in a UK sitcom called Open All Hours. He rode a bike with a big metal frame on the front that held boxes of groceries
**A Half-crown was a hefty financial tip in those days
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