July 23, 1999

Years ago an registered nurse I knew told me some interesting stories about when she'd worked in the emergency room where, as in life, the only thing rivaling the pathos is the absurd humor.

Following a tragi-comic tale about an O. Henry-esque bum, she said that one of the psychological litmus tests they'd use to establish patients' sanity was to ask where they'd been when they heard about President Kennedy's assassination.

If someone couldn't remember that benchmark day, it was likely he or she had mentally "left the building."

When it was reported that John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were presumed dead, I was transported back in memory to the day of his father's death. Living in the Eastern time zone, I was out on the playground when the bell rang early and one highly strung teacher ran outside, yelling, "The president's been shot - everyone go home!"

Thus began a weekend of constant television. Other than the Army-McCarthy hearings before my time and early space shots, this was the first time in my life when our television set was turned in for hours on end, with family and friends huddled around the new electronic hearth.

That's why the event was stored in our minds as vivid visual images.

But even if it's concealed within a handsome armoire, people today are used to the heart of the house being an entertainment center whose glow is a frequent backdrop to home life and frequently the source of 24-hour news networks' wall-to-wall coverage of the momentous and the near-momentous.

With Generation X, Y and Z-ers, it's very unlikely they'll recall exactly where they were when the young JFK's plane crash was reported, let alone when his body was found. It will be just one frame in the nonstop video of their lives, neither more nor less significant than toddlers stuck in wells, earthquakes, the O.J. trial, Princess Di's divorce and death, mass murderers, and postcards from Mars.

What could be unforgettable would be a widespread television blackout of considerable duration. Maybe emergency room triage of the future will be, "Where were you when the television stopped?"

© 1999 Cynthia Hahn