November 22, 1963
Elizabeth N. Flores
February 4, 2024
One
Lucy found her first year teaching middle school hard.
Even though she, like most of the teachers,
grew up in South Texas, making friends
with other teachers was not easy.
But over coffee the morning of November 22,
before the school day began, Lucy announced
in the teachers’ lounge some big news.
Her aunt had attended the LULAC Convention dinner
in Houston the night before.
President and Mrs. Kennedy were at the dinner!
Lucy’s aunt saw them up close!
“My aunt and mom talked until midnight about Jackie!
She’s so beautiful, and she spoke in Spanish!”
All morning between classes,
Lucy delighted in telling the teachers
about Jackie. And they couldn’t wait to hear.
Nothing would compare to
her aunt’s first-hand stories
about the First Lady.
Making friends would now be easier for Lucy.
But the Jackie stories stopped after lunch.
With a murdered president,
Jackie’s blood-stained dress, and
Dallas shamed, no one cared about
Lucy’s aunt and her Jackie stories.
Two
The middle school principal
and two of her sixth-grade teachers car-pooled.
The teachers stopped
asking the principal about a year ago
why she didn’t rip the Nixon bumper sticker
off her car.
It was all faded, and he lost!
What was the point?
The principal shrugged or
laughed when they asked.
Once she said
“The South shall rise again…and so will Nixon!”
They all laughed, and the teachers just shook their heads.
After the lunch hour on November 22
the principal broke the news
of the president's assassination on the intercom.
All afternoon she gave several teachers
–including Lucy–a shoulder to cry on.
One of the teachers in the carpool
called her husband to pick her up after school.
The thought of riding in a car with
a Nixon bumper sticker gave her the jitters.
“I live on a very long block,” the nervous teacher
whispered to the other teacher.
“And my neighbors spend a lot of time outside.”
Three
Juana’s eighth-grade teacher asked her
to pick up chalk in
the assistant principal’s office.
Juana walked down the crowded hall.
Teachers were crying, and mothers
were picking up their children,
even though some kids
didn’t want to go home.
Some students were crying too,
although just the girls,
and some of the boys laughed at them.
When Juana reached the office,
the door was open, and the assistant principal
was on the phone with her back to the door.
Juana quietly waited for her to turn around.
The assistant principal was talking
about the president’s assassination.
Juana heard her say “I bet Daddy is happy.”
The assistant principal turned around
and her eyes met Juana’s. She looked coldly
at Juana’s puzzled face, and said
“You should knock when you come to the office.
Eavesdropping is rude.”
Juana froze, but then grabbed the box of chalk
on the chair by the door and quickly headed back
to her classroom. When asked by her teacher
why her face was so flushed,
Juana could only say “It’s such a sad day.”
Four
Twenty years later, Juana was an accomplished
public school teacher with her sights set
on eventually serving as a principal.
She was assigned to the eighth grade at
her old middle school, and the familiarity
deepened when she learned
that her former assistant principal
was now the principal.
At the start of Teacher Orientation Day,
in the midst of welcomes and instructions,
Juana and the principal locked eyes.
The principal flinched.
Elizabeth N. Flores, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, taught for over 40 years at Del Mar College and was the college’s first Mexican American Studies Program Coordinator. Her poems have appeared in the Texas Poetry Assignment, Corpus Christi Writers (2022 and 2023 editions) anthologies edited by William Mays, the Mays Publishing Literary Magazine, and the Windward Review.
