45 years ago today

I'm a total politics junkie, although not so rabid as I used to be. My very first political memory is from 1963, when I was six. My memory isn't so much a direct memory of JFK's assassination, but of the reaction of the adults around me -- such shock and horror and disbelief. But I do remember, a few days later, coming home from school for lunch and watching JFK's funeral on our black-and-white TV. There was a very real sense that the world had just gone completely mad. The only event since then which has matched that reaction is 9/11.