Journal

Some of my memories about President Kennedy's assassination:   I moved to Dallas in early August 1963. I went to work as a room service waiter at the Executive Inn hotel--it was located on Mockingbird Lane near Lovefield Airport. At that time Lovefield was THE airport--no DFW. The hotel is now (or was?) a Holiday Inn.

                                                                                                                                                                     In November of 1963, I celebrated my 21st birthday, my best friend had a baby, and another friend was killed in a terrible traffic accident. I drove the sister of my friend back to Amarillo for the funeral, etc--we drove her car. I was scheduled to take a bus back to Dallas late Friday night on November 22nd 1963. I
went to Tascosa High School that afternoon to have lunch with my sister--while there, the school principle announced over the P.A. system that the president had been shot in Dallas--soon we learned that he had been fatally wounded.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       My bus arrived in Dallas at 8:35 AM on Saturday morning. In those days downtown Dallas was a REAL Downtown--it was THE shopping and entertainment center of the city! When I got off the bus, and exited the depot on Commerce street--there was no foot traffic and very little vehicular traffic. Downtown Dallas was a ghost town--VERY alarming!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 FOOTNOTES:   At the hotel, there was an attractive young woman staying in one of the rooms. There were two guards outside her door (FBI)--she was Marina Oswald (wife of Lee Harvey). She was not allowed to leave the room,so, she was served all her meals by room service.                  The entire city was in a state of shock for months. The whole ordeal had a disastrous effect on the city's economy--the hotel business was hit VERY hard. We did better than most at the Executive Inn  because of location; but, all conventions, etc. were cancelled for more than a year, and no one wanted to come to Dallas for vacation or shopping.                      There was a dreadful man Who hung around the hotel. He was one of those oily, pushy, obnoxious people that we all tried to avoid. He would often be in rooms where poker games were being played. If he was staying in a room--none of us wanted to serve his order. This man was JACK RUBY!                                                                                                                                                                                                SO---there are some of my memories of this very sad period in our history.         R.F.