50 years ago today...

I remember exactly where I was.  I was on my high school's debate team and we were off at a tournament.  For practical reasons, our coach always drove us to tournaments; he would then serve as a judge on some of the debates not involving us, and we would all gather after the last debate of the day in some barren classroom to hear the results announced and get feedback on our performances. 

On that day, after the last afternoon debate, he didn't meet us.  After a brief search, we found him in his car, listening to the news on the car radio, in tears.  The news itself was startling, but the sight of encountering one of the pillars of the school faculty, our history teacher, unabashedly crying made the moment surreal for me.

As I was writing this, I decided to look up the National Forensic League's official debate topic for that year.  I remembered speaking as Second Affirmative, but didn't remember the topic.  Here it is:

1963-1964
Resolved: That Social Security benefits should be extended to include complete medical care.

Wow.  How's that for a relevance stretching half a century into the future.  I wish I still had my file box of 3x5 cards.

Readers who have sharp memories of 11/22/63 are welcome to offer them in the Comments.