Pat Eskew and I had quite an adventure on November 22, 1963... Two Paperboys and a President This is a story of Pat Eskew and Larry Stevenson on the day that President John F. Kennedy came to Dallas. Pat Eskew and I have known each other all our lives and the events of this day have been in our memory ever since our high school days at W. H. Adamson. We have spent many an hour discussing the events of a day that changed Dallas. November 22, 1963 was a day that bound us together because of an adventure that we shared on a day that changed history. We were two seasoned Dallas Morning News paperboys getting up early that Friday morning to deliver our papers. Pat and I always talked to each other in the morning as he would pick up his papers at my house. As paperboys we always read the paper as we delivered it. That morning we noticed a foot note article on the front page stating that if you were a Dallas student, and you turned in a note from your parents, you could attend the parade for President John F. Kennedy, who was coming to Dallas for a luncheon around noon in his honor. Being two boys who always were looking for a way to catch more sleep or skip school, this was our ticket for a Friday and a long weekend. Pat and I both went back home to sleep before we had to get up and go to school. After a little sleep, I got up and dressed, went to my car and drove around the corner to pick up Pat for school. We drove to Adamson to drop off our notes and we talked about what we really wanted to do that day since we had a free day to do what ever we wanted. We both had notes from our parent saying that it was OK to attend the parade downtown for the President. We turned our notes into Mrs. Spruiell, the Dean of Students at Adamson. She told both of us to have a good day and to be safe. We both got back in my car and left Adamson’s parking lot to head to Kimball High School. Our plan was to go visit our girlfriends who attended Kimball High School, then go home and catch up on our sleep. This is where love triumphs over seeing the President of the United States. We pulled in the Kimball parking lot and went into the school auditorium to meet our girlfriends. Most of the classes were let out and in the auditorium students were watching several TV’s that were set up broadcasting the events of the Presidents arrival and parade through Dallas. We felt that we had it made, skipping school, sitting with our girlfriends in a school we did not attend, and watching the President on TV. We had no idea what was going to unfold the rest of the day for two paperboys. While sitting there the Principal of Kimball, Mr. Lloyd Druitt came and sat right beside me and struck up a conversation with all of us. I thought our little plan was in trouble. Kimball being as large it is, I think he felt we were just regular students that attended school at Kimball. He talked about how he hoped that there would not be any problems during the Presidents visit and everything would go great while he was in Dallas. After talking to us, Mr. Druitt walked around the auditorium to make sure things were under control. The bell rang and our girlfriends had to go to class and take a test. So we said our good byes and snuck out of Kimball back to our car to head home. We were headed home to get some sleep when we decided to go downtown to see the President. When we arrived at the Commerce exit to downtown, traffic was stacked up and stopped. It looked as if we were not going to get downtown. I drove around the stropped traffic on the freeway and noticed a spot to park right where Elm merged on to Stemmons. At the Triple under pass I pulled over, parked and we got out of my car. This would be a perfect spot to wave at and see the President. Pat was talking about maybe the motorcade might stop and we could shake the President’s hand. This spot would have been ideal for that and was not overly crowded with people. The on ramp area has been reworked since 1963 and is not the same configuration today that it was back then. Standing by our cars we were waiting for the motorcade to come our way. We had struck up a conversation with a man who was parked by us. While waiting this man asked us if we heard some shots? We replied that we did not hear anything. The next thing we see is the Presidents motorcade rushing past us at high speeds. Not understanding what had happened we wondered why the President did not wave at us and just passed us with no regards, we had given up our sleep to shake his hand and see him. We noticed that as the President’s Limo sped past us that secret service men in suits with machine guns were draped and hanging all over the car. This kind of gave us the first clue that something might be up. I went to my car and turned on the radio and listened to what was said, “The President had been shot in Dealey Plaza.” Our next move was to head towards the Texas School Book Depository or Dealey Plaza from the back way or the freeway side. We left our car parked around the corner from the triple underpass and on foot climbed up a large railroad embankment, crossed over the railroad tracks, through the railroad yard, into the parking lot behind the Depository, behind the grassy knoll. While in the parking lot we encountered some Dallas Police who told us to get down that there might be a gunman in the area and we needed to stay clear and stay low. We made our way over to the grassy knoll or outer edge of Dealey Plaza. We did not encounter or see any gunman or anyone who looked like one. Some official looking servicemen were right there and asked us to look around and see if we could find some shell casings of spent cartridges. We looked on the ground for a moment but there was a lot more excitement to investigate so we moved on. As we made our way towards the Depository I noticed two other Adamson students, I did not know their names at the time, later I found out it was Arnold and Barbara Roland. I had noticed them in the halls of Adamson but never knew them or anything about them. I think they were two married students who went to Adamson. During this time it was very unusual for married students to be in a Dallas High school. After seeing this couple in Dealey Plaza that day I never saw them again. The Roland’s were giving a statement to some official looking gentleman; I listened in as they mentioned how they saw a gunman with a rifle at the sixth floor window of Texas School Textbook Depository. I thought this was an awful and unusual story at the time. Looking back on these events, I wish I would have talked to the Roland’s and got to know them better. During all this time, Pat and I still did not know the fate of the President and events unfolding elsewhere. We made our way to the front porch of the Depository with excitement all around us. We then made our way up the steps through the front door into the small lobby of the Depository. There was not much going on inside the lobby, all the excitement seemed to be going on outside. We exited the building and started walking around the building trying to put all what had happened together. We made our way around the building back around to the Plaza area. By this time we had heard the fate of the President. While we were standing there we noticed some commotion up around the railroad tracks and a group of people rushed over to the top of the over pass but it amounted to nothing. Another thing that binds us to this event is at the time we had no idea what was going on back at Adamson. We later find out as Oswald made his way from the Depository where he worked to his boarding house on Beckley down the street from Adamson. Oswald made it to his home, changed clothes picked up a hand gun, left his house and headed South on Beckley towards Adamson. When he reached Davis Avenue and Beckley he changed directions and walked southeast around the east side of Adamson and made his way to Tenth and Patton where he encountered Dallas Police Officer, J.D. Tippit. This is where he allegedly gunned Officer Tippit down, while being approached by Tippit, after the assassination of the President Kennedy. I have heard some Adamson students claim they had heard what they thought were gun shots while in class at school, because this location is only a short distance from the school. Oswald then walked south to Jefferson where he headed west to the Texas Theater. Later he would be arrested at the theater and taken into custody for the alleged killings of John Kennedy and Officer Tippit. It seemed like now was a good time to leave Dealy Plaza. We walked back under the under pass to our car where we decided since we were downtown to visit our close friend, Phil Broxen, who was at Baylor Hospital recovering from knee surgery. We wanted to share our story of the day’s adventure. We drove to Baylor and made our way to Phil’s room. He had the TV on and we watched the news coverage and were able to tell Phil about what we had done that day. We were then able to put most of the events of the day all together. After spending time at the Hospital we headed back to our homes in Oak Cliff. This event binds us to our past with memories of our days at Adamson, especially a day in the life of two paperboys…
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 18:33:43 +0000
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