My mother made a scrapbook of Birmingham News and Birmingham Post Herald clippings of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. As a child, I was fascinated by that collection of articles clipped in the days following the death of the President. I do not know where that scrapbook is, and I wish that I did.

While in Dallas on Sunday, I made a pilgrimage to site of Kennedy’s murder. It is one that I believe all Americans should make. I think that it might be the most pivotal event in American history for my parents’ generation, much as 9/11 is for mine. Fortunately, the Texas School Book Depository and Dealey Plaza have been preserved as important historical sites.

On Thursday, November 22, 1963, President Kennedy stepped outside the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth in a light rain to speak to a group that gathered there. As his plane took off later that morning from Carswell Air Force Base to make the short hop to Love Field, the sun broke through the clouds and he commented to Governor John Connelly, “It looks like we’ll get sunshine.” Sunshine and huge crowds greeted the Kennedy’s in Dallas for a much-publicized motorcade. 250,000 Dallasites turned out for it.

It was extremely moving to enter the rather mundane building at the corner of Houston and Elm in Dallas’s West End that overlooks Dealey Plaza, the “front door” of Dallas. The famed triple overpass, the New Deal brainchild of Dallas businessman Frank Dealey still looks much as it did in 1963. It was chilling to see the boxes arranged around that 6th Floor southeast window, forming a sniper’s nest, to see the view that the assassin had.

It was moving to walk across the Grassy Noll and stand on the art deco concrete pergola underneath the arched cannonades which are so famous from the photographs and home movies of the assassination. To look over the picket pence as the rail yards, much as policemen and citizens shocked by the shooting did that fateful Thursday. Those are all now very symbolic signatures of the death of our nation’s innocence. I drove down Houston and Elm, just as the motorcade did, making the hairpin turn that slowed the motorcade to 11 mph.

Then I accelerated onto the Stemmons Freeway, just as the car carrying the mortally wounded President had done. I drove past the Dallas Trade Mart, where a bipartisan crowd waited to have lunch with the President and beautiful First Lady. Reporters watched outside in astonishment as the motorcade sped past them. Something was obviously wrong. One haunting exhibit is an old news teletype machine with the actual first bulletins from UPI about the assassination.

I gained quite a bit of perspective on one of the most important events in United States history today. I hope you take the same opportunity if you are ever in Dallas.

.....Clouds over Birmingham this afternoon make it look like rain. However, these clouds are mostly cirrostratus, which are high clouds and a thicker version of cirrus. They are thick enough to hide the sun but they can produce halos. They are based around 25,000 feet above the ground--maybe as low as 20,000--and they are composed of ice crystals.

.....There is no rain anywhere in Alabama this afternoon.

.....The 3 PM temperature in Birmingham was 63--exactly the same as in Jacksonville where the Super Bowl will kick off later today. If you are planning to watch, there will be no rain during the game with temperatures in the 50s.

.....Just returned from a half-mile walk with my little puppy, Little Miss Molly, and it is perfect walking-weather this afternoon, no coat needed, no sun glaring in your face, great to be outdoors...life goes on.

CONDITIONS IN OTHER PLACES AT 3 PM, BIRMINGHAM TIME:
.....Coldest spot in the Lower 48, Hallock, Minn., with 3 above zero.
.....Warmest spot, Weslaco, Tex., with 82
.....Lowest wind chill (not counting Alaska) -14 at Garrison, N. Dak.
.....Coldest in Alaska, 35 below at Fort Yukon
.....Coldest in the Lower 48 this morning, -11 in Big Piney, Wyo.