I gotta admit I was waiting for this to happen. And no, I don’t think they should’ve got rid of him for peanuts earlier in the year. But this really sucks.
As children we were just stunned and none of us were crying because it was just unbelievable and it was hard for us to process, and I don’t think any of us had much investment in his persona as the adults might. I do remember they brought TVs into all the classrooms for his inauguration and it was pretty impressive. He definitely had a lot of charisma or an aura about him that even children could pick up on.
I remember when JFK was shot there was this strange hubub in the halls as all the teachers left their classrooms and they were hugging each other and crying and then our teacher Mrs. Vaughn returned from the hallway choking back the tears and told us all to leave and that the President had been shot dead and school was canceled for a few days.
When I hear commentators, especially on national broadcasts, gushing about who is hitting in the “three spot” or batting “cleanup” even a generally emotional fan as myself has to roll his eyes and wonder if they’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on in analytics for the last 25 to 30 years.