F or Americans old enough to remember November 22 1963 this question was more than just a conversation starter. It was a slice of Americana. Remembering your whereabouts when you learned that President Kennedy was assassinated became drilled into your national consciousness.

I was seven years old a third grader at Hillel Academy in Passaic New Jersey. It was a Friday afternoon. Dismissal time on Fridays was 1:30 p.m. giving us plenty of time to get home before Shabbos. Kennedy was killed at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas — exactly when we were getting out of school. I knew something was wrong when I saw my mother waiting for me at the bus stop — something she never did before or ever again — to tell me the sad news.

The memory of that day of national mourning is just one reason I eagerly look forward to this coming Thursday when the National Archives in Washington D.C. releases the bulk of the remaining previously classified files on the Kennedy assassination.