“The Only Sound Was Hoofbeats and Drumbeats” – By Sandy McBride

Greg Connors was just 9 years old when he stood alongside a street in Washington, D. C. with his dad, John H. Connors, and watched the funeral procession of our 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, pass by.

A fourth grader at St. Paul’s School at the time, Greg says, “I was just a kid.  I didn’t really know what it was I was watching, but I knew it was something of historic significance”.

And 50 years later, he remembers it like it was yesterday. John had lifted Greg up to stand on a trash can so he could see it all.  What Greg remembers most vividly is the silence.  As the horse-drawn caisson carrying the president’s flag-draped coffin followed by the symbolic riderless horse passed by, Greg recalls that the only sounds to be heard were the clip-clop of hoofbeats on the pavement and the solemn cadence of drumbeats.

The entire article is in the Nov. 21st issue of The Express - now online.