Seeing and Believing

The building once known at the Texas School Book Depository.

Journalism is a rather peculiar profession. 

We are employed to describe something that’s happening or going to happen in a way people can understand. After close to a quarter-century of doing it professionally, I can tell you this is not easy. There are days where I can struggle with this, but I try to coyly brush this off as just merely being in the “old age” of my mid-40s.

Sure, I can tell you clearly of my visit to The White House in 2010 in a few minutes. Working in the pits during the Daytona 500 can take about as long as a pit crew has to change the tires and fill the gas tank. Telling of the times I’ve stood on top of a mountain amounts to a small blip in my life.

Trying to describe Dealey Plaza in Dallas … well, that’s different.

Until 2018, I had never even visited the state of Texas. It was one of those spots on the national map which had yet to see my footprints. So, when I was in a good position that year to take a nice vacation, I knew it had to be Dallas.

I grew up with parents who lived through the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Growing up a generation later, there were only fleeting and flickering flashes in my mind of what happened. As I got older, the books and articles I read on it seemed to further dilute the truth behind the 60 seconds Kennedy’s open-top motorcade entered and exited Dealey Plaza.

So, in early June of 2018, I flew to Dallas. There would be other things seen during my trip. I had a few top-notch craft breweries earmarked for my taste testing and I did take time to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Museum … but, I’ll save those excursions for another time.

A plaque commemorating the dedication of Dealey Plaza in 1940. This is at the intersection of Main and Houston Sts.

Dealey Plaza came into being in 1940, as a new “front door” for the city of Dallas. It’s named for George Bannerman Dealey, a former publisher of The Dallas Morning News. One of the main reasons behind creating this plaza was to allow for traffic to keep moving past a major railway line - what would become known as the “Triple Underpass”.

By 1963, Dealey Plaza was well-known locally. Yet, it’s what happened when Kennedy’s motorcade turned from Houston St. onto Elm St. which made it known around the world. Since then, the theories over who killed Kennedy sprang up. It was Cubans. It was the mafia. It was the K.G.B. It was our own government. Basically, everyone and their third cousin twice-removed had become a suspect in the assassination.

So, I had to see it - if, for any other reason, to just put my mind at ease.

My first full day was set aside for visiting this infamous parcel of land. I actually walked south two miles, from my hotel near the Trade Mart down to Dealey Plaza. Once I made my right turn on to Houston St., I could see the back of a familiar collection of orange and beige bricks, once known as the Texas School Book Depository. This was the epicenter for years of debate and conspiratorial fodder.

Walking by the building, I touched its rough texture. It was as if I was trying to get a feeling for the world I was walking into. You’re crossing over from the world you know into a place that’s decades back into history.

Looking down Elm St. in Dealey Plaza. This was my first real view of this infamous parcel of land.

It was as I made the turn onto Elm St. when it struck me. Here it was - Dealey Plaza. This wasn’t a book or a bad movie which bastardized every half-baked conspiracy theory known to man. 

Dealey Plaza was real. Full of questions - many of them, still looking for answers. Not much has changed here since that day in 1963. It is nearly frozen in time, and you’re almost expecting the presidential motorcade to arrive at any moment - hoping for a different result.

This place is not only very real, but very open. Anyone can walk around to almost any spot in the plaza and soak in that pinpoint perspective. Stand behind the picket fence on the Grassy Knoll. Stand next to the concrete pedestal where Abraham Zapruder used his Bell & Howell movie camera. Stand on the rail bridge crossing over the plaza’s three motorways. Stand at any number of places and you try to get a sense of what the people in 1963 saw.

Elm St. and the Grassy Knoll of Dealey Plaza. It was from roughly this angle that Mary Moorman took a historic, grainy Polaroid picture, showing President Kennedy a fraction of a second before he was fatally shot in the head. That X on the street marks the spot where it happened.

There were so many places there that I stood that morning, trying to figure out every possible angle which has been discussed over the years. Part of my time involved standing in places where the photos of the motorcade were. See it here, then see it on Nov. 22, 1963. Some of them were rather haunting. This included the spot where Mary Moorman took a quick Polaroid shot of Kennedy a small fraction of a second before half his head was blown out. I couldn’t have been more than 25 feet from where the limousine was. That sobers you up a bit.

The one geometric curiosity which did catch me was the downward angle of Elm St. Remember, this plaza was built so that Elm, Main, and Commerce Sts. would be able to go under several railroad tracks. So, the streets have a noted decline. Add to that, Elm St. snakes to the left, then to the right as you’re pointed downward. I hadn’t realized this crucial fact until that morning.

Part of the old Texas School Book Depository is now converted into the Sixth Floor Museum. It is wonderfully set up to try and encapsulate what all went on outside and inside those walls. Cameras aren’t allowed on the actual sixth floor, but you’ll never forget what you see. 

A view of Elm St., from the old Texas School Book Depository. This picture is taken from the corner window on the 7th floor. Cameras aren’t allowed on the 6th floor, but this is as close to a “sniper’s nest” view as you can experience.

About a third of the way through the tour is the “sniper’s nest”. It’s glassed in and reconstructed in the way it looked when law enforcement entered soon after Kennedy was shot. I stood next to it and looked out onto Elm St., wondering if this was the fatal angle in this historically perplexing triangle.

Dealey Plaza welcomed a wide range of faces and ages while I was there that weekend, each face looking for answers to their own questions. My questions that day involved so much in my life still today that that’s for another TBD post.

The most mind-searing moment in the plaza came on the next night. It was around 8:30 p.m., but there was still light out on this hot June evening. I found myself talking with two women who were in their late-50s or early 60s. One of them said she was in Dealey Plaza the weekend after Kennedy was shot. She was either in kindergarten or 1st grade, but she remembers being brought down there with her parents. This living link to the past told of what she remembers the plaza looking like in the hours and days after the president was shot. The sorrow in the people’s faces. The bountiful collection of flowers left along the sidewalk. The suspended animation of a collective human spirit wondering where they go from this tragic moment.

A view of Elm St., from behind the picket fence on the Grassy Knoll. Many have speculated that the fatal head shot on Kennedy was fired from where I stood.

Ideally, I would’ve spent more time just sitting in the plaza, with a pen and notebook in my pocket. Being a journalist all these years, my instinct is to digest as much about what happened here as I could. We are in the business of knowledge and how dare we ever shirk this responsibility. I’ll make sure to have the notetaking utensils with me for my next trip to Dealey Plaza.

Now, I can hear you asking “Alright, Horne. So, what happened? Who did it?”

All I can offer is what I saw. Having now been there, I can feel comfortable saying “Three shots. Sixth floor. Book Depository. Lee Harvey Oswald.” There’s too much woven within this rather small parcel of land to sway my beliefs elsewhere.

Again, I had to see this place and understand it for myself, before an honest answer to those questions could be given. This should be within the nature of everyone who wants to become a storyteller. Wake up each morning knowing you’re going to find something out you didn’t know the day before.

Elm St. in Dealey Plaza, from atop a railroad bridge.

The old saying goes “Seeing is believing.” That’s not entirely accurate. Yes, I saw Dealey Plaza in 2018. Yes, I walked around and stood in so many spots there. However, it wasn’t until I felt the purpose for the trip. This was one of my life journeys finally reaching its zenith.

My life has been filled with these quests. These are the fact-finding missions which keep my spirit alive and my desire to excel fresh. One of them is setting up this website. So far, it’s allowing me to showcase what I’ve done, reinforce to people what I can do, and remind myself what still lies ahead.

Seeing is believing with your eyes … but, feeling is believing within your soul.