By Mark Wieser 

I had tickets to President John F. Kennedy’s Welcome Dinner scheduled for the evening of Nov. 22, 1963 in Austin. I still do. I had just returned home after attending my morning classes at the University of Texas Law School. Watching Walter Cronkite announce his death at noon was surreal. I had studied and earned a degree in history, but nothing had prepared me, or any American, for experiencing this.

Driving back to Fredericksburg that afternoon, I resolved to quit my study of ...