Top Ten Records

Hiii everyone! Today I met Francisco. He grew up in Dallas, but now lives in Milwaukee, and he stopped by the store today looking for jazz albums. I gave him the whole Top Ten spiel, as I always do. I showed him a few old photos of the shop and the phone that ties us to the JFK assassination.

“I remember that day!,” he said. Omg.

On November 22, 1963, Francisco was a freshman in high school, working on a research paper about stars at the Central Library in downtown Dallas.

“Like... the hockey team?” I asked.*
“No, actual stars,” he said. “I wanted to know where they came from. I was *that* kid.”

He had just enough time to see the President’s motorcade pass through Elm Street, so he packed up his books and headed that way. He caught a brief glimpse of the President. He said he remembers the way the sunlight shone on him.

“He looked like he had golden hair,” Francisco said.

He had brought his camera that day, but he was packed so tightly into the crowd that he couldn’t even lift his arms to take a photo.

He decided to return to the library, gathered his things, and boarded the bus home. That’s when he heard the news on the radio.

The President had been shot.

By the time he got home, he learned Kennedy had died. A few days later, he heard that Lee Harvey Oswald had been killed.
“I just thought, ‘When is it going to end?’”

What an incredible first-person story from someone who lived through one of Dallas’s darkest days.
Thank you, Francisco, for coming in and sharing your memories with us.
*[EDITOR’S NOTE: I don’t know why i asked that. Dallas Stars joined the NHL in 1967 lol]

scenes from last night 🖤 featuring our musician ofrenda 🖤