Anyone who was conscious on September 11, 2001, can give a vivid, emotional recitation of the stream of events, often mundane, leading up to the moment when they were shaken wide awake by the news of hijacked airliners crashing into the World Trade Center. For most of us, it had started as an ordinary day -- an ordinary day interrupted in a flash that washed us into a river of communal angst and out eventually to an ocean of grief.

Several years ago the psychologist Roger Brown interviewed people about a similar day: November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Brown documented the detailed minutiae which accompanied people's accounts of how they first learned of the shooting, and dubbed this type of vivid recall "flashbulb memory." It's as if the extreme intensity of the feelings casts the events surrounding that moment into sharp relief, etching them permanently into the brain.

I have flashbulb memories of 9/11 and of the day Kennedy was shot. I won't bore you (not with those, anyway). But do indulge my relating of an even sharper memory: one that also involved President Kennedy, as well as his now infamous 1961 Lincoln Continental -- and forces of nature more potent than a mail-order Italian rifle.

It was the summer before Dallas -- June 6, 1963, to be precise. A Thursday. President Kennedy had come to San Diego State University receive an honorary degree. The motorcade route from downtown San Diego to the campus took him along El Cajon Boulevard, past Wilson Junior High, where I was a student in the eighth grade. The entire school -- about three thousand of us -- assembled in front of the building to greet him as he passed.

We were brought out a class at a time and packed into layers beginning at the west end of the building. Our volume was greater than the administration had envisioned, so that by the time the students in the final classes were vying for their place in history, there was no room remaining on the east side. The vice principal clicked on his bullhorn and instructed the eastern flank to take five steps to their left, and for the rest of us to move as far to our left as we could and not to be stingy with our space.

At this point, I felt I'd gotten lucky. Not only was I in the center and just three rows back from the curb, but on my left was Rhonda, the focus of my fantasies for over a year. So I was quick to comply with the order to move left and close ranks. Once packed in, we waited for the motorcade.

And waited...

Ever since I can remember, I've needed to shit at least four times a day. I don't consider myself a slave to my colon. To an extent, I can move the drop times around as needed. But once I settle into a regular routine, my colon tries its best to make deliveries on schedule, and I do my best to accept delivery promptly. We're partners, my colon and me.

This particular year, the second delivery of the day scheduled itself to arrive just before lunch. This was right after English, and I'd hit a restroom that was on the way to my locker. I was extremely Shameful back then -- but so were most of my classmates. So it was never a problem finding an empty stall in a relatively private location in which to conduct my business.

It was this English class I was now sandwiched among, waiting for the president. And it was only after we'd finally gotten locked into our positions that I sensed the gentle knocking at the delivery door. Well, not a knocking, really. What I experience in the early stages of poonancy is like a dull headache in my abdomen and a flat taste in my throat. Under ordinary circumstances, a delay of even up to an hour after this first alert would have posed no problem. But these were not ordinary circumstances. The day was clear and warm, and the sun at its apex was like a flame under the virtual pot into which we'd been stuffed, making a sweaty stew of us. By decree, we were dressed for the president in our Sunday best, which for me included a tie and long-sleeve shirt, the shirt tucked into tight-fitting slacks. On our own initiative, we'd bathed ourselves in our most regal colognes and perfumes. These aromas, brought into close proximity and heated, formed a miasma apropos of a convention of whores and used car salesmen. And as some odors will -- especially the musty smell in library stacks -- this one played charmer to the snake in my basket, beckoning it to emerge and sway to and fro.

Even this I could have endured. But I was standing upright, which kinked my lower colon, and we were jammed in so tight I couldn't move to adjust to the ever-changing intestinal pressures. I was a wobbly-legged boxer pinned up against the ropes, with nearly the whole round ahead of me.

I felt a rush of panic as I began to picture the unthinkable: dropping load right at the feet of the beguiling Rhonda. I fought this wave off, but only to have my determination wane as I began to perceive this as my destiny: the result of a cosmic conspiracy to bring my life to a Shameful conclusion. So many things had had to be perfectly woven together -- the sunny day, the shit-inducing odors, the motorcade coinciding with my lunch-time constitutional, and my placement in the compact crowd, which put me next to Rhonda and gave me no escape route. Even the tight pants were a factor -- one that had been years in the making. Being from a family of boys born at about one-year intervals, Sunday clothes got passed down once a year from one brother to the next. When you first got your "new" slacks in September, they'd be a little loose. But by June, you'd have to suck in your gut to latch them up. I saw it all clearly now -- this unique chain of events had been engineered even before my birth to stimulate my colon at a singularly vulnerable moment. I had no power over it.

Traumatized by the apocalyptic vision of shitting my pants in front of the entire school, the President of the United States, and my dear Rhonda, my sense of time slowed, and my perceptions became extra acute. Thanks to Roger Brown, I now understand that I'd entered the realm of flashbulb memories. And as a result I can still conjure up the smells and sensations of that day, and see in perfect detail the motorcade coming into view just west of Beacon's Storage, sun rays pulsating off all the chrome surrounding the president. I remember thinking, "Here is John F. Kennedy. In a minute he will be right in front of me, and at that exact moment I will shit my pants."

Though I can be fatalistic, I am fundamentally an optimist. So upon seeing the motorcade, hope rose in me again. If I could hold out just another minute or two, the president would float on by, the crowd would loosen up, and my colon and I would be set free. Certainly I could hold the fort for three more minutes, cosmic powers be damned.

As the president's car moved in front of the school, our choir, accompanied by the orchestra, began belting out The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Touched by the sight of all us wholesome teens, the president called for his driver to pull up. "Oh, please don't stop on our account, Sir," I remember pleading in a whisper. His car came to hover exactly in front of me just as the choir finished the line, "He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword..." As they proceeded to the chorus -- "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!" -- the president stood. The picture here shows what I saw from where I was standing my ground. It may look like a photograph, but in fact it's a drawing I did some years later, based on my flashbulb memory of that day. I think you'll agree that the detail is exquisite.

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Click for a much bigger image.

The unexpected stop of the motorcade set a couple of dynamics into motion. One was the Secret Service. You can't see it in this picture, but the car trailing the president's was festooned with them. When the motorcade stopped, they leapt off the running boards like fleas off a scratching dog and took up positions at the rear of the president's Continental. I didn't notice this action at the time. My science teacher, Mr. Davis, captured this all with a Polaroid camera in a rapid succession of shots, which he put on display in class the next day. (We suspected he had a bit of a thing for Secret Service men.) Mr. Davis is actually visible in this picture, standing across the street under the number 3780, the second bald head from the top. You can see the long tail of the Polaroids he had taken scrolling down in front of him.

The other dynamic affected by the motorcade's stoppage was the delicate negotiation I was conducting with my anal sphincter. When I'd first spotted the motorcade, I had relayed a sense of reassurance. With that, my colon had started a 190-second countdown. I now had to cajole it into aborting. The problem was that I had no idea how long of an extension to request. After finishing the first verse, would the choir launch into the second ("I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps")? Thinking fast, I decided to make a conciliatory gesture by offering to vent a little head pressure: "I'll let the children out if you'll just back off and give me some extra time."

Now, my oldest brother is a master venter. He can not only time his farts, but modulate their magnitude. You'll be standing with him off to the side of some public gathering and he'll ease out a fart just loud enough so that you -- but no one else -- can hear it. I have no such skills. For me, letting up is always a leap of faith. But I was desperate. What I did have going for me, however, was the auditory cover provided by the police motorcycles and revved-up student choir.

I eased back on the chokehold I had on the neck of my anus, and was rewarded with a snappy report. The students around me showed no reaction, but the vigilant agent riding shotgun in the president's car wheeled and seemed to look right at me (see picture). Furrowing my brow, I glanced quickly over my left shoulder, then my right. Finally, I turned my gaze to the president, and by raising my eyebrows and chin, morphed the furrow of disgust into the furrow of adoration.

I'd pulled it off. And to my relief, the choir stopped at the end of the first chorus. "...His truth is marching on!" Things were looking good, and I could feel my colon start a new countdown.

But there was a final obstacle. Sensing a photo op, the president reached down and opened the door to step out of the car. I remember exactly the prayer I offered up: "No! Nananana, no!" At that instant, the Secret Service agent whom my fart a moment before may have put on edge darted out of the car and gently nudged the president back in. And seconds later, with the president sitting upright, the car moved on, taking Kennedy to his future. And I went on to mine, scurrying through the crowd like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Thanks to flashbulb memory, I can replay this day whenever I want. While the specific memories haven't changed, my interpretation of them has. At first I saw the day as being about contrasts of power -- how much the president had against how little I had. But who could have predicted that I, with all the forces at work against me, would prove able to hold my insides in check, while in another six months the president's would be splattered over his trunk, despite the legions assigned to protect him? In fact, it was later that same day in El Paso where the November trip to Dallas was conceived in a meeting with Kennedy, Vice President Johnson, and Governor Connally (whom you may have recognized in the picture above, riding just behind Kennedy). And it was purportedly that same day (I guess very early in the morning) when someone snapped a photo of a young Bill Clinton shaking hands [2] with President Kennedy in the Rose Garden -- a meeting which Clinton claims inspired him to pursue a life of public service. In short, it was a day when no shit hit the fan, but all the necessary elements for it were set into motion.