I read, with interest, the story on Sept. 28 about President Lyndon B. Johnson’s visit to Portland in 1964 (“When Lyndon B. Johnson came to Portland 60 years ago, a hundred thousand followed“).

My father, Nicholas Pitarys, was a reporter for the Press Herald and Evening Express. At that time the paper published twice daily, morning and afternoon, as well as the Sunday edition.

My family – including my younger brother, sister, mom and dad – watched the president from the windows of the city room of the Gannett Building across the street from City Hall. I can’t remember if it was the second or third floor, and even though I was but 10 at the time I well recall the mass of people between our position and the steps of City Hall, completely filling and blocking Congress Street.

The thing I remember most was my father’s admonition not to make sudden or furtive movements while we hung in the windows because, after the Kennedy assassination 10 months earlier, the Secret Service would not take it lightly.

George Pitarys
Hudson, N.H.