State Representative David Bly, MN District 25B

It’s worn out over time, but my kids still ask me, “So where were you when Kennedy was shot?” I do remember — sixth grade, returning from lunch. I was the first student in the classroom because I was told to come in over recess to work on my handwriting. The teacher sat stunned staring at a spot a few feet in front of her. There was nothing there. Then my friend and neighbor John came running in, “The president’s been shot.” He stopped and like a fade to gray so does the memory. I know we didn’t have school the rest of the day but I can’t remember what happened next.

Burned even more vividly in my mind, though, is the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

It was disturbing. I remember how odd it was to have the adults so anxious and glued to television sets. I walked over to my neighbor’s house to see what he was up to. I pet their Cocker Spaniel, Blackie, pulled open the aluminum storm door and walked into the living room. The TV was on, but everyone was in the kitchen. On the screen, a man in a big white hat and a smaller man in a black sweater were walking out of a doorway. Suddenly a shadowy figure blurred across the screen, shots rang out and the man in the black sweater grimaced and fell to the ground. I’d seen people shot on TV before, but that was make believe, and I knew this was real, live on television. The only time I had seen anything so shocking was later during the Vietnam war when the evening news showed a tape of a South Vietnamese plain clothes policeman execute a prisoner right in front of the camera. Pistol shot to the head.

It would be years before I would realize the importance of John F. Kennedy. I was too young to be filled with the hopefullness he brought, too young to catch the energy of the challenge and optimism of the pledge to put a man on the moon, or feel the pull of the adventure of the Peace Corps. I had a sense, though, that suddenly the world was young not old, that idealism matters and there was much to be hopeful about. Then he was killed. I did catch the replay when Robert Kennedy was killed and did catch the crushing disappointment when hopefulness, idealism and innocence were ripped away.

The Kennedys made you feel good about doing good. They made us trust that we could look into the future and see a hopeful and decent America. So many from my generation or a little older have been motivated by that optimism to strive for great things. Both Paul Wellstone and Bill Clinton fall into that group. Perhaps we too can find some of that optimism now to reach out to each other and reach out to brothers and sisters across the globe to do better, to care more about each other and less about our own individual fortunes, assuring that the tide rises for all of us. I am a Democrat because I believe that democracy and politics in general is about improving people’s lives, not just those those at the top of the food chain, but everyone. It’s time we faced up to the reality that individual effort can only make a few people rich, perhaps one in a million, and a good bit of it is luck not hard work. If we work together, that wealth gets spread around. If we remember those less fortunate than ourselves, we bring them along, and we all move forward together. It is my great fear that the current state and national administrations are intent on dismantling what infrastructure and policy that still remains to encourage us to work together for the common good. If they have their way, there will be little if any safety net or policies left to protect us from the rich and powerful.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Home Page

John F. Kennedy assassination still stirs memories, debate 40 years later

Forums - The Public Execution Of John F. Kennedy
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 09:23:00 -0600

The Nation: John F. Kennedy
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 09:02:34 -0600

Column: John F. Kennedy’s life, as his death, is haunting to this day
By Rabbi Jonathan P. Kendall
Special to the News
November 21, 2003

Someone once said that memory was an act of resurrection. One sifts through the ashes of the past and miraculously retrieves isolated moments that become vivid and iridescent. Their clarity rises above other events either because their imprint is associated with great happiness or intense pain.

We all remember the births of our children, special birthdays and graduations, just as we can summon from the depths of that mysterious reservoir of memories instances of failure, embarrassment and tragedy. Some of these ensigns are personal and anecdotal; others are collective. As an example, we will all remember Sept. 11, 2001 - where we were, what we were doing, what we felt as that ugly morning unfolded.

For some, 40 years ago is remote and inaccessible, especially since over half the population of our country had yet to be born! But for those of us who lived through Nov. 22, 1963 and the days that followed, there are awful, melancholy and graphic echoes of scenes that reach out to us from across four decades. They remain just as haunting, just as disturbing, just as challenging today as they were when they were fresh. These are communal memories, but also highly personal ones - a kind of integrated national recollection tethered to our individual hopes, dreams and nightmares.

The late 1950s and the early 1960s were a period of great transition in America. Dwight Eisenhower was probably the last president who could qualify as a “father figure.” America was booming and Ike was an iconic national leader whose persona was larger than life.

We were locked in a frightening struggle that pitted East against West, communism against democracy, good vs. evil. Life was simpler, black and white, and none of the complexities and subtleties that test our mettle today intruded on our lives then.

But there were tectonic changes on the horizon. Stirring were racial consciousness, more than just a dynamic rub between generations, and a kind of societal drift that threatened our placid internal life as much as the Soviets intimidated our safety.

The torch was passed in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and his election was an astonishing break with the past. The “new frontier” of which he spoke was more real than any of us dared to imagine. The youth of the country were captivated, positively mesmerized and galvanized by this young man. And he was no political naif or flash in the pan. He could negotiate with the best of his adversaries and hold his own.

JFK brought a wonderful sense of vision to the enterprise of government while his intellectual and rhetorical gifts were simply unprecedented. President Kennedy was, by every measure, a person of extraordinary depth and texture.

Unfortunately, our memories of him are as much about his death as they are about his life. In fact, the template against which his presidency is assessed seems to always bring us back to muffled drums, a riderless horse with stirrups reversed, a little son’s salute and that long funeral cortege to Arlington.

We wonder what might have been. That is human nature. After all, we mourn for the years that were denied JFK - and us - rather than for the years he enjoyed. Would we have been mired in Vietnam? Would there have been such a total erosion of public confidence in government and national leadership if JFK had lived and Richard Nixon had remained in retirement? Would the press’s feeding frenzy over Watergate - which many are convinced began the slippery slope toward sensationalism and an almost total disregard for decency in public discourse - have been at least forestalled? It is a long way from JFK’s soaring and lofty words to “I am not a crook,” and beyond to “I did not have sex with that woman.” A very long way, indeed. But this is the stuff of pure speculation.

Some celebrated JFK’s death because they saw in him a threat to the status quo; we mourned his loss for the same reason. No nation can remain in stasis forever. Many of us cherished President Kennedy expressly because he was an agent of change at a time when the entire world stood on the cusp of monumental transformations. And as icing on the cake, he was handsome, elegant, eloquent, intellectually robust, and courageous. He embraced and enshrined values that reflected the noblest and best of our traditions as a nation. We didn’t just like him; we admired him and sought to emulate his inclusive, energetic understanding of America and our future as contributors and participants in her life.

It should go without saying that Nov. 22, 1963 was a cataclysm for the majority of my generation. We shed unashamed tears for him and many of us miss him even now. Not, you should know, because the comparisons with his successors are often so invidious and not because of the way he left us.

We miss JFK because his life and his death became a metaphor for all that was right and all that was wrong in our country. Wistfully, we wonder if we could have held those polarities in check a little longer. Many of us are still sorting through those things - we who remember - filtered as they are through the prism of loss, the passage of time and the bittersweet, subjunctive lens of what might have been.

Jonathan Kendall is the Rabbi of Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart.
Copyright 2003, TCPalm. All Rights Reserved.

The day it all ended
James O. Goldsborough
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:58:01 -0600

America’s Kennedy: The Enduring Allure
BBC NEWS
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:54:35 -0600

A new generation feels little link to JFK
Philadelphia Inquirer 11-21-2003
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:50:35 -0600

The Seattle Times Opinion: JFK We still wonder what might have been
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:48:20 -0600

Opinion: John Nichols JFK’s personal touch won
Wisconsin (captimes.com)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:46:45 -0600

“The Kennedy Legacy”
DANIEL SCHORR
The Christian Science Monitor
Copyright 2003 Nando Media
Copyright 2003 Star Tribune

“It takes upbeat politician to get folks to the party“
Ellen Goodman
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:36:04 -0600
There is nothing contradictory about anger and idealism.