What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

SOCK IT TO ME BABY!!!

Friday, November 22, 2013

50 Years Gone







I remember it like yesterday... even though I was a toddler watching soaps while my mom napped, sitting on the training pot.  Walter Cronkite's baritone made the announcement.  And I didn't TRULY comprehend what it meant, except that someone important was dead.  But I learned.

I grew up in a catholic Democrat family.  My sister had a portrait of Jack and Bobby on her bedroom wall.  I leafed through The Torch Is Passed many times.  We had a set of Colliers' yearbooks to go with our encyclopedia, and I read and re-read Jack's career as president in its day-by-day format.

Years passed, and I learned about his past, his family, his service.  Though in many households such as ours he attained almost a saint status (before you think that's silly, I remind you of the National Enquirers' campaign of sorts to get Grace Kelly named a saint after her death), I got to know him as he was- an imperfect man.  Like the rest of us, only richer.  And braver.

He reminds me of Ronald Reagan in many ways.  Beyond their similar policies, they brought a similar love for the people they served.  They brought a similar hope for their nation.  They had a shared, deep, and abiding hatred for the grey walls of communism- and not so surprising that one stood before the grey monolith of the Berlin Wall and said, "I am a Berliner", and the other stood side by side with young people sick of the grey and shouted, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"




Their world was a world with all the colors of freedom and opportunity- a rainbow over the promise of a new world- a Camelot.  And those who love the grey walls hated them both, and one of them died because of it.  And with Jack's death, and Bobby's soon later, the grey walls won for a time.




Years later, Reagan tore down the grey walls again... but it seems that there were even more of those who love the grey walls in his day than in Jack's.  It took two deaths to end Jack's dream... only one retirement to end Reagan's.



A lot of people take the opportunity the anniversary gives to go over all the conspiracies tied to JFK's assassination, and that's okay.  It needs to be discussed even now, so that the lovers of the grey walls know that there yet live men who won't submit to the grey.  But for me, the whole thing is moot.  When I think of who shot Jack Kennedy, who shot Bobby, MLK, or Lincoln, I have only one thought about them.


YOU MAKE ME SICK.  I hope that your eternal fate includes the grey walls you loved so much.

And on the hill, four men who will yet say, "I forgive you.  You didn't know what you were doing."

14 comments:

  1. Also having grown up Catholic (and educated in Catholic schools), I was raised to believe Kennedy was a saint and the greatest president we ever had.

    As a college student, studying his administration in detail, I realized that he was really (IMHO) only average as president, but he was inspirational.

    While I would question why American taxpayers should foot the bill, I have to admire someone who challenged a country to put a man on the moon within a decade and inspired them to deliver.

    In my former corporate role, I would use this as an example of a 'stretch goal" to my staff (setting an objective that, while possible, may be unreachable in the near term).

    LC

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder if anyone has stretch goals now, other than "stretch the hours, cut the pay, stretch the dollar".

      Delete
  2. It is so sad that there will always be people so afraid of change and progress that they will be driven to destroy what they fear

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This country was founded on the idea that killing someone to destroy their fears shouldn't be necessary. And wouldn't be, if not for idiots.

      Delete
  3. I agree with Mynx. Truly sad that for every innovative thinker there will always be many that want to take them down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's not just the innovative thinkers- its the ones poised to make a difference.

      Delete
  4. And things have never been the same since.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It truly is sad the sickness that brings people to do such unspeakable things.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Chris:
    I do so like your call on JFK...well thought out.

    In many ways (although flawed...as are we all), we was the best conservative the democrats ever produced.

    Very good post.

    Stay safe up there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agree there, Bob. When I read what he wanted to do, I wondered if he was a Dem "because dad said we were Dems", like with my family.

      Delete
  7. Very good posting, Chris. In fact, IMHO, it is EXCELLENT. Thank you very much. And may you have an especially good and blessed Happy Thankinsgiving.

    451 - Proclamation 3560 - Thanksgiving Day, 1963

    ReplyDelete