Comments on: JFK

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 17:10:03 +0000

You’re lucky, Jams. I encountered well-known people when I was in law enforcement, but they were politicians that I had to protect while they were in my jurisdiction.

By: jamsodonnell

jamsodonnell — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 10:48:57 +0000

Indeed it was Bryan. It did not matter that it was the US flag being planted on the Sea of Tranquilitiy it was truly a giant leap for mankind. I got to meet Neil Armstrong in 1989 (a work related encounter), I used to encounter various celebrities but Armstrong was the only one I felt in awe of.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:33:57 +0000

Kennedy’s space program that actually came in on time and on budget. It was a world event, not just a US event.

By: jamsodonnell

jamsodonnell — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:24:49 +0000

I was in my cot (crib) when Kenedy was shot. I would have been almost 8 months old. For me the first defining moment was Apollo XI.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:49:02 +0000

It wasn’t the accomplishments, they were few, it was the promise of things to come that he embodied that died with him.

By: Anya

Anya — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:22:59 +0000

Social Studies in the 7th grade. They didn’t announce it on the PA (I’m not sure we had one), but the teachers were all informed. My class was, strangely, in the middle of doing a “current events” exercise. When our teacher came back into the room after being called away, he just sat down at his desk with a shocked look. When he told us, you could have heard the dust falling.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:02:42 +0000

John, Martin, Bobby, Vietnam, riots, Watergate, Apollo – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Charles Dickens knew how to say it for us all.

By: Mustang Bobby

Mustang Bobby — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 19:14:13 +0000

I am having a tough time deciding whether or not to see the new film Bobby; I don’t want to relive that, either.

Oh, and FWIW, Bobby Cramer was named for RFK. His mother was crazy about him.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:40:31 +0000

It is no doubt the prejudice of personal history and nostalgia, but it seemed like we had a better class of politicians in the ’60s on both sides of the aisle. Maybe it was because they had been tested in World War II, but the McCarthys were overbalanced by real statesmen and public servants. Today there are vastly more McCarthys than McGoverns, political opportunists who want personal power more than a better future.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 16:56:56 +0000

10th grade, geometry class, leftmost column of seats, second seat. Over the P.A.: “The president… [a pause while the principal regained his composure]… has been shot.” A short time later came the announcement of JFK’s death. Social and political transformation by assassination has seldom been as effective as it was that day. None of us lived… none of us has lived, in all the decades since that day… in the same world, the same America as we did the day before.

I feel a need to listen to “Abraham, Martin and John,” which of course also mentions Bobby. I need to be reminded that America has survived and can survive even the most heinous of acts, and the most parlous of times.