Flickering Innocence: JFK Remembered

It’s been 45 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Today I reflect on that day with an essay that appeared in the (Westchester, NY) Journal News on November 22, 2003.

Memories and images of JFK and Camelot are everywhere as we anticipate a White House again filled with youth and “vig-ah,” hope and optimism, intellect and passion, and the brilliant smile of a brilliant man and his shining family.

I sat alone on the floor at the foot of my parents’ bed, staring up at the flickering black-and-white images. The TV was a 12-inch RCA with a green plastic exterior. I loved watching TV, but that Friday my stomach felt upside-down and inside-out. Everything felt different, as if things would never be the same.

November 22, 1963, was a special day for the fourth-grade class at Milton School in Rye, New York. Our teacher, Miss Drury, was getting married the next day and we were throwing a surprise party! Sally Lamb and I had collected nearly 14 dollars to buy a yellow-flowered casserole dish, which the white-haired saleslady wrapped in spangly gold paper.

Miss Drury never suspected a thing. We’d asked Mr. Rogers, the principal, to call her to his office. While she was gone, we brought out a cake and Hawaiian Punch and put the gift box on top of her big wooden desk so she’d see it right away. We were about to burst with excitement.

Clickety-click—here she comes! She entered, gasped, and broke into a smile shiny enough to light up the whole school. I thought she was beautiful—tall and thin, with short brown hair and dark eyes. She was 24. A real lady.

After the party, the girls jumped into our one-piece royal-blue gym uniforms. We were having square dancing and couldn’t wait! Something was funny, though, because Mr. Drago was just sitting on a stool, two fingers twisting the whistle around his neck, a real serious look on his face. He looked up and said softly, “The president was shot.”

“President Kennedy?”

“Yes. He was shot in Dallas, Texas. I just heard it on the radio.”

Nobody moved. More girls ran in squealing but quickly stopped when they heard the news. We went back to class, but the boys didn’t know yet. “Aw, neat!” said Eric Tillman, punching his right fist into his left palm. “Where’d he get shot?!”

Miss Drury told us to be quiet and pray. Sally Lamb sniffled and the boys thought that was pretty funny. Miss Drury dabbed her tears with a lacy handkerchief. No one knew what to do. The whole room felt eerie.

“Attention, attention, teachers and children,” Mr. Rogers announced over the P.A. “I have very sad news to tell you. President Kennedy just died. He was shot about an hour ago while driving in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. They are trying to find the person who killed him. You will be dismissed at 2:30. Right now, please come to the playground while we lower the flag to half-mast.”

At home, all I could do was watch TV. The flag-draped coffin rolling through Washington on an open carriage. The rhythmic beat of the snare drum tapping TUM TUM TUM tadadada TUM TUM TUM tadadada TUM TUM TUM tadadada TUM TUM ta TUM.

I was numb. Staring at the TV, hour after hour. Watching Jackie and Caroline kneel in the rotunda, hearing about the capture of that evil man Lee Harvey Oswald. The Texas School Book Depository. The policeman who got shot too. Suddenly nothing made sense. Suddenly scary things happened and you had to try to figure them out the best you could.

Then some man Jack Ruby walked up to Oswald in the jail—he just stepped through a crowd of people and shot him in the stomach! I watched that replay at least a million times—Oswald’s twisted face, the tall sheriff with the cowboy hat lunging after Ruby, the confusion, the shouting.

In 1960, I had shaken President Kennedy’s hand at a campaign rally! He was so tan and handsome, with gleaming eyes. On TV press conferences, he always smiled and told jokes and everyone laughed. His singsong accent sounded strange to my New York ears, but it had a comforting quality. Caroline had a pony named Macaroni. Jackie spoke in a whispery voice I tried to imitate. When my family had visited the White House in 1962, I remember wishing I could move in with the Kennedys. Bright colorful rooms full of dreams and hope.

Four days of watching the flickering black-and-white images of death. It’s as if they extended beyond the screen, into the space at the foot of my parents’ bed. Black-and-white clouds merging into muted gray, a grayness that would return on many days of tragedy to follow. A gray that, right then and there, surrounded my innocence and dimmed it forever.

Bubble Wrap

I’ve only tried it once myself, but for years I’ve touted the stress-relieving benefits of bubble wrap. That’s the stuff that comes in sheets of transparent plastic, with rows and rows of air pockets designed to protect fragile items for shipping, like Swiss snow globes or crystal stemware or ceramic dogs. Handy little invention.

How satisfying it is to grab a square of the wrap and poke each bubble, one by one. Pop, pop. With minimal pressure, pressing both thumbs into the center of the circle, the trapped air releases. Ahh. It’s almost meditative. Press, pop, ahh. Press, pop, ahh.

For extreme mood states such as high anxiety or rage, bubble wrap can be placed on the floor for a healing round of toddler-esque stomping. Stomp, POP POP POP, AHH. It’s partly the physical effort and partly the accompanying sound effects that makes it so fulfilling.

In yoga class this morning, we explored the neck. Sitting with legs crossed, spine lengthened, arms gently on thighs, I lowered chin to chest. Very slowly, with awareness, extending only to my level of comfort, as instructed. Pop, pop, ahh. Raising and lowering, I felt tiny bubbles of tension release, audible only to me.

Next I turned my neck to the right, very slowly, with awareness. Pop, pop, ahh. Release. And to the left. The same. Now an infinity roll—tracing the shape of the infinity symbol, very slowly, with awareness, and then in reverse. Pockets of stress letting go, pop, pop, pop.

I don’t think about my neck too much. I should, because it’s ground zero for worry, fear, anxiety, even sadness and anger. With deeply embedded strata of muscle knots formed as a result of emotional holding and lousy computer posture, it will take more than a couple of neck rolls to achieve the fluid, loose movements my yoga teacher so easily demonstrates. But very slowly, with awareness, I’ll get there. Pop, pop, ahh.

On the ride home, Laura Carlo, the velvety-voiced morning host on Boston's WCRB classical radio, announced Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. Oh, Laura. Can’t you please feed us more than your Top-40 menu? If it isn’t Fanfare, it’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice or Greensleeves or the ubiquitous Brandenburgs. Come on. We’re starving here.

But today, mellow and accepting post-yoga, I stopped myself from pounding the off button and relaxed. Timpani stomps. Boom, boom. Pure trumpet unison quartet inviting me in, I cranked the volume. Surrounded by brass harmony and counterpoint, the open fourths and fifths reverberating, I inhaled deeply and let go, steering with my left arm, conducting smooth, swirling waves with my right. Something released. Nothing physical, rather something nameless, almost spiritual. It was like my soul softened. I felt full and alive and happy.

Pop, pop, pop. Ahhhh.

"Hope It Does Good"

March 15, 1965

Dear Diary,

President Johnson is making a speech about voter registration. Hope it does good. Asked Ricky for his class picture and he said maybe! Got a cello and I might keep it. I don’t like Cindy. No reason but I just don’t like her.

Shocking, isn't it? Despite my flagrant crush on Ricky Heidiger and my intermittent girl-feud with Cindy McCormick, I somehow put politics first on that ordinary fifth-grade day. LBJ, I hope you're listening up there, because it done did good, didn’t it?!

Like everyone else, I’m overwhelmed with thoughts, feelings, images, and memories this week—trying to grasp the reality and implications of Obama’s historic victory. So many eloquent essays and reflections have flooded the papers and TV and Internet. Here are some moments and musings of my own, and some links to savor.

Share your favorites in Comments!

Wrapping Up

• On Tuesday, after voting, partly to stave off a massive anxiety attack, I went to another calling party and reached African-American voters in Richmond, Virginia, including one Clarence Wimbish, 82, a retired Marine, who had waited in line for two hours in the rain at 6 a.m., and Ruby Taylor, 88, who giddily told me, “Baby, we all voted today, the whole household! It’s history, baby, history! We will win!”
  
  
• As if my tears weren’t drown-worthy during the midnight speech from Grant Park, I was swept out into the sea of change when the Obamas and Bidens shared the stage—realizing that the black man was the top man, the leader, the one with more power; the black family was the first family, not the second. And tears of relief because McCain and Palin and Bush and Cheney, they're over, done, toast, irrelevant. Free at last!
  
  
• Wednesday morning, driving around Watertown for a half hour in search of a New York Times. All out! Finally found one at a convenience store on a side street run by two Nepalese men who shared their joy and hope for America and the world. Everyone on the street was smiling—a sense of community far richer and a lot more fun than a Red Sox World Series win! Or two.

Random Musings

• How's Hillary?
  
  
• Who will fill Obama’s and Biden’s Senate seats? And if a governor makes the appointments, will Caribou Barbie appoint herself once Stevens is tossed? Can you see Hillary and Sarah on a committee together?
  
  
• How is it that people can take two years off from their jobs to apply for another job and not get fired?
  
  
• Will he say “Barack Hussein Obama” at the swearing-in?
  
  
• How will Sasha and Malia fare? I’m happy and sad for them. But I think they’re in good hands. Stay safe, kids. Stay real, if you can.
  
  
• That Rahm Israel Emanuel is one hunky dude.
  
  
• Did you see Obama's first press conference? JFK reincarnated. Energy, intellect, gravitas, humor, strength, actual full grammatical sentences! And that smile! Swoon.
  
  
• Is there a little girl writing in her diary this week, hoping the election of our first African-American president does good? I want to hug her and hold her tight and tell her it will. It can. It already has.
  

Debfeb's Election Faves

1. Barack Obama on The Daily Show, 10/29: So how does the Bradley Effect work if you're biracial?
   
   
2. The View on Wednesday morning—especially Whoopi Goldberg’s opening remarks.
   
   
3. Oprah’s Post-Election Special, with a stirring panel discussion, including David Gergen, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., John Lewis, Gloria Steinem, and Peggy Noonan.
   
   
4. Harry Smith interviews Maya Angelou, who recites “I Rise” on The Early Show.
   
   
5. “Song of Purple Summer,” a hopeful anthem from the soon-to-be-departing-from-Broadway-oh-no-my-life-is-over Spring Awakening.
   
   
6. Judith Warner’s powerful essay, “Tears to Remember,” on the 11/7 NYT blog.
   
   
7. The Pointer Sisters perform “Yes We Can” on Soul Train, 1973!

Oh Yes We Can I Know We Can Can, Yes We Can Can, Oh Why Can't We If We Wanna, Yes We Can Can!