Camelot

I remember exactly where I was when John Kennedy was killed.  I was only 9 and my world revolved around my mom.  I remember her crying night after night as she watched the coverage of his funeral. I remember the newspaper clippings she kept in a little envelope especially the pictures of John John saluting his father's casket.  When my mom died some years later I found that little envelope yellowed with age and was reminded of how my mother tried her best to explain why she was crying even though she didn't know this man they called JFK.  He was a such young man she said, but I had heard he was 46 and to me that was already old.  She went on to tell me that he was the first Catholic president and since we were Catholic I guessed that was a good thing.  She also explained that he was handsome, and even for 9 I knew that that was true.  Yup that was my mom, a true politician...young, catholic and handsome...all the makings of a good president.  When the crying stopped the news footage did not.  Days turned into weeks and weeks to months especially since the assassin was assassinated himself on national TV in a parking garage as they moved him from Police Headquarters.  Mom didn't know whether to cheer or cry some more.  This was the biggest event in her life to that point, as it was for most people.  To live through the assassination not only of the President, but such a young and catholic and handsome one.  Mom and most of the country needed another Kennedy to love.  Along came Robert, another Kennedy brother just as young although debatably not as handsome.  RFK, like JFK had won over the hearts of millions of housewives. Now I was 14 and my world revolved around my friends.  From my junior high classroom I held a transistor radio to my ear so that I could report to the teacher and the class his condition after he too had been shot in the head after making a 'why i want to be president' speech.  Though brother Bobby was not yet in the White House his chances looked good.  Someone didn't like these young, handsome, catholic Kennedy boys.  At least not as presidents.  The news coverage rivaled that of the president's  assassination  with day and night coverage and talk of family curses and rumors of conspiracy that shrouded the Kennedys.  Another Kennedy brother, Teddy also in the political arena for years thought he too would make a run for the presidency.  If you ask me, with the Kennedy boys track record I would have run the other way.  I was 15 now and my world revolved around boys.  So it isn't so odd to me that the only thing I remember about Teddy at that point in his career is that he was driving home from a party, with a young girl in his car and it went off the road and into the pond on Chappaquiddick Island killing her.  It was 1969, the summer of Woodstock and the Moon Landing and now Chappaquiddick!   The fact that he didn't report the accident for 10 hours while Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in the vehicle cancelled out any plans of living in the White House.  After admitting to leaving the scene of an accident where a woman died, after waiting to report the accident til any chance of a blood alcohol level could be detected, and after denying any inappropriate relations with this now dead woman Kennedy was allowed to keep his Senate seat which he all but inherited from his brother John some years earlier.  Teddy was the likeable, approachable Kennedy they say.  Bobby too intense, John too sophisticated. Maybe the Chappaquiddick incident transformed Teddy into the person they are saying is the 'greatest senator of our time'.  Maybe the fact that his brothers before him died in their prime...young and handsome and righting the world's wrongs.  That is how we will remember them.  But he fact that Teddy lived to 77 and endured failures and indiscretions in the public eye, a drinking problem, a divorce and of course Chappaquiddick may be why I am not moved by his death the way I was when mom and I mourned JFK and RFK.  Maybe I just miss my Mom mourning with me for the last of Camelot.