This particular Saturday, half a century ago is indelibly engraved in my mind. I am sitting on the side of my parents bed while dad unwraps the Courier Mail. And as usual I am pestering him for my pocket money. And also as usual he is teasing me about have I been a good young man to my mother. The usual father/son stuff!
Suddenly I hear mum rushing up the hallway. She bursts into the room and says..
"President Kennedy has been shot!" I knew who he was even at 10!
Dad says… "Is he all right?"
Mum burst into tears.. "No! He's dead!"
It was probably only the second time I had seen my mother cry.
My father was stunned by the news.
"An absolute tragedy! This is not good for peace!" he says.
A pall of gloominess hangs in the air… but slowly for a ten year old at least, life returns to normal!
1983 finds me in England.. large billboards show a rifle bullet shaped like a missile with a blood covered American Flag in the background. The headline says.. "Twenty years ago, a missile killed America" They were promoting a BBC special on the Kennedy assination. I watched in Drymen, Scotland with my now ex wife. Very sad!
I still often contemplate what would have been different if Kennedy had of had his 2 terms of office? Still open to conjecture I guess.. and as for all the conspiracy theories surrounding his death? They don't really mean a damn thing in my opinion.
A good man, a war hero, was stuck down in his prime and we, the citizens of planet earth are the poorer for it!
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| Captured at his.. "We choose to go to the moon…" moment! |
