Days of sunshine too quickly gone

I remember November 22nd like it was yesterday. I was coming out of my college dorm, when a student said something about the president being shot. Like everyone else I was glued to the TV the next few days, and I, like my countrymen felt an overwhelming sense of grief and loss.

John Kennedy had been so inspiring. I believed in the War on Poverty and had worked for two years at a job corps center. I remember the day that JFK’s brother in law, Sergeant Shriver visited our center in a whirl of excitement. Like many of the New Frontiersmen he was handsome, dapper, and comfortable in the limelight of responsibility and intense public pressure.

JFK use to come to Harvard football games, and I remember seeing him a few rows away laughing and trading quips with the student crowd. He really was bigger than life, sitting there smoking a cigar, thoroughly enjoying himself. Months later my girlfriend and I would watch him and his family playing touch football in Hyannisport. The Squaw Island home that became the summer White House lay directly across the bay from my parents’ cottage. Binoculars brought the Kennedys into our backyard.

Later I took time off from college and worked as a waiter in Miami Beach. I was hired to work at a banquet where the President spoke. I remember how funny he was poking barbs at his friend, the then Senator from Florida, George Smathers. I identified with JFK and felt proud that he was our president. Whatever one’s politics, I thought it was impossible not to be drawn to this intelligent, urbane, sophisticated, handsome man.

Later I admired his wonderful speeches and carefully weighed courage during times of national crises. He didn’t dodge responsibility, and he seemed to thrive on making tough decisions. I loved his team too. Sorenson, Katzenback, Rusk, Bobby, Teddy, Archibald Cox, and so many others were impressive men. JFK and his people seemed to care. Coming from a privileged background, he didn’t have to care so much about the poor and the racially disenfranchised, but he did.

Shortly after he died I became the regular bartender for John Kenneth Galbraith, who entertained a great deal. Dr. Galbraith had been a renowned Professor of Economics, before Kennedy asked him to serve as Ambassador to India. In the process of fulfilling that role he became close to the Kennedys and particularly Jackie Kennedy.  Once I was making Mrs. Kennedy a drink, when someone approached telling me to be careful that I give the former first lady exactly what she ordered. Of course I gave her the wrong drink! Ted Kennedy came to some of the parties, which frequently turned into political seminars moderated by Professor Galbraith. Though the Senator was a young man at the time, it was evident that he lit up the Galbraith’s home as soon as he walked through the door.

After Bobby was shot I felt terribly empty. I moved on, but things weren’t the same. I was never able to relate in the same way to a political leader. Even when all the dirty laundry came out about John Kennedy, I didn’t change my opinion about him much. He had problems. He was reckless at times. He was who he was.

When JFK was running for president, my father had his picture taken with the Senator at a fundraiser. It was a wonderful photo of the two men smiling at each other. It was displayed in our family home for many years. After my parents died, the picture somehow disappeared, and I haven’t been able to find it. Its loss was symbolic. JFK was a man who left us before his time. He inspired a generation of young people to care, to strive and to live with grace, energy, and courage. We miss him.