Magazine deadlines and other matters haven’t given me much time
to check out the various TV and print commemorations of the 40th
anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. But I did notice that
last Sunday’s New York Times and Washington Post
both included an advertising insert from the loopy History Channel
headlined, with all appropriate tastelessness, “We Interrupt The
Assassination Of John F. Kennedy.” Perhaps for those too young to
recall or have been alive on November 22, 1963, that was a clever
come-on, of a piece with the tawdriness of most things Kennedy
since that time.
Do forgive me for taking this personally, but I was very much
alive on that November Friday, all of 14 in Santa Barbara,
California, sitting in a late-morning high-school French class when
the girls’ principal walked in and in a stricken voice informed us
that the president had been shot and it wasn’t clear if he was
still alive. It was the most unbelievable thing I’d ever heard. She
might as well have said the Russians had dropped nuclear bombs on
New York and Washington. There was no way to accept or fathom the
news. No one said anything. Our teacher, the kindly, officious
Sister Mary Jose, led a quick prayer, and out of pure escapism and
denial (no doubt) suggested we resume our lesson. I don’t remember
what happened next, except that over the intercom we would hear the
principal announce that Kennedy had been pronounced dead.
Gym class came right after lunch. Our instructor, who was best
known for being a hard-assed JV football coach, felt it was up to
him to help us come to terms with the meaning of it all. There we
stood in a grassy field, in gym trunks, reversible T-shirts, and
tennis shoes, while he delivered his sermon, something about our
civic responsibilities. Our eyes wandered, mine toward the sky, the
eucalyptus trees, and the mountains behind the school. The world
looked the same, as if that meant anything.
That night, against my better judgment, I went with friends to
the annual big game between inter-city rivals Santa Barbara and San
Marcos High Schools. Twelve thousand locals packed the hillside
stands of La Playa Stadium, right across from Ledbetter beach, next
to the harbor. I have no idea who won, or if anyone cared or
cheered, or why the game was even played. By the next day all fun
and games would be canceled nationwide. On Friday evening maybe
people still didn’t know how to react.
It would take days, weeks, months and years to sink in. Well
before it became a cliché, one knew that America had lost
its innocence. I often imagine that all the piling on on JFK ever
since his death has been a payback for the misery it caused us.
It’s what happens when recovery isn’t possible. And why would that
be? Because for innocent Americans the loss was personal.
Kennedy was as attractive and charming a public individual as we’ve
ever had. Countless women were seriously in love with him. Men
thought him classy, stylish and cool. And just like that he was
nightmarishly gone.
Knowing what we came to know it was easy to reassess, to ask if
we’d been had, if we’d sold our souls to a devil, if it ever makes
sense to develop an emotional link to a politician? But what good
is that if we forget what we were when he was president? Under his
successor, the depressing LBJ, aide Jack Valenti became a kind of
laughing stock for announcing that he slept better at night knowing
that Lyndon Johnson was his president. The fact is that millions of
perhaps naive Americans had done exactly that when they knew JFK
was their president.
No offense to Eisenhower, probably the most under-appreciated
great American of the twentieth century, but under Kennedy American
life accelerated, conveying a sense that it was a great time to be
alive. Whether he was responsible for that sense or just happened
to come along at the right time is immaterial. All we know is that
once he was gone there was no way to get it back.
And now there really isn’t much of him left. And maybe it was
primarily style, though what’s wrong with that in the public arena?
Recall one of his last characteristic moments, when a local in Fort
Worth tried to hoist a ten-gallon hat atop Kennedy’s head. Hold
off, buddy, Kennedy in effect told him, pushing the man’s hand or
hat away. Then he told him to come to Washington next week and he’d
put it on for him there.
