On November 22, 1963, I was just 19. A 'child bride' - I had two children already. I was crafting an ornament for the tree - because Christmas was coming fast. You could smell it. I couldn't have voted for JFK in 1960 - I was only 16 that year - the year I bore my first child, a son.
I'd left the Roman Catholic Church. And I only barely identified as Irish. But it was in my blood and bones and when Kennedy ran for president, I knew he was MY candidate. And he became MY President. Irish. Catholic. The underdog. Champion of the poor.
His family even resembled mine, with their thick hair, and light eyes, and intense beliefs and big smiles. They too loved poetry and they were a big, chaotic Irish family. OK - we were worlds apart: The Kennedys were very rich and powerful; they went to exclusive schools, then on to Harvard. They had known Tragedy, but never Want, while we knew little else. We grew up hungry, powerless, idealistic, defensive. That made his success, and his compassion, even more wonderful.
When it all came out - how flawed he was as a man, as a husband, as a person, it didn't bother me. I never knew any but flawed men, flawed people, flawed families and marriages. What mattered was what he did in office, and what he said. He called on us to be part of something I wanted to be part of. Something I still feel a part of.
Later, after he and his younger brother Bobby were both gone, my mother said 'do you notice that whenever some question comes up about those assassinations, that the news comes out with some shocking new revelation about their personal lives?' I noticed. I had lost my faith in.............something. Something irreplaceable. Something important - my faith in my government. My representatives had become my rulers.
I had detected a pattern of lies.
And it's still going on.
I'd been through some hard times with Kennedy. I had borne 2 kids in Los Angeles General Hospital - an Ordeal by Fire. I didn't know it yet, but I am steel; I was made for fire. Somehow, JFK was one of 'us'. I couldn't have told you what that meant and still can't. But it's still true. His brothers and sisters were too. Made for fire. Tempered.The Cuban Missile Crisis. We here in L.A. were laughed at and vilified on the national news, for cleaning out the grocery shelves. Bashing California is a popular sport everywhere it seems. But our local newscasters had told us we should stock 3 weeks worth of food and water. So we did that, if we could. Well, I didn't do it. I couldn't do it. I didn't have enough money for that. We'd have starved if we survived the blast - we were practically starving already. I saved a few bottles of water and all the while I knew it was no use. I looked at a Civil Defense booklet that described the devastation of a Hiroshima-sized bomb. Living very near Lockheed and other defense contractors, I knew we couldn't survive. And that was with a 'Hiroshima- sized bomb' - we were all way beyond THAT - no use. I knew. I had two small, beautiful children - babies, really. Hopefully they would never know what happened. I had read 'On the Beach' when I was pregnant with my son. The helpless terror of those days settled into my stomach. My dreams were stained with dread. I dared not hope for anything - but that this war would be averted.
Or that the end would be instantaneous.
And it was. Averted, that is. And some berated the president for not finishing that war. But I was glad.
Later, when I became active in the anti-nuclear movement, I learned that about 35 nuclear bombs were trained on L.A. - each one of them much larger than 'Little Boy' Or 'Fat Man' - The bombs that did so much human damage in Japan.
But I had read Hersey's 'Hiroshima' when I was 11.
I knew.
The Day I was just finishing a Christmas ornament. The ornament was a plain, pale gold glass ball that I had painted an angel's face on. She had gold curled paper ribbon hair, and lacy, paper doily wings, and her body was a cone, wrapped in metallic gold gift wrap, for putting on the top of the tree.
(Because you never forget what you were doing that day.)
My husband (now ex) came home early from work. For some reason, that one day I met him at the door. He had tears in his eyes and told me Jack Kennedy had been shot. And I laughed at him - what a ridiculous idea! In America? But he turned on the TV and ..... well, you know.........
I think I may have had migraines before that day. I must have. But that is the first time I remember one clearly. I blocked all the windows, and the gaps under the door to my bedroom, but I could still hear the dreadful drum beat. It went on for days - it became the rhythm of my life, and nothing stopped the pain of my first assassination. Nothing ever has.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. The President, who may have been one of us, has been murdered in Dallas, and nothing will ever be the same.
