When the time for blogging comes around, I begin to feel topics in my gut. I start weighing what topic is working on me and then I try to figure what a reader might get into. At this juncture on this cycle, it would seem, the gentle reader gets a potpourri of grandpa thought.
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When the most recent internal alarm clock for this blog entry tripped a couple weeks ago, it was at least a week before the 22nd. I decided then I had to write about the JFK assassination.
I asked an old friend who was a classmate of mine on that Friday afternoon fifty years ago — us in the 8th grade — what she remembered. It was nice to have the accuracy of my memory confirmed.
It was around 2:00 EST, after lunch for our classroom at Immaculate Conception School. The academic week was pretty much over. We were finishing up business by having a classroom civics club meeting with yours truly facilitating.
I must have chaired a number of civics club meetings that year. Can’t remember anything about any of ‘em — except for November 22. Singed into memory:
I was sitting up behind the teacher’s desk running the meeting. Mike Yosik had the floor and was talking about the benefits of our installing an aquarium in the classroom. I can still just about make out his complete face in my memory, though I can’t recall if was sitting or standing.
In the middle of what Mike was saying, the principal, Sr. St. Augustine, clicked on the PA in the office, an audible click we students had learned meant stop talking and listen to the announcement. Her voice was a bit subdued, unlike the raucous football punter we all knew and loved on the afternoon playground.
I don’t recall Sister’s exact words, but the phrase ‘the President has been shot’ seared like a hot iron making a memory indelible. I was stunned. I distinctly remember thinking that he can’t die. He couldn't die. He meant too much to the world. He was an exciting family guy, just about my dad’s age, who from my point of view was succeeding in making the world a better place. Besides, he was the first Roman Catholic President this country had ever elected. He was one of us. He couldn’t die.
My friend remembers the meeting and the announcement, too, but she remembers a next thing that 1) she couldn’t believe, and 2) I don’t remember. I suspect my head was still analyzing the odds of a ‘shot’ President surviving such a thing. She remembers another of the guys in class picking up the aquarium discussion like nothing happened.
Next thing I remember is Sr. Ann Mary climbing out of her seat at the back of the room, making her way up an aisle saying we would continue our discussion and meeting at a later time. I returned to my seat.
I don’t remember how long we waited until we were dismissed for the day. I have a sense the classroom was pretty quiet. We were standing in dismissal line when Sr. St. Augustine came back on the PA. I imagine her voice cracked a bit. The President is dead, she announced.
I can remember my very place in line when I heard her unfathomable words. Within as few minutes as possible I was running down Fauver Avenue eager to get in front of our old black and white television to watch the news. I had sat for hours watching space shots over the last couple years and had really gotten a sense for history in the making. I could not begin to imagine what the news looked like when a President of the United States was shot to death.
Though I wanted to sit in front of the old Westinghouse all evening, I had work to do. I was a morning newspaper carrier who had bought those papers from the Journal Herald and I had to collect from each and every customer so I could pay my weekly bill regardless of world history. My guess is I set out sometime after 5 to collect my 45 cents from everybody who was home.
I think it was at Mrs. Sengle’s house where I stood in the living room for a few minutes watching with her as Jackie Kennedy disembarked Air Force One in her pink dress stained in her husband’s blood. Only later did I hear she refused to change clothes when offered on the plane, saying she wanted the country to see what we had done to her husband.
What else can I say about the brutal and bloody death of an eighth grader’s personal hero? It wasn’t the day the music died, but something felt very different after Jack Kennedy passed. Lyndon Johnson turned out to be okay in terms of Great Society legislation, but he was no charismatic Jack Kennedy. It was a hard time.
And in just a touch over four years from that November 1963 day, the deaths of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy would make the omega bookend for us kids in the high school class of 1968.
***
Well, that was longer than I thought it would be. But here’s what else I wanted to mention today:
Waffle Shop was amazing this year. Thanks to all who made the effort to come down. I like to tell people that if we get 1600 in the door in four days, we had a good Waffle Shop. We had 1800 this year. We set a modern record for lunches served. All good news, indeed.
Be advised that Outreach Grants applications are due either to me via email or in hard copy to the Christ Church office by 16 February 2014. We’re very proud in our $89+k in Outreach Grants over the last 10 years. If you’ve got a good idea, let me know.
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I have been moved of late by the concept of living a life with enhanced gratitude.
I try in a zen kind of way to lead a life of gratefulness. Every day I have on this marvelous planet is a gift unto itself.
Living a life of gratitude seems very grounded to me.
On my office door hangs, among other things, the saying ‘Practice gratitude. Honor the ordinary,’ a line I picked up from James A. Autry, author of the book Choosing Gratitude and guest of Bill Moyers a couple months ago. I was so taken by explanations that I ordered Autry’s book before the show was over.
Then the other night I’m catching up on some TED podcasts and I come across one from Edinburgh this past winter by Br. David Steindl-Rast. His topic? Living a life of gratitude.
Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine brother, cited studies showing the commonality that happy people are most often grateful people. Sure, he says, one would think happy people would be grateful for their happiness. He contends it really goes the other way: Folks who lead a life of gratefulness are most often pretty happy with the the gifts life has given them.
He says that even when one is dealt a hard blow, like loss of a job, or death of a parent or child, one can be grateful for the opportunity to rise to the occasion. Those of us who have buried loved ones know something about that.
The David Steindl-Rast TED link:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful.html
***
For those of you who are aware of my attempts to write a book on Hog Island, be advised that Shannon Wood, a long-time friend, has offered me use of her lake house at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. I’ll be on my own January and February next down there getting my focus tightened and making progress on chapters.
It feels like the time is now to make good progress on The Dressy Adventuress. I’ve tried different approaches to writing in the past with minimal success. Getting away and getting lost in my work seems the best way to go. Wish me luck.
Today’s elder idea: Say what you want to say and let the words fall out — honestly. I want to see you be brave…
Sara Bareillis
‘Brave’
Very cool song…
images: Top: Early November at Wild Grace. JFK: borrowed off internet. Bottom: Thanks, indeed! ;-)
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