The following, from a true patriot
Terry O'Connor Mahoney
author, Midlife Musings;
a woman who feels !
>Midlife Musings #11221963 - Kennedy<
A week ago last Monday, I went in for my semi-annual, get – it – done – really – good – by – a - professional, hair coloring (I bet you thought I was going to say something like mammogram or colonoscopy didn’t you?) My stylist had a new assistant observing that day, a young woman, named Kaitlin. She was an eager conversant as we waited for my hair to process (a time when I usually zone out with a magazine) and Kaitlin threaded the dialog toward what kind of music I liked, to which my answer is typically coffee house type of music, intimate, personal and, of course, late 60’s, early 70’s rock. She confessed to being a fan also and that she was lately listening to the “Grassroots”, the very mention of which resulted in me starting to sing the chorus to their signature song: “Sha na na-na-na-na, Live for today…” Katilin joined right in, knowing the words and melody. Wow! - A really refreshing blast from the past – “Live for Today” being probably one of my top ten favorite songs from those years. I was impressed; I mean it certainly demonstrated to me that Kaitlin was in command of more than just a cursory familiarity with some classic rock. Her Dad, she explained (same age as me, turns out), taught her all about the music from that time and, looking at her, she could easily have been lifted right out of 1967 – a little snippet of a thing in a simple black smocked mini-dress, hair braided back with an elastic headband worn across her forehead. We traversed the conversational byways of books and movies, eventually arriving at politics, the recent election, the pride, excitement and hope we were each experiencing. She had voted in her first presidential election. I pointed to the Obama campaign buttons prominently displayed on my purse, one of which portrayed the heads of Obama and John F. Kennedy side by side with the slogan “and the torch is passed.” “Cool”, she said and that her father had talked to her about JFK a little bit and she had seen the Oliver Stone movie. I asked if she had ever seen “Thirteen Days”, about the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Kennedy presidency; she hadn’t; I encouraged her to do so and told her that I intended rent it myself and watch it again to mark the 45th anniversary of the assassination on November 22nd. By now my hair had finished processing and we had moved to the back of the salon and with my head tilted back in the rinsing bowl, I began to try to describe the mark of the wound for my generation left by the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy all in a five year span and had to cover my face with my hands, embarrassed to be overcome by emotion and crying. “It was like ‘They’ wiped out all our hope,” I blubbered “We had nothing left.”
Reflecting on that whole scenario later in the day, I flashbacked about 8 or 9 nines years, once again during a time near the anniversary of JFK’s assassination when , I must have been saying some similar things and my boss at the time, who is nearly a decade younger than I exclaiming to me:
“What is it with people your age and the Kennedy’s? What about all the womanizing and cheating and stuff? Doesn’t that bother you?”
I tried to explain the profound sense of loss to my generation, and to give voice to exactly what it was that was lost to us. I tried to describe the inspiration and intelligence of his speeches. I told him how, even to this day, I cannot watch the footage of JFK’s inaugural address or that day in Dallas without crying. The other stuff wasn’t even on the horizon back then and learning about it all these years later is just a footnote. My boss just kind of shook his head, not really getting it. Recalling that exchange today, it occurs to me that those born at the tail end of the baby boom and everyone since then, have known only mediocre leadership at the highest levels, they’ve never experienced a true “call to action”, a brilliancy in oratory and vision. No wonder there is all this nostalgia about Ronald Reagan; no wonder the horrible ineptitude of George W. Bush can be experienced with a shrug.
I remembered when “Thirteen Days” was released in 2000, reading a review of it in which, at the end of it, the reviewer admonished the then president-elect George W. Bush to watch the movie and try to learn what it means to be truly presidential. Oh, would that he had.
Re-watching the movie last Saturday night, as planned, I was completely captivated. It is a stellar piece of work, an engaging, edge-of-the seat, quiet thriller. I was struck more than ever by the extreme youth of the two men at the eye of the storm: Bobby, just weeks shy of 37 and Jack only 45. I was struck also by some of the parallels between the days leading to the resolution of the missile crisis of 1962 and the days of strident march to the Iraq War in our recent history. One focused on aligning every possible scenario to avert a war, the other on every possible scenario to create one. One dedicated to finding the truth to support the withholding of action, the other dedicated to finding a sliver of truth to support a falsehood in order to justify taking action. The contrasting results with the same scenarios at play- the pressures for a military response, garnering the support of the international community, presentation of the intelligence, standing up or standing down, the question of what will be the perception of the United States if we were to invade and obliterate a small country, the impetus on the part of some to finish a job they perceived as having been previously left undone. And, in the case of the earlier crisis, in the midst of the impassioned debate, stand Jack and Bobby, statesmen extraordinaire, with absolute and implicit trust in each other’s intellect, motives and capabilities, with pensive eye toward the very future of humanity, carefully taking measured, determined steps toward the most humane possible outcome. It was a singular performance, both in the movie and in real life. I couldn’t help but wonder what if such careful response and execution had been in place seven years ago?
There are a couple of things I would like to say to wrap this up. My daughter, Katie’s honest critique of my writing is that I often switch moods and end abruptly. So this is my attempt to soften and ease with a less abrupt segue, to what were to be my original parting thoughts. The fact is that I watched the movie a second time before returning it and while I am overjoyed and relieved that we have finally (and still in my lifetime) elected a president who speaks to us as though we are capable of critical thinking and who clearly has the intellect and education to employ elite thought (and that is not the same as being an “elitist”), the contrast between what a leader of the free world will be called upon to do and the meager mentality of vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, horrified me all over again. On some level, I was waiting for John McCain to say: “But seriously, folks…” I find myself thinking now, that much like the aforementioned movie reviewer suggested to George Dubya, that John McCain and Sarah Palin would do well to take the time to watch “Thirteen Days” and see if they might learn what it looks like to be presidential.
And lastly here, going back to my day at the salon, I would like everyone to know that before I departed, I bequeathed to Kaitlin, the little assistant who knew about the “Grassroots” and a seeming child of the new age, my Obama/Kennedy button and she appeared to be genuinely touched and grateful as she received it. And finally and lastly, I would like everyone to know that right after I finished the final draft of this piece except for this very sentence, I downloaded “Lets Live for Today” by The Grassroots from itunes and have it on my playlist.
How did I do, my dear daughter, Katie?
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