Standing on the Grassy Knoll

This past weekend, I did something that has been on my bucket list since November 22nd, 1963: I stood on the grassy knoll.

The Grassy Knoll

Ostensibly, I went to Dallas, Texas for the wedding of a kid I've known since birth. His mom and I have been through all manner of life events over the years, and when she said her first-born was getting married in Dallas, there was no hesitation that would I be going to Dallas. And the first thing I did after checking into The Magnolia was to walk the short distance to the spot burned into my 6th-grade brain. Like any other sentient American, I can still see the pink pillbox hat, the President's hands reaching up to clutch his neck, the blood-spattered pink suit...and everything that came after that. I can tell you my teacher, Mrs. Keren, was wearing a burnt orange suit that day, and after she answered the class phone, she ran out the door, skidded, stopped, took her shoes off, and ran down the hall in her stocking feet, shoes in in hand, and there, in the classroom, with a look of puzzlement on her face, our Spanish teacher continued the lesson. Then the loudspeaker came on. And our principal, Mr. Young,  told us our handsome, noble President was dead. 

I was eleven, a most dramatic age, and for me, there was a disturbance in the Force that would forever ripple though my life. Eleven-year-old me believed in the myth of Camelot and the beautiful First Family, and the elegant perfections of the First Lady. As I practiced duck'n'cover around the time of the Cuban missile crisis, I believed with my whole heart and soul that gallant JFK would somehow save us all. 

Of course, I'm older, and years of reading history has taught me a number of different lessons about JFK, but he will always be the handsome, noble, leader with his handsome noble family. But that's neither here nor there. Reality always lurks around the corner.

When Russia meddled in Cuba, it was with physical missiles meant to intimidate the US into some sort of military action. It almost worked, and might have, given the right circumstances. The Bay of Pigs was a fiasco of the first order, but it's what JFK said in a State Department press conference on April 21st, 1961, that bears highlighting:

Well, I think in answer to your question that we have to make a judgment as to how much we can usefully say that would aid the interest of the United States. One of the problems of a free society, a problem not met by a dictatorship, is this problem of information. A good deal has been printed in the paper. I wouldn't be surprised if those of you who are members of the press would be receiving a lot of background briefings in the next day or two by interested people or interested agencies. 

There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan, and I wouldn't be surprised if information is poured into you in regard to all the recent activities. 

Now, I think we see some of the problems, to move from this particular case, in the problem of Space, where the Soviet Union -- no reports were made in regard to any experiments that they carried out. "Our man in space" -- I saw in a national magazine about some student said the Americans talk a good deal about their man in space. The Soviet Union says nothing and yet it wins. Well, that is one of the problems of a democracy competing and carrying on a struggle for survival against a dictatorship. 

But I will say to you, Mr. Vanocur, that I have said as much as I feel can be usefully said, by me, in regard to the events of the past few days. Further statements, detailed discussions, are not to conceal responsibility because I am the responsible officer of the government, and that is quite obvious, but merely because I do not believe that such a discussion would benefit us during the present difficult situation. I think you will be informed and some of the information, based on what I have seen, will not be accurate.

Can you imagine a statement of that depth and honesty coming from today's White House?

I am the responsible officer of the government. The enormity of that statement wraps itself around my reasons for wanting to believe in an honorable POTUS. Sure, lots of terrible information about Bay of Pigs followed, but President Kennedy never waver in his acceptance of total responsibility for the failure. He was the Commander-in-Chief and this happened on his watch. 'Nuff said.

On Saturday morning, I was able to visit the Texas Book Depository 6th Floor Museum. 

I cannot begin to describe my inability to breathe when I stood at the shooter's nest and saw the place where Lee Harvey Oswald took aim and shattered a piece of America. It's a small space, and the boxes have been carefully placed according to the photographs taken that day. To stand there is to more than imagine how he must've  narrowed his eyes to take aim before pulling the trigger. You do hold your breath when you approach; it is a sacred place because history happened there. It is palpable at best. Bone chilling at worst. It is hard to breathe because you know what happened and here you stand long past the moment when you could've done something to stop it. You are compelled to reach out, but you don't because the real moment said that it's a useless gesture.

And then you look out the window beside it, and you see two X's on Elm Street; X's that mark two spots. They are painted, so innocuous, so inauspicious when instead those marks should look like the great, gaping bomb-craters they are in American history. You look down at them from above, with cars driving right over them as though nothing ever happened there even though you know it did. But life, like the cars, goes on. 

I also understand that there are a whole lotta people who weren't around when JFK was assassinated, and don't have that same visceral memory many of us old folks have for that day, that moment. I get it. Soon enough it will be history only in books and no one will ever remember or care that Mrs. Keren ran down the hall in stockinged feet. Why would they? That's my memory and it has nothing to do with the loss of Camelot...even if it does for  me. It was a visceral reaction, one totally out of character for my teacher. That's why I remember it so vividly. It could not possibly have been real.

Zapruder's pedestal

Last Friday, as I stood with my hand on the pedestal upon which Abe Zapruder stood to get a better view, I didn't need a film clip to remind me. I could see it all unfolding on Elm Street in front of my eyes. I saw the President's  hands reach up. I saw the president's head explode. I saw Clint Hill running toward the car. I saw Jackie in her blood-spattered pink suit climbing onto the trunk. Standing there, at that spot, it was all vivid, real, and terrifying. 

I walked the edges of the grassy knoll looking down, just in case I saw a shell casing sticking up from the dirt.  Maybe there really was a second gunman on the knoll. Someone must know something that we don't know yet. Like I said....just in case. 

My eleven-year-old self longs for the simplicity of believing in noble presidents and elegance in the White House. That little girl desperately wants to believe that the family who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is full of honor and light and dignity and elegance. I want the cross-section of America to be welcome at that address. Whoever sits behind that desk has an august responsibility to We, the People, to behave with dignity and honor as befitting the high office that he or she occupies. 

Mrs. Keren is wearing the suit with the bow.
And yes, I am in the picture. 

See all those faces in that picture to the right? That's my 6th grade class. We were all in that classroom when Mrs. Keren ran out. We all heard the announcement.  We were all silent and scared. How could this happen here? In America? Now, we are all grown up. Most of us are still alive. I am sure we all still remember that afternoon as clearly as I do.

Should you ever find yourself in Dallas, Texas, visit the 6th Floor Museum at the Texas School Book Depository. It is exceedingly well done and well worth the visit. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

A great woman has shuffled off this mortal coil to become a star in space.

May the memory of 

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson,

hidden no more, 

forever be for a blessing 

for girls who want to reach for the stars and then some.

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson

1918 - 2020