me and Bobby Kennedy

by Gregor 17 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  Gregor

  On Tuesday May 28, 1968 I was working at my desk in Santa Barbara, California. The office was less than two blocks from the Santa Barbara courthouse and we were aware that RFK was arriving there for a big campaign rally that afternoon. As a JW I wasn't politically invested in the event but I liked RFK and so I walked out the back door and across the parking lot to Anacapa St. so I could look the block and a half down the street towards the courthouse and see the big crowds gathered there. The street was deserted where I stood. I assumed Kennedy was already down there but a moment later I looked back up the street in the other direction and saw the motorcade approaching very slowly. Bobby and his wife were sitting up on the back seat of a convertible and they had a beautiful golden retreiver with them. As they passed not more than twenty feet from me it was very quiet and he looked straight at me, gave me the big smile and said, "Hi, there!" and I said hi right back to him and his wife smiled. There was no one else around and it felt like a very personal encounter.

  One week later he was assassinated. When I got up that morning and heard the news I cried like a baby. Maybe because I had just seen him in a human moment with his wife and dog it made it sadder for me. From what I have learned about him in the 40 years since I think he would have been very good president. JFK, MLK and RFK, all in such a short period. What a time that was.
• 

  dinah

  Gregor, I was born 10 days after Dr. King was killed. My Mom remembers when JFK died, she said it made most everyone incredibly sad.
• 

  snowbird

  We were working the cotton fields on Mister's plantation - chopping out the weeds in preparation for the late summer and fall picking.

  When we came in for the noon meal, the cook announced that he had died.

  We returned to the fields with broken and heavy hearts. The summer of '68 even seemed hotter than usual,

  Sylvia
• 

  JeffT

  I shook is hand at a rally on the University of Washington campus, at about the same time. I can't remember the date now, but it was within a week or so of his death. I was in high school at the time, but had a note from my parents to get out of school and go see him.

  The day JFK was shot is etched in my brain, I was in 7th grade.

  Martin Luther King was shot on my 17th birthday.

  Sad days, all.
• 

  james_woods

  A little off-topic, but I remember going to the Kingdom Hall for service meeting after JFK was shot in Dallas. I was in the 9th grade in school when the principal came on the speaker and told us - they were not sure whether he was dead or alive. Most of the kids were kind of relieved that the announcement was not over nuclear war. At the Kingdom Hall, everybody was going on and on about how this obviously meant that "we had entered the time of the end".

  Then, by the public talk and Watchtower study on Sunday, Oswald had been shot in the basement of the police station, and this obviously meant that we were "even closer to the end". Great anxiety for the JW crowd.

  About a month or so went by, and everybody kind of forgot about all this being "a sign of the times". Anxiety fading out.

  When RFK was killed, hardly anybody made much of a big deal about it at all.
• 

  hillary_step

  I remember this event well, though I was in the UK and just sixteen. These were exciting times the like of which I have not seen repeated.

  The Kennedy's wove a strange web and the aura of hope that surrounded them was in retrospect completely out of synchronization with the reality. As politicians, they were rather on the incompetent side, even giving people like Jimmy Hoffa the ability to grip them by the short and curlies due to their moral indiscretions. It is impossible to think of one Kennedy without the other as they were almost symbiotic, as can be assessed by RK's political confusion for many months after JK's assassination.

  In the UK he was admired more for taking on Lyndon Johnson than for anything else, though Europe too fell under the 'Camelot" spell. Johnson was probably close to being as disliked in Europe as is Bush today, for the ease with which he ignored the will of the people and threw blood around in gallons in Vietnam without feeling. It is ironic that Johnson's political death was ensured by a flawed policy in Vietnam enacted by John Kennedy rather than political opposition from RKJ.

  However, they cannot be seperated from the time and it was a time of unleashed creativity, hope and of a hunger for an exciting future, and they represented this well. They like the rest of us were learning about life as they ran along, which was quite unique compared to the 'statesman' politcians in their past. Hoffa once described RK as a spoiled brat, which he was, until he deemed fit to see poverty first hand. He was astonished to find the starving, uneducated and backward in his own country. What he saw gave him a voice and a little credibility politically and the media, as ever, made up for the rest by chopping up reality into tiny pieces fit for a largely dumb electorate.

  The US still has its starving, uneducated and backward, but does not seem to have a credible voice for these people these days, despite the fact that Europeans refer to Obama as the 'Black Kennedy'. Times and expectations have change.

  We live in perilous, glorious times, perhaps due to the rapidity in social and technological change that is taking place as we speak. I am however, pleased to have seen the world in black and white rather than computer enhanced. The comparisons are inspiring.

  HS
• 

  Hope4Others

  I remember this event well, though I was in the UK and just sixteen

  Not going to be too hard to figure your age now....

  I remember watching it that day on tv, (1963) I was home with the chicken pox that week I was 6. I told my mom the president was shot she came running to see

  I don't think she thought a 6 year old could really grasp what was happening.

  hope4others
• 

  hillbilly

  I was 4 and half or so when John Kennedy was killed... I was watching TV and told my Mom. I remember watching the funeral ... Mom got the newpapers for those days and I had them put up for years (not sure were they got off to however)

  MLK got shot in '68. ABC broke into the "Flying Nun" to announce it. The family was heading to the Memphis area for spring break about the time the riots broke out in Memphis. My older cousin's National Guard unit called out for that... they were Military Police. His mom and dad were really worried about that... as they were sent with guns but no ammo. Most of the guys bought bullets for their service weapons at the hardware and carried them on the sly while they were in Memphis.

  A few months later... we had a reunion in Lansing MI. Mom drove over to Detroit to pick her brother up at the airport. On the way in we saw a lot of smoke hanging over town.... and you had to drive through a lot of the City back then to get to the old airport.

  Watts riot had started and of course... that carried over to Detroit and many other big cities. We had managed to drive right into the middle of a small war.

  Bobby got killed in June? I remember that from the news too.

  I guess thats why I get so frustrated with todays kids. TV in the 60's covered some stuff you just could not ignore if you were a kid. All that stuff plus a daily dose of Veitnam made an impression on me. Kid's today are worried about Hanna Montana and Sponge Bob......

  Jeff
• 

  JWdaughter

  The only reason I know when RFK was shot was because of Hillary's statement to that effect. I always thought he seemed like a compelling figure. The sadness that our country went through in those years was rather lost on me-most happened before I was even born. (gosh you guys are all so old:) I feel much less awful about being 42 on Fri!)
  
  There have been sad times in our country. I think we have turned some corners-the fact of HRC and Barack Obama being the main ones on the Demo side speaks to that and while I am grateful, it scares me thinking what a setback it would be if something happened to (particularly)Obama. That he is winning says something positive about race relations at the very least. But bad things happen, and while it is somehow culturally/politically horrid for me to admit it, I am terrified that the few that haven't come so far are going to screw it up for the rest of our country and make it very divisive somehow.
  
  You know what I liked about Gregors account? RFK was kind/friendly to a person who was not surrounded by cameras or media. He did it simply ecause (apparently) that was the kind of guy he was. I like that.
• 

  willyloman

  Gregor: Your post brought back memories.

  I was at the courthouse in Santa Barbara that day as well. I had a Kodak point-and-shoot camera with me and got within 10 feet of RFK and snapped several photos. A few days later I sent the film out to be processed. The prints were supposed to be ready to pick up the next week. The day I picked the photos up was the day Bobby was shot. It was surreal, holding those photos in my hand and watching the scene at the Ambassador Hotel that night on television.