JFK - The Fiftieth Anniversary

As we all know, tomorrow, November 22, 2013, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and if you were old enough then to carry a memory of the event with you to this day, it remains one of the seminal events of your lifetime.

My story is not much different or more extraordinary than any of yours.  I was in seventh grade at St. Philomena School.  The school secretary came into the classroom to tell us that the President had been shot and was not expected to live.  I also remember that our teacher, Sister Theodore, would not allow us to turn on the classroom TV set until the all-important weekly spelling test had been administered. Then the TV set was turned on, the class watched, and I believe, but am not absolutely certain, that school was dismissed early.

Then it was sitting in front of the TV set  at home for the next four days. The arrival of Air Force One from Dallas, the lying in state at the Capital Building, the Oswald shooting, and the funeral in Washington and the burial at Arlington.

I also remember that that weekend was the first time I ever saw my Dad cry.

******

Yesterday, I read a book called "The Torch Is Passed".  This was a special commemorative book published by the Associated Press and released shortly after the Assassination.  I can recall this book being offered for sale by the Post-Gazette via mail order and sending in my very own money - $3.00 - for a copy.  It was filled with pictures of the four days, and written by staff writers of the AP.  Over the years, the book got lost or thrown out, but I found a copy of it a few years ago at a used book sale, and I pulled it out again this week to re-read it.

With perspective of fifty years of history, it is interesting to read an account of the event that was written at the time it occurred.  A couple of things struck me.

Foremost among them was the way that Jacqueline Kennedy acted in the face of losing her husband in such a sudden, violent, and very public way.  She truly was extraordinary during those four days. 

And she was only 34 years old.

It also was interesting reading something that was written before the Warren Commission Report.  Before Conspiracy Theories that claim to state What Really Happened became a cottage industry that continues to this day, and will no doubt continue forever.  The AP did do a great job in capturing Lee Harvey Oswald. For example:

"Lee Oswald's fourth grade teacher says 'He wasn't for anything. He wasn't against anything. He just wasn't anything.' "

The mystery of WHY Oswald did what he did will never be solved, and anyone with a keyboard and a modicum of imagination can spin out a semi-plausible conspiracy theory.  They have been doing it for fifty years now, but it must be noted that none of these theories, not a single one of them, has ever been proven to be true.  Of course, Conspiracy Theorists would no doubt respond to that statement by saying, "well, that's just what THEY (whoever they are) want you to think!"

Tomorrow, Turner Classic Movies are showing a number of movies about JFK's campaigns, his Presidency, and his death.  One that I will be watching will be the 1964 documentary called "Four Days in November" which, as the name says, documents those four stunning days.

And if you want to read more on those four days, I suggest the following by Dallas reporter Hugh Aynesworth:

I read this book myself earlier this month and it is excellent.  It describes the reporting done by Mr. Aynesworth at the time,  and it also puts to rest all of the conspiracy theories. 

As for Jack Kennedy, history has proven that he was not the saint that many thought he was at the time of his death, and his legacy is still being debated and discussed by historians.  I am no historian, but my own thought is that whatever else his Administration did or did not accomplish, or did not have the time to accomplish, Kennedy earned his stripes and his place in history for stewarding this country during the thirteen day Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962.

RIP President Kennedy, and Mrs. Kennedy.

Recent Books and Movies

Time to catch up on some recently read books and recently viewed movies.

First in the store will be Gillian Flynn's first novel, "Sharp Objects".  Ms. Flynn is the author of the amazingly successful best seller, "Gone Girl", which was her third novel and which I liked but found the characters to be remarkably unlikable.  I thought I would try "Sharp Objects", and guess what?  All the characters in this one were pretty much unlikable, too.  The story is about a young female reporter who returns to her small hometown in Missouri to report on a couple of murders of young girls in the town.  It is a good mystery, well written but, as I said, you can't really root for anybody in this one.  This won't stop me from reading Flynn's second novel, "Dark Places", but I'm going to wait a while before I do.  I mean, reading about the people about whom she writes kind of takes a lot out of you.

Next up is John Sandford's latest Virgil Flowers story, "Storm Front".

This one involves the theft of an archaeological relic from a dig in Israel.  The stone, and the guy who stole it, winds up in Minnesota, and Virgil has to recover the item and return it to the Israeli curator who has traveled to Minnesota to get it.  There is less violence in this one than usual in a Sandford story, and this one, in my opinion does not live up to the usual standards of a Virgil Flowers case.  Virgil is still a great character, and the dialog, as usual, is terrific, so if you are a fan, you need to read it.  However, if you are just going to dive in and "meet" Virgil Flowers and John Sandford, you need to start with earlier stories in the series.

A chance run through the TV remote last weekend landed me on C-SPAN's Book TV where I discovered a panel discussion about the JFK assassination, which led me to get this book:

Aynesworth is a Dallas newspaper reported/columnist who found himself in Dealey Plaza that November 22 morning fifty years ago.  He did some of the very first reporting on those events, and he has found himself pretty much wrapped up in this story ever since.  This book tells about the reporting that he did covering the shooting of the President, the shooting of police officer J.D. Tippett, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, his meetings with people like Ruby, Margueritte Oswald, Marina Oswald, and various cops, FBI agents, and others who were a part of that story.  Aynesworth also, for better or worse, has found himself tracking down every oddball conspiracy story that has emerged over these past fifty years.  (It started, believe it or not, when some nut showed up at Aynesworth's home on the very evening of 11/22/63 claiming he had evidence of a conspiracy to kill the President.)

If you are a conspiracy buff, this book will disappoint you, as Aynesworth tells you that he has never found anything that purports to show anything other than what the Warren Commission reported - that lone gunman / total loser Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed President Kennedy.  And he pretty much lays waste to New Orleans District Attorney  Jim Garrison and his theories, which were made more famous by Oliver Stone's "JFK" movie.  

I'm in Aynesworth's camp on this one.

As to movies, we took in two this past week, "Last Vegas" and "Gravity".  The silly one first.

Lifelong boyhood pals Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline, known as the "Flatbush Four" get together for a weekend in Las Vegas to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Douglas, who just got engaged to a woman half his age.  Old friendships never die, despite some resentments, is the theme of this one.  While the four stars can claim six Oscars among them, this is no Oscar winner, but it's always fun to watch four great actors do their thing, and the movie was funny and enjoyable to watch.  A good time!

We also took in box office and critical smash, "Gravity". 

I will start by saying that this movie is visually beautiful, almost stunning, with its views of Earth from outer space.  It will probably win a boatload of awards for design and cinematography.  It was also tension filled and gripping as you watched to see just what was going to happen. When it was all over, though, we both found ourselves saying, "wasn't much of a story".  I suspect that we will be outliers with this point of view, but before you push back at me, let me offer this juxtaposition.

In the car on the way home, I said that as really gripping space stories go, Ron Howard's 1995 movie "Apollo 13" was better than this one, and I made a mental note to pull out the DVD and watch it again soon.  Then, as fate would have it, the performance of the Pitt Panthers at Georgia Tech last night caused me to reach for the TV remote, and guess what was on one of HBO's sub-channels?  You guessed it:

Don't get me wrong, "Gravity" is worth seeing, if only for the technical wizardry that produced it, so go see it.  But "Apollo 13" will give you a better ride.

One man's opinion.