I was still an egg. My mom was 13 years old and she remembers where she was when she heard the news. My very Catholic grandparents were devastated at his death. They had a portrait of him in their house that was right up there with the Jesus painting.
I was always struck by this Pogues’ album cover:
And here is the one article on the death of the JFK that I’ve always liked, by Jimmy Breslin. I sometimes wonder if a piece like that wouldn’t feel somehow like a Slate pitch if it was written today.
kindness
The day JFK died. I was in kindergarden. I remember they dismissed school early. All the adults were crying. There weren’t any busses lined up yet so I went over to a friend’s house who lived adjacent to the school. His mom was bawling her eyes out. People said the President was shot but it didn’t register all that much. I was only 5. I went home. My mom was crying and I have no doubt they didn’t vote for Kennedy. What I really remember? For the next week all they had on TV was the funeral. Can’t say how many times I saw the shot of JFK’s son saluting the hearse. And this got looped 24/7 for the next week. And the adults kept crying.
Elizabelle
Corcoran Street in DC. Part of it’s in Dupont Circle Area. It’s where you’ll find the “Soviet Safeway.”
(Unlike the “Social Safeway” in Georgetown.)
lamh36
Well, I’m only 37. So I was like -13 years old when this happened, but in a lot of AA household as well, JFK and his brother were def up there with MLK.
FYI, my first MAJOR job as a Medical Technologist was at the hospital where JFK was taken in Dallas after being shot. I walked some of those halls for almost 6 years. Life is interesting sometimes.
shortstop
@kindness: My mom remembers that they didn’t turn the TV off all weekend. Not once. And my folks are not big TV watchers. But apparently everyone did this; the University of Chicago did a study afterward that found that something staggering, like 80-90 percent of the country, watched TV or listened the radio nonstop for days.
The only thing that even comes close in my experience is the day and evening of 9/11.
beltane
I wonder what $3.01 is in today’s terms.
Elizabelle
The TCM documentary had a tiny shot of Kennedy’s coffin, in place on the brass rails above the grave.
Thinking that would have been an awful moment for Jackie Kennedy. The finality of it.
aimai
I was three. I don’t have any memories of it–you might say it was just the background to our lives in the sense that we knew that Presidents and people like MLK and Bobby Kennedy could and would be killed if they made too much trouble. For me it formed an illusory, symbolic, connection between Civil Rights and Democrats–it was people on my side of the political aisle who got assassinated, not the Republicans. That linkage wasn’t broken, for me, until Reagan got shot and I realized how many, many, crazy people out there will try to kill a celebrity. But, still, I never got the sense that Bush really worried about being killed, or any of his voters worried about him being killed. And I know for a fact that lots of Barack Obama’s voters worried about it–my mother, for one, didn’t think he’d make it through his first term and I actually talked to some AA voters who were afraid to vote for him for fear he’d be assassinated.
NotMax
Repeating from below.
For those around at the time, the sudden shock, the abrupt quenching of the “torch passed to a new generation,” the hush prevalent everywhere for days and days and days will never be forgotten. We all vividly saw the vibrant pink of Jackie’s gore-befouled suit, even though it was b&w TV, a macabre, disturbing splash of color in a world bled gray and dim in an instant.
pat
People remember it because it was on TV all weekend. I had just got my first pair of contact lenses and they bobbed up and down on the tears as I watched.
The casson was the same one that had been used for Lincoln, as I recall. The slow march to Arlington, Jackie walking in her black dress and veil, the funeral, everything was movingly and memorably staged. I think Jackie had a lot to do with how it all was arranged.
There were three TV networks, I think, ABC, NBC, CBS. No Fox, no MSNBC, no internet. Nothing to distract from what was happening live on those three networks.
The assassination was a huge shock, the resulting events were seared into the memory of everyone who was there.
It is almost impossible to imagine how his presidency would have progressed. I think there were discussions about replacing LBJ, because he and RFK hated each other.
kindness
@NotMax: Yea our tv was black and white of course. But my folks got Time, LOOK & LIFE, so between them I got to see the dress was pink. I am more aware of the blood stains now than I was then though. Shows what one pays attention to at that age I guess.
WereBear
If we had any President assassinated in our lifetimes (Heaven forbid! Anyone!) it would be the same way.
It’s in our wiring. A leader, even if you aren’t a fan, connects on a marrow-deep level, and the suddenness of it makes it far, far worse.
If you’ve ever lost someone out of a clear blue sky, as opposed to a lingering illness, you know what I mean.
David in NY
On the “optimism” of the Kennedy years. I was 14 when Kennedy was elected. I can’t say I saw a bunch of difference between him and Nixon (but what did I know?). But once elected he, and the times, really did seem different. The government no longer seemed the province of drab, boring businessmen — as dull as the obnoxious father of your classmate who owned the local car dealership and thought he knew everything. The new people were smart and, unusually, favored learning and the arts (cf. Schlesinger, Bernstein). There were new ideas, at least some — the Peace Corps for example. The smart set actually danced the Twist, not the fox trot. And the Civil Rights movement picked up steam, although like Roosevelt, Kennedy was not always pleased — but although it was 100 years since the Civil War, segregation was still intact, though it became widely unpopular among people who had never much thought about it, and the times really were ‘a changing. The concerns of the ’50’s seemed largely inauthentic — wrung hands over “juvenile deliquency” on one hand and too much “conformity” on the other. Popular music, songs in a 2 minute, 30 second format, written by white people in Midtown Manhattan, sung by groups of young black women, giving way to folk music, then a new rock and roll. Something was really beginning to give in society, and you could feel it.
AJS
@beltane: $22.98
Not bad but a 3 room apartment on Corcoran Street would be out of your price range today.
revrick
I was in 9th grade biology class when the news was announced that he had been shot and then it came over the PA that he had died and school was dismissed and I remember home walking in numb silence. And turning on the TV to hear Walter Cronkite deliver the news on WCBS. The heaviness of that weekend was almost unbearable. I recall going out to toss the football with my buddy, but we soon quit, because our hearts weren’t in it.
David in NY
The assassination. The most unbelieveable moment, Sunday morning, a clamor from the television downstairs, come down, hard to see what was going on, bunch of men moving around. Jack Ruby had shot Lee Harvey Oswald. On TV.
Still can’t get my head around that one, a strange man, armed, just walks up to the most important prisoner in America in the presence of many lawmen and shoots him … I mean, even for Texas that’s unbelievable …
beltane
@AJS: Thank you.
Omnes Omnibus
@David in NY:
I have the impression that Kennedy on civil rights was quite similar to Obama on gay rights. Generally in favor, but cautious and not willing to spend large amounts of his own political capital on it.
mainmati
@lamh36: if you were thirteen then you would be 63 now not 37.
Splitting Image
My mother (Irish Catholic) can’t figure out why she loathes Stephen Harper more than any other political figure in her lifetime. I think it’s because ol’ beady eyes resembles JFK as he would have looked if the pod people had got him.
The picture of JFK on the Pogues cover really plays up the resemblence.
I was born in 1972, so the Kennedys are a bit before my time. My grandfather was a hardcore Kennedy supporter though, especially Robert.
Omnes Omnibus
@David in NY: I’ve read that the people in charge of de Gaulle’s security will not impressed at all by American security measures. De Gaulle survived all the attempts on his life.
Elizabelle
@AJS:
So about a multiplier of 7.
Read (if memory serves) that one gift JFK received on his 44th (or maybe 45th) birthday was access to $5 million, which was half of a trust fund his father had established for him.
$35 million would be a chunk of change.
Elizabelle
@AJS:
So about a multiplier of 7.
Read (if memory serves) that one gift JFK received on his 44th (or maybe 45th) birthday was access to $5 million, which was half of a trust fund his father had established for him.
$35 million would be a chunk of change.
Elizabelle
@AJS:
So about a multiplier of 7.
Read (if memory serves) that one gift JFK received on his 44th (or maybe 45th) birthday was access to $5 million, which was half of a trust fund his father had established for him.
$35 million would be a chunk of change.
Elizabelle
@AJS:
So about a multiplier of 7.
Read (if memory serves) that one gift JFK received on his 44th (or maybe 45th) birthday was access to $5 million, which was half of a trust fund his father had established for him.
$35 million would be a chunk of change.
Elizabelle
@AJS:
So about a multiplier of 7.
Read (if memory serves) that one gift JFK received on his 44th (or maybe 45th) birthday was access to $5 million, which was half of a trust fund his father had established for him.
$35 million would be a chunk of change.
Amir Khalid
@mainmati:
I think she meant that she was minus 13 years.
The Golux
@David in NY: Fifty years ago I was 11, and the memory of that day is as vivid as ever.
As for the optimism of the JFK years, as a commenter mentioned in the previous thread, the similarity to the feeling of Obama’s election is striking. At least with Kennedy, we were able to enjoy it for three years. This time, the Republicans were damned if they were going to let anyone get a moment’s pleasure out of it. I actually think that’s the primary motivation for their obstruction.
Elizabelle
Sorry for the multi-posts. Please adjust them out.
Put this up on previous thread; it’s in moderation.
Item from the Middleburg Museum Foundation:
David in NY
@Omnes Omnibus: I think that’s fair. I think there are tapes of Bobby’s trying to keep a lid on things (that is on the violence) during the Freedom Rides. The FBI and its agents were, by the way, not always on the same page with the administration, which meant things really got out of hand. All that I meant really was that this created great headaches for the Kennedy’s — especially since they were still depending on the New Deal coalition that was in its last years.
Tone in DC
I had to smile at that.
I think these repukes are adamant that NO ONE believe that government can work for the middle, working, and lower classes. Just my two cents.
? Martin
@David in NY:
Sounds about right for Florida, though.
Yatsuno
@Elizabelle: I see FYWP is thinking about breaking down for the weekend early.
Betty Cracker
@David in NY:
I don’t subscribe to any particular conspiracy theory, but Ruby’s murder of Oswald is what keeps me from dismissing the conspiracy angle altogether. That an insignificant little dweeb with delusions of grandeur like Oswald would go gunning for Kennedy makes a sort of sense. Ruby’s act doesn’t.
MikeJ
@Elizabelle:
It sounds like a lot to us mortals, but to today’s rich it’s nothing. Romney is worth north of $400M. Issa is worth over $200M, which is more than twice what Jay Rockefeller, who has a name synonymous with rich, has.
$35 million wouldn’t put him in the Senate top ten richest, and forget how poor he would be compared to private sector rich guys.
Elizabelle
I don’t think the Breslin article sounds like a Slate piece, even if penned today.
Slate has this snarky-insufferable vibe to it.
Breslin’s tone is sincere.
Mike in NC
Today is the day of the year when Republicans remind one another that JFK stole the election from Nixon with the help of Mayor Daley in Chicago.
Chyron HR
If JFK were President today, he would be (shot by) a Tea Partier.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ:
That trust fund was effectively walking around money.
David in NY
@ Cracker:
Me too. Though I’ve really tried to stay away from this thicket.
Elizabelle
@MikeJ:
I was thinking that $35 million would not keep Jackie Kennedy in style long. They had an elegant but elite lifestyle.
David in NY
@Mike in NC: My understanding is that the real reason Nixon didn’t challenge those results was that he knew he couldn’t win. And given Watergate, is his story believable, that he refrained from making the challenge for the good of the country? Sheesh.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Betty Cracker:
I was a High School sophomore when Kennedy was assassinated. The conspiracy theories that have flourished since his death were, I think, fed in part by the fact that people found it impossible to believe that the president of the most powerful nation in the world could be killed by one crazy person using a cheap, war-surplus rifle. I’m not certain that there wasn’t some deep conspiracy. I’m also not certain that there was.
NotMax
@David in NY
More germane was the sure knowledge that if the Nixon campaign made serious challenge to Democratic shenanigans in Chicago, the Kennedy campaign would trot out documentation of Republican operations in downstate Illinois.
David in NY
@NotMax: Yes, forgot that.
Omnes Omnibus
@David in NY: Kennedy would have won without Illinois. The cheating allegations were more that Daley in Chicago and LBJ in Texas did stuff. If Nixon won both IL and TX, it would have flipped the result.
Betty Cracker
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): The lone nut scenario is totally believable to me, maybe because I grew up in the post-Kennedy era, when political assassinations and spree killing seemed fairly commonplace. But the double lone nut theory is a bit harder to swallow. Still, if I had to pick a position (conspiracy or not?), I guess I’d go with not. The world is filled with crazy people.
kindness
@Elizabelle: Uhhh Jackie Kennedy Onasis maybe had something to do with it maybe?
Keith G
@kindness: We are the same age and seem to have shared the same experiences.
I admire what JFK’s marketing says he stood for. Maybe he did in actuality. It did help to herd me toward a career in public service after my degree in poli sci, but I have been over the commemoration industry for quite some time. In short, I just don’t give a shit and have tried very hard not to be exposed to this topic all week.
Here and now is what concerns me. We have some amazingly important fights ahead against a committed and dangerous foe (all the more so since yesterday’s news) that may not be as existentially problematic as what JFK faced, but maybe just as significant in the long term.
Betty Cracker
@Chyron HR: Some idiot over at NRO or some other wingnut welfare outlet had an entire article earlier this week devoted to refuting that idea. Byron York maybe? Someone like that. Anyway, he took great umbrage at the idea. But until now, I hadn’t heard anyone actually express it.
Mark B.
Thanks for that Breslin piece. I used to get the Daily News in the 80s and I would always enjoy his writing. He was just damn good, knew how to let a story tell itself.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Tain’t necessarily so.
IL had 27 electoral votes, Texas 24.
Actual electoral total was Kennedy: 303, Nixon: 219, Byrd: 15
Had IL and TX flipped, of the 15 electors who voted for Byrd w(ho were nearly all unpledged Ds, some likely would have held their noses and gone to JFK) and there would have been no one who achieved the majority needed, throwing the election into the House.
Also too, the margin of JFK’s win in TX was 2%, which is not a small bloc to move the other way without unassailable evident underhandedness.
Turgidson
@WereBear:
I take no joy in saying this, but I think it’s almost certain that a non-negligible amount of people in this country would unabashedly celebrate if Obama was gunned down. I’d estimate 27% of the 27%, or thereabouts. And the rest of the 27% would be happy, but too ashamed to celebrate.
I wish I didn’t believe this, but after watching the way they’ve treated him since summer 2008, I can’t come to any other conclusion.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Fair enough. And I would guess that the difference in TX made it not worth pursuing and thus IL was not worth pursuing.
Draylon Hogg
God bless the amphetamine injecting, Monroe shagging, serial philandering, Bay of Pigs invading hero whose bent, Nazi loving Daddy bought him the Presidency. God bless all aristocrats.
Mark B.
@Betty Cracker: According to people who knew Ruby, his shooting of Oswald was totally in character for him. NBC Reporter Tom Pettit, I believe it was, was recounting stories about how Ruby was kind of a police and press groupie well before the assassination and was well known to both reporters and cops. Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t a conspiracy, but I don’t think that Ruby’s actions are proof or indication of one.
Violet
Clicked on Google News and saw this headline:
Seriously? This is news how?
MikeJ
@Mike in NC:
Don’t forget that just as many ballot boxes were stuffed in southern Illinois, but all those ballots said “Nixon”.
shortstop
@David in NY: Yes, there were rumored irregularities downstate that Nixon’s people didn’t necessarily want to come to light. Other states, too, if I recall.
The idea that Nixon would pass up a chance to wail about his own victimhood beggars belief.
Betty Cracker
@Violet: Does Chris Matthews ever NOT bask in the borrowed light Camelot? The day he DOESN’T deserves a news slug…
shortstop
@MikeJ: Jinx.
NotMax
@Violet
Um, because Matthews reflecting on something* rather than resorting to knee-jerk cliched bloviation and insipid sound bite shorthand is the punditocracy equivalent of man bites dog?
/overreach
*Not that I believe for a nanosecond that’s what he’ll be doing.
shortstop
@Mark B.: I have no dog in the conspiracy theory fight, but Ruby’s mob connections give one pause. Particularly his conversations with Carlos “Cut off the head of the dog, not the tail” Marcello in November 1963.
As I said in the previous thread, people today seem to mostly be arguing that because Oswald was the only shooter (he was, we know now), there couldn’t have been others involved behind the scenes. There are conspiracies and there are conspiracies. ;)
Steeplejack
@shortstop:
How do we now know that Oswald was the only shooter? I haven’t kept up with the assassination research
Mike in NC
@Violet: The odious Tom Brokaw has a special on NBC tonight about JFK. Brokaw has become as bad as Limbaugh lately. Rich bastard admonishing the pond scum that they need to give up their undeserved “entitlements”.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jebediah, RBG
@aimai:
I’m still afraid of that – more and more, actually, as the GOP parade of failures continues.
LanceThruster
@Betty Cracker:
What’s ‘magic’ about the magic bullet was that it was in pristine condition on Connelly’s gurney. Lead does not hit that much hard bone (or anything) and *not* deform.
MikeJ
@Mike in NC:
But BBC has An Adventure in Space and Time about a trio of misfits who create a sci-fi TV show called Doctor Who.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Well, can someone point me to a book or something that possibly summarizes the current state of research and debunks the various conspiracy theories?
NotMax
Ike presser on the assassination.
Different times, when forthrightly saying “I don’t know” was acceptable.
Mark B.
@MikeJ: I’m DVRing the Dr. Who movie because I have to be out tonight, but I’ll watch it in the morning before the new episode airs. No interest in the Brokaw bloviation.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History is a fine, albeit lengthy, analysis.
kindness
@Keith G: I think of JFK as noble too. I was too young to know what he did during his short presidency but from the view of a kid growing up into their own in the 60s/70s, JFK had an air to him. Probably because he was cut down so soon. Probably because the press loved the whole Camelot thing. I was at LGM earlier today and one of the principles just shredded him. I couldn’t say he was wrong because I don’t really know but I did say it was a graceless thing to do on this of all days. Hope I don’t find myself booted from the commentors over there.
Thank you for your public service. Me, I ended up in healthcare.
lamh36
deleted…duplicate
gbear
@Steeplejack: Here’s an interview with a guy who recently wrote a book about the JFK assassinaton theories. The interview was pretty damning of the FBI and Attorney General’s office (Bobby Kennedy was the AG) and the Warren Commission’s leader. The writer’s take is that the botched investigation lead to most of the conspiracy theories.
lamh36
@mainmati: Late comment, but “- 13″…i.e. “MINUS 13”. I am aware how old I am. and can perform simple addition and subtraction.
Betty Cracker
@LanceThruster: I’ve read utterly convincing accounts to that effect and equally convincing accounts that debunk the Magic Bullet as proof of a cover-up. I just don’t know what to believe, along with millions of others.
Cacti
The stunning, tragic event of my own generation was the 9/11 attacks.
It’s depressing to look back and see that where LBJ used Kennedy’s death as the catalyst for a raft of positive national policies, 9/11 took everything in the dark, nasty direction of needless war and torture.
It makes a big difference as to who’s in charge in times of national crisis.
Shortstop
@LanceThruster: Interesting NOVA episode last week in which forensics weapons guys simulated the shooting in great detail using the unusual Italian gun Oswald had. These dudes used high-tech simulations of flesh and bone (plus, separately, three feet of solid wood), recreated the angles and Kennedy/Connolly wounds exactly…and the bullets were pristine afterward.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@NotMax:
Evidence will never reach the conspiracy theorists though, because they have the ultimate refutation: Folk Physics!
The Moon Landing conspiracists have innumerable misunderstandings to work with, the “TWA 800 was shot down by a missile” people are unaware that light travels faster than sound, and the JFK assassination nuts expect his head to jerk the same way the bullet was moving instead of the thrust of exploding brains and skull from the exit wound moving it the other way.
I’ve tried explaining physics to many of these people, and take it from me, it’s a mug’s game.
ETA: Not implying Steeplejack is one of them.
Mike E
@Shortstop: This, and the TLC(?) docu I watched where they aligned the forensic environment to its proper 11/22/63 configuration and matched Oswald’s 3-shot trajectories. I, too, was quite dubious of the Warren Report’s plutocratic shitshow, but the physics cleared it up for me nicely.
LanceThruster
@Betty Cracker: @Shortstop:
I vaguely remember seeing that. I liked Vincent Bugliosi’s take on the stolen 2000 election but felt his JFK book was not as strong.
I understand the reluctance to buy into any particular scenario, but sad to say, I feel the Warren Commission failed to properly investigate (which is my same view re: the 9/11 Commission).
I’m not so much taking the stance that everyone who doesn’t agree with me is wrong, just that my inclination leans the other direction.
I like the writings of Len Hart in this regard, and my trial attorney friend Bernie the Attorney.
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2011/02/who-murdered-jfk-and-why.html
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
Breslin made me cry. I really thought 50 years was enough room to be detached, a little.
But his description of Jackie walking, holding her head high, and the grave digger being proud to have helped a little.
I helped dig the grave for a friend’s son who died unexpectedly in the middle of his freshman year in college. It was a cold April, and it took several days because of the ridge-top bedrock.
I never thought any of this 50 years ago stuff would make me cry again, but there it is. Thanks, whoever posted the link to the Breslin piece – a masterwork.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
But as far as conspiracy theories go:
Oswald was the only shooter, that’s undeniable. If Lloyd Ruby hadn’t shot him, I would accept that that was all there was to it. Ruby’s act is all the proof I need that JFK’s assassination was a mob hit. Oh, I’m sure they convinced Oswald he was acting for the Cubans.
Shortstop
@Mike E: As the people who’ve looked at it from the perspective of science like to say, the commission reached the right conclusion for the wrong reasons! That doesn’t rule out non-shooting involvement by others, which is of course a lot harder to prove or disprove.
SiubhanDuinne
The night before, I had attended a Tattoo featuring the Black Watch (I’ve always had an abnormal affection for pipes-and-drums). I didn’t realize it at the time, but they had come to Atlanta I think directly from Washington DC where they had performed for President and Mrs. Kennedy. (They went back to DC to play sad bagpipe music at JFK’s funeral.) After the performance, my then-fiancé accidentally slammed my right hand in the car door, and it was a serious and painful enough injury that he took me to the ER so they could Xray it. Nothing broken, but it would have been impossible to go to my secretarial job the next day, as I couldn’t type. So I took a sick day on Friday the 22nd and met Ken at a downtown jeweler so we could finalize the orders for our wedding rings.
As I was having the ring sized on my (mercifully uninjured) left hand, someone came running in from Peachtree Street to announce that the President had been shot. We quickly finished our business at Maier & Berkele, and went across the street to a convention hotel where they had a TV on in the lobby. Can’t remember the drive home, but I know I kept my own primitive b/w TV on pretty much nonstop for the next four days. I very clearly remember seeing LHO murdered on live television on the Sunday morning. And the images of the funeral are seared into my brain.
LanceThruster
I also like Paul Craig Roberts —
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Kennedy-Assassination-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-Assassination_CIA_Evidence_Gullibility-131122-855.html
SiubhanDuinne
@WereBear:
You are absolutely right. I was horrified at the attempts on the lives of Ford and Reagan, even thou I couldn’t have been more opposed to them politically. If someone had tried to take out Bush (either one), my reaction would have been the same.
And there is always, like a low-frequency appliance hum in the background, a fear that it might happen again. And I cannot bear to think of that.
J R in WV
And Ruby. He knew he had terminal cancer, and was friends with all the cops, as he ran a nightclub. I know about the undeformed bullet, if it was steel jacketed, it would not deform. I think that Italilan rifle was military surplus, in which case its ammo would be steel jacketed.
But Jack Ruby’s deciding to take Oswald out on his own… no way. He was a small time c,lub owner, with no history of interest in politics, not Catholic at all.
That is where I choke on the lone wolf assassin theory. Ruby wasn’t a lone wolf. Neither was Lee Harvey Oswald.
SiubhanDuinne
@mainmati:
@Amir Khalid:
We’re not doing negative numbers until next semester
Glocksman
@J R in WV:
Oswald’s ammo was postwar manufacture copper jacketed, not steel.
Somewhat ironically, the ammo was manufactured in the USA by Western Cartridge and sent to Italy as military aid in the late 1940’s.
SiubhanDuinne
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set):
This.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
I was trying to find a quote from JFK to the effect that Jackie would have to wear mink underwear to cost whatever much money the Kennedys were accused of spending on her wardrobe.
So I googled “mink underwear” and boy am I sorry.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Reminds me of the time I was looking for a reference to an old Doris Day-Rex Harrison movie and googled “Midnight Lace.” I’m still blushing.
SiubhanDuinne
@Draylon Hogg:
Fuck you very hard. Keep that shit for another time. Or never. How about never, does that work for you?
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike in NC:
I can’t stand to hear his voice any longer. I sometime listen to MSNBC on SiriusXM, but whenever somebody brings the Brokaw, I quickly flip to another channel.
drkrick
@Elizabelle: The funny thing is that most if not all of those establishments are still operating in Middleburg. Some things don’t change out in horse country.
drkrick
@Cacti:
A very apt observation. Never thought of it that way before.
TS
@Violet:
The MAJOR problem with the media today – they do not report the news – they are the news. The concentration on the “reporting” of the death of President Kennedy – rather than the death of the President over the past week – explains it all.
CaseyL
I used to be into the JFK conspiracy theories – oh, ages and ages ago. Decades ago.
As time went on, and more evidence came out, the conspirators had to keep retrofitting their theories, until they depended an awful lot on fortuitous coincidences, an ever-expanding cast of conspirators, and straining-at-gnat explanations.
Plus, I don’t see how a conspiracy that big could stay unrevealed for so many years if so many people were involved.
I think people want to believe there was a conspiracy, because it makes the assassination more grandiose and inevitable – “Everyone wanted him dead!” – instead of the more likely truth, an idiot with a grudge and a gun got lucky.
Jackie
I was 8 yrs old when President Kennedy was assassinated. Only 2 months earlier he was at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation to dedicate the start of the N Reactor. I was there – and I only remember that, because it was hotter than hell and my dad’s car’s radiator boiled over so we were late and once we got there – this was out in the middle of the desert – all I could see was a sea of adult butts in front of me. That’s the view from an 8 yr old. Then 2 months later I was in class – 3rd grade – and the initial announcement over the PA system was President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Approx an hour later it was announced President Kennedy had died. School was dismissed. My sisters and I walked home and walked into a house full of sobbing adults. I also remember that Thanksgiving watching the procession of President Kennedy’s casket – drawn by horses. It was the 1st Thanksgiving dinner I really remember because of that. All the relatives sitting at the table watching the procession on TV and it being very somber and creepy.