50 Years After JFK

I'm old enough to remember that fateful day in November of 1963, and how well I remember it. I was 8 years old. It was announced in school that the president has died, and we were all sent home for the day. On my way home I saw grown-ups in tears, which, for a little boy, carried quite an impact. That impact I still feel today whenever I think about Kennedy, and the tremendous influence he has had on our nation.

Billy Graham on TV was telling us not to vote for Kennedy because he's a Catholic, and America should always be run by Protestants of English descent. I have hated him ever since. Many great and wonderful people have died since then. Why is Graham still here?

I still have trouble believing that Kennedy won against Nixon by one of the narrowest margins in history. I always thought the choice was obvious.
I still have trouble believing Nixon was Eisenhower's VP.

In my eyes, there has never been a greater American president during the 20th Century, and I continue to think about what America would be like today had JFK lived out his second term. We can only speculate, of course, but I still wonder how much further we may have progressed in the direction he was leading us.

Five years later, his brother Bobby and Dr. King met the same fate, cut down by an assassin's bullet, which made me worry about the direction we had taken since then. I am very proud of the way my generation had responded to it.

We may never be able to prove the conspiracy theory about the assassination, but if you ask me, it's a whole lot more credible than the theory that Oswald acted alone.

"Don't let it be forgot
that once there was a spot
for one brief shining moment
known as Camelot."