158: My JFK Observations

It was right after lunch in Miss Moral's sixth grade classroom.  Miss M had not come back yet.  Tom Snaider, the class clown was the last pupil in and was saying that the president had been shot.  No one believed him because no one ever believed anything he said.  Then Miss M returned and between sobs told us that the president had been assassinated.  I do not remember any particular sense of disaster or loss or sadness.  Just that the event was BIG and important.

My family was not a "Kennedy" family.  I'm sure my parents had voted for Nixon.  Kennedy was catholic after all, and while there was some good catholics, you certainly did not want one of them running the country.  My personal memories of Kennedy as president are really limited to just two - the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination.  Both involved a day off from school.

Since 1964 I have grown up from a sixth grader to a 62 year old man.  I have lived under Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and BO.  I would classify only two of those - Reagan and Bush the First - as first rate presidents.  All the rest are dopes and egomaniacs.

Other than my personal memories, the rest of my knowledge of JFK has come from what the east coast media wants me to know.  While the murder of JFK was a terrible crime like all murders, I don't think the country was deprived of an indispensable leader.  He was just another political animal who chose to be supported by taxpayers.  His legacy would not be nearly as stellar if he had not been killed.