WHO KILLED JFK?

It's 4:54, dark out, 67 degrees and Patrick got up with me and then crawled into bed with Junior.

The third president I saw and the second sitting President was John F. Kennedy, several days before he was assassinated. He was making his southern tour and scheduled to speak at one of the Ball Parks in Tampa. I was a junior in high school, and a member of an outlaw group who liked to operated slightly, just slightly, outside the parameters of the High School's rules--but that's another story. We happened to be politically aware, members of the Citizens Council, but again that's another story, and fellow travelers of the John Birch Society, another story yet. We went to the Office, about five us and an entourage of ten or so hangers on, and whined and debated about wanting the afternoon off to drive to Tampa to see the President for "educational" purposes. TPTB finally relented, (After all, we had beat them at their own game on several occasions) with the proviso that we call our parents and get permission from them. So we all used the Office phone, calling time and temp, and pretending to talk to our parents. Long Story short, we saw JFK arrive in a helicopter and listened to his speech. I was, at this time already a leader in our local Youth for Goldwater organization, a year before the election of '64. This was about four days before Kennedy would be shot by Oswald & Company in Dallas.

Nobody that lived thru those days can forget where they were when they learned JFK had been shot, just as they remember what they were doing when Armstrong touched his boot on the Moon, or when they first heard about 9-11. I was in the crowded Hall at school, in between classes going to my next class, when a girl I didn't know passed me saying to me "The president's been shot". I could tell by the look in her eyes she was serious. That moment was a turning point in my life as well as the life of our nation. The age of Innocence died with those bullets in Dallas that morning.

On the blackboard in homeroom was one of the "Bon Mots" as the teacher called them, one-liners that I wrote every morning. Still up there for everyone to see were the words "What this country needs is another good ex-president". Definitely not the way I meant it. Senator Barry Goldwater's campaign was doomed from that moment, even tho we were to fight the good fight. I remember what my thoughts were when that young girl told be Kennedy was shot and they were:" If Kennedy is dead, God help us if Lyndon Johnson is President now." He was, and it would mean I would be going to Viet Nam in a few years.... So it goes. -30-