42 years ago, we sat in front of our television units in complete shock. When the normally totally objective Walter Cronkite momentarily misplaced it on a live broadcast, he represented faces throughout America, frozen in grief and disbelief.
It become an innocent time. Young, lively, charismatic, and eloquent, Jack Kennedy represented the goals of the younger. Into a political world filled with worn-out old indifferent guys, he and his passionate New England intelligentsia swept like a clean wind that promised a new world order and limitless ability for all people. We loved his accent, his hair, his humor, and his power. We couldn’t wait to sign up for the Peace Corps and remake the world.
For years, we quietly asked every other: Where have been you whilst Kennedy turned into shot? We all knew precisely where we were and what we have been doing while the news got here. It was a second frozen in time, a splendid divide among the promise that had shined so brightly and the unknown darkness that lay ahead after the mild were so in advance extinguished.
Later, the cynicism of an unsightly warfare, a string of assassinations, riots inside the streets, and the paranoia of a secretive administration, might take their toll on our desires, our preference to take part and to serve, and our perception in our leaders.
We placed away our optimism, our social determination, and our carefree belief in our ability to make a permanent difference. We moved into enterprise, raised families, made money, and withdrew from the streets. We stopped marching, stopped vote casting, stopped worrying. We misplaced our experience of accept as true with and the coronary heart in our fight for equality and peace slowly reduced in size.
When I ask at paintings: Where had been you when Kennedy become shot, I am greeted by way of clean stares from body of workers who weren’t even conceived in 1963. Despite the pain of that point, I experience deep sorrow for those who never had the possibility to experience the exhilaration and euphoria of Camelot.
As the antique saw states, "It is better to have cherished and misplaced than never to have loved in any respect." We misplaced a incredible and vital a part of ourselves on that grassy knoll in Dallas. But we are higher humans for the elation he gave us, the dreams he inspired, and the deep commitment to our fellow guy that he generated within us.
Those who neglected that uncommon shining second are, all unaware, dwindled of their souls. And the ones of us who have been lucky sufficient to have that spirit enter our lives, however briefly, should every mourn his dying alone.
Happy trails, Jack.