Forty two years in the past, we sat in the front of our television units in entire surprise. When the commonly completely objective Walter Cronkite momentarily lost it on a live broadcast, he represented faces all over America, frozen in grief and disbelief.
It became an harmless time. Young, full of life, charismatic, and eloquent, Jack Kennedy represented the desires of the young. Into a political international packed with tired old indifferent men, he and his passionate New England intelligentsia swept like a sparkling wind that promised a brand new global order and limitless capability for absolutely everyone. We loved his accessory, his hair, his humor, and his electricity. We couldn’t wait to sign up for the Peace Corps and remake the arena.
For years, we quietly asked each other: Where have been you when Kennedy become shot? We all knew precisely where we had been and what we were doing whilst the information came. It was a second frozen in time, a terrific divide among the promise that had shined so brightly and the unknown darkness that lay beforehand after the light have been so prematurely extinguished.
Later, the cynicism of an unsightly war, a string of assassinations, riots in the streets, and the paranoia of a secretive administration, could take their toll on our goals, our desire to participate and to serve, and our belief in our leaders.
We put away our optimism, our social dedication, and our carefree belief in our capability to make a everlasting difference. We moved into commercial enterprise, raised families, made money, and withdrew from the streets. We stopped marching, stopped balloting, stopped caring. We misplaced our experience of agree with and the coronary heart in our fight for equality and peace slowly shrunk.
When I ask at work: Where were you while Kennedy became shot, I am greeted with the aid of clean stares from group of workers who were not even conceived in 1963. Despite the ache of that point, I feel deep sorrow for folks that in no way had the opportunity to revel in the pleasure and euphoria of Camelot.
As the antique saw states, "It is higher to have cherished and misplaced than by no means to have loved at all." We lost a exquisite and vital a part of ourselves on that grassy knoll in Dallas. But we’re higher human beings 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 missed that uncommon shining moment are, all unaware, dwindled of their souls. And those folks who were fortunate sufficient to have that spirit input our lives, but in short, ought to every mourn his demise by myself.
Happy trails, Jack.