Up and Out!

Here I come!

Pearl called this morning, wanting to know if I wanted to over on the other side of the park, to see her daughter's new home.  I wasn't dressed and I am not into spontaneity, but I knew I'd better day "yes" or Pearl would get mad.

Her youngest daughter recently purchased a big, three bedroom manufactured home on the south side of the park--the newer part--where most of families with children live.  It is really nice.  It has a large back yard that overlooks the lake behind our park.  Three bedrooms, two baths, a utility room, a living room, dining room, family room, huge kitchen with eating area and attached screened in porch on the back, with a large deck all along the side of the house..  

Of course, you know me--I have been lusting for a larger place and it was good for me to go through this home as I realized pretty quickly that it is way more then I could take care of!  

Pretty funny--to get to the other side of the park, you can go up the service drive off to the side of where I live--however, regular traffic is not supposed to use that--although we can walk and bicycle on it.  I took off up it and Pearl starting yelling, "You can't go this way!  You have to go around by the road!"

"Around by the road is three miles," I said.  "This way is only about 300 feet."

"What if one of the maintenance guys sees us?"

"I know all of them.  I will just wave and it will be all right."

She huffed and puffed for the entire 4 minute drive there and back, but we didn't meet anyone.  When I dropped her off at her house I said, "Now, wasn't that a fun adventure?"

"Adventure?"

"Sure," is said.  "It raised your heart rate, you were a bit startled and scared.  That's good for ya!"

"You're weird," she said as she hobbled up the drive to her place.

It was fun and it got my day going.

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I guess my Forsythia thinks it is early spring and time to bloom?

I was standing at my stove, putting all the ingredients together for another batch of spaghetti sauce.  I glanced up, looked out the window and yelled!

 The moon is rising in the east!!!

Apparently he has a leak around the sky-light?

Even when he stood up, his jeans were still drooping.  What a view!!!

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Where were you 50 years ago, when you heard the news?  Everyone remembers--even kids that were young at the time, remember.

I was not a fan of the President--had heard too much about his rich lifestyle and rumors of mob connections with his family.  It had been my first election to vote in and I had not voted for him.  I was more in like with him when he ended the Cuban Missile Crisis.  We were in the height of the Cold War.  The Russian's had the capability to bomb the heck out of us with their long range missile's.  He didn't seem to be doing a very good job talking detente with them and, I thought he was a bit slow in helping the Civil Rights movement.

I had three young children--and had started back to college.  I was sitting in Political Science class, of all things, when a young man came in, walked over and whispered in the Professor's ear.  The prof screamed "NO!", sat down in his chair and laid his head on his desk, sobbing and wailing, "no, no, no,"  We all looked at each other--we thought perhaps one of his children had been killed or something.  

Suddenly the public address system crackled and we heard the announcement.  

"President Kennedy has been shot and killed in Dallas Texas.  We urge everyone to leave campus immediately and go home.  The campus will be closed."

As we hurried out into the halls, toward the exits, there were comments from some of the other Professor's that they thought the assassination was a signal for the Russian's to flick the switch and send their ICBM's toward the United States.  All I could think about was getting out of the city--Flint was a huge manufacturing town at the time.  I thought surely it would be a target--we had heard they would hit the manufacturing cities first.

The normally forty-five minutes drive home, took me about thirty minutes that day.  I stopped at my neighbor's to pick up the kids.  She was shaking, as was I.  Our husband's were still in the GM manufacturing plant in Flint.  Would they be killed?  It was almost as if we kept listening for a loud boom to come from that direction.

There were only three stations on television at that time--I immediately turned on CBS--which came in the clearest from our antennae.  The TV stations weren't on 24 hours back then, so I watched until they went off at night and then first thing in the morning.  I sat watching on Sunday morning, when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby on LIVE coverage.  That was shocking to me!

I have often wondered what our society would be like if Kennedy had remained alive and run for re-election. Surely, he would have won.  Would there have been the anti-war demonstrations?  Would there have been the race riots?

Now--fifty years later, a lot of records have been opened for public view.  We now know of Kennedy's drug abuse and sexual affairs.  Jackie was also on a drug regimen.  Jack had to have pain meds several times a day, and then amphetamine injections to counter act the mind numbing effect of the pain meds, plus testosterone injections everyday to make him feel and appear vital and young.  Jackie frequently got amphetamine injections.  When Robert Kennedy found out about it, he talked to Jack's "Feel Good" doctor about it.  It is now accepted by most doctor's that Jack would not have lived through a second term--the drug use would have killed him, as it caused high cholesterol (450) and high blood pressure, along with damage to his organs and his Addison's Disease.

Bobby actually ran most of the day-to-day business in the White House--I wish he could have become President--I think he might have done a good job.

(Can you imagine if he held the office today--with all the media coverage we see?  He probably would have had to resign.His sexual affairs made Bill Clinton's look like nothing.)

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I never held with any of the conspiracy theories.  However, I recently watched a PBS documentary, with doctor's who were in the emergency room that day, and other witnesses.  The first wound to his neck, that hit Connely, was not fatal.  It would have knocked him over to safety, IF he hadn't been wearing his metal back brace that kept him upright.  The second shot--the fatal one that blew his head open, came from a different trajectory and is thought to be from the second car where the Secret Service guys were riding.  The bullet in Kennedy's neck and the one in his head are two different calibers.

This documentary states that; the night before, the Secret Service men were having a party--mot of them were drunk and hungover the next day.  One of the guys was fairly new on the job and appeared to be more sober then the rest.  They put  him in the passenger seat of the car.  He had a rifle at his feet.

When they heard the first shot, he grabbed the rifle and stood up.  The Secret Service driver car then tromped on the gas, which threw him back a bit and caused the rifle to go off.  Apparently, they believe, this is the fatal shot.  A lot of CSI people, doctors and medical examiners agree with this theory.  We will probably never know--as some of those Secret Service men are still alive.

What I find the most tragic actually--Jack and Jackie were never really in love.  They had a part to play, an image to show to the world--the golden couple.  Much like Charles and Diana.  Jack still kept up his sexual affairs and Jackie knew about them.  She spent a lot of time away from the White House, to keep from hearing the rumors that the staff laughed about.

It was only after Patrick died, that they became closer.  They seemed to be falling in love when he was killed. 

Whichever "party" we belonged too, as a nation, we all sat glued to the TV and cried for an entire four days.  We, as a people and a nation, lost our innocence that day so long ago.