Monday, September 9, 2024. A sunny weekend just passed with a bit cooler weather going down to the upper 50s in the late hour. I spent a large part of the weekend reading the current news across the world.
I read to learn. That sounds simple enough. It’s not simple for me because it requires being truthful with myself with what I’m “learning.”
I read about our leaders and their partners, and their lives. I know some socially — well enough to say simply: “hello” and keep moving. That is the nature of high level social life. We’re all ambassadors, whether we like it or not.
I’d been a democrat since I first started to vote. I would have voted for John F. Kennedy although I was a year too young to cast that first vote. But I grew up in Massachusetts in the western part of the state. The Kennedy family was not popular politically with many in my town. The Protestants. Always suspicious of the Catholics. Sounds quaint nowadays but that was still the frame of mind with many back in the day (1960).
The Kennedys were Eastern (Boston) and there were always a lot of rumors about how Joseph P. liked other women for sex and affairs, and had the resources to have it his way.
In those younger years, full of self-doubts and on the threshold of failure frequently sitting on one of my shoulders, whatever political opinions I had, came from members of my family (father) or a neighbor who was prosperous (we were not). Not from a thought in my head.
However, that November was about elections for grown-ups. But 1960 was the Presidential race offering a new possibility: John F. Kennedy, younger than all the Presidents who had come before him. And with a beautiful (and elegant) wife. They looked like movie stars on high. In circles in my New England community, however, the Kennedys were Roman Catholic, and the Catholic thing was a reason NOT to vote for him.
Although they were very rich because of the Old Man. The Protestants, the native settlers who “built” this country, were openly anti-Catholic in their own minds when it came to the RCs. Although his great wealth put him in a higher category of acceptability.
The fear we heard openly expressed was: as a Roman Catholic he’d turn the country over to the Pope in Rome. But that was exactly where a lot of people’s heads were at mid-20th century America … everywhere, the American way.
First of November 1960. It was a Presidential election year. I was a sophomore at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, living in the Deke House.
That morning, someone in the campus coffee shop told me that Senator John F. Kennedy was making a last round of public appearances just four days before the Election …. And that night at 10 o’clock he was making an in-person, stop-off appearance at Bates College.
Before that day and that moment, I don’t recall ever before having had a conversation with anybody about anything political at that slightly post-adolescent time in my life.
However, I wanted to see the man, the Senator from Massachusetts my home state who became JFK, simply because of the role he was running for. He would be the first President in my lifetime who was only 20 years older than this college kid.
If he were to win, we could claim to have seen him up close before the election (our places in history).
Bates College was about an hour’s drive from Colby in Waterville to Lewiston. My Deke House roommate Allan Zehe had a car (a 1960 Cadillac Eldorado convertible!) that he liked to exercise. He was up for the adventure.
It was cold and dark that November night in Central Maine. We got there by 9:30 and there were scores of college kids already milling about in the naturally darker area away from the main buildings. The spot for his speaking was set up on the edge of the campus, away from the main buildings.
By ten-thirty/quarter to 11, a crowd of maybe a couple hundred had gathered in the cold, dark area. By midnight, the Senator had not arrived although we were informed that he was on his way. (He covered several New England states making these small gatherings in three or four days.)
By twelve-thirty/quarter to one a.m., he arrived! A retinue of members of his campaign, including security people, forcefully moved him uncomfortably (you could see on his face even squeamish) through the pressing, clamorous crowd up to the speaking platform where he was finally free.
I can still see the sharp grimace of discomfort on his face and eyes as he was physically delivered to the podium — like stuck through a pressing crowd. It was already exciting for us college spectators just being there. I was too young to have imagined how exhausting the whole thing must have been for him. It didn’t show.
However. Once at the podium, outside, in the dark night, with the bright lights on him about two feet above the crowd, he started to speak. It was a first time for me because I had never heard him (or was interested in hearing him). I had no personal interest in politics until the moment on that very late dark night, when he spoke — with his heavy baahs-tin accent. It underlined his credibililty.
He talked about the importance of the job he was running for. He spoke at that very late and cold hour in an intelligent manner that us college kids could actually understand. He put it in terms that were entirely relatable in a sensible way.
His presence was brief. When he’d finished his Boston accent was so self-assuring that we all left the night deeply impressed — now a few of us thinking/fantasizing about actually running for office someday, and doing something great for this great country of ours. Youth kept naivete in the mix; Time took over the day-to-day and growing up was on the table.
I’d never given any of it a thought before that moment that night when this young senator spoke to us about the importance of looking after the country and its people/us people.
We drove back to Waterville at 2 a.m., sold and stimulated. There was a natural sense of hope for us all.
