"Johnny, we hardly knew ye...". JFK : 1917-1963

[Padraig18]

Tomorrow marks the 41st anniversary of the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Some are not aware of the genuine affection and esteem that the people of Ireland had and still have for the late President, but I can assure you that where I was born (20 years after his death, I add), rare was the home that did not have a photograph of late President prominently and reverently displayed. To the Irish people, John Kennedy was not simply 'one of their own' who had 'made good'; he was a handsome, urbane and visionary man of peace and goodwill. He was a man who sought to reach out across the oceans and mountains and deserts of the world to touch the people who lived there, and to appeal to their common humanity in the search for solutions to the world's problems. He was the son of a rich man whose heart broke at the injustices done to the poor; a white man, he sought to free people of color and make them fully equal before the law.

I'll go to Mass tomorrow morning and light a candle for him, say a prayer for the repose of his soul, and wonder, as I do every year, what might have been, had he lived.

[Metatron]

1. RFK's birthdate was this week

and I was also thinking how different the world could have been if they both had lived longer lives. Thanks for sharing that, Padraig18.

[Padraig18]

2. You're welcome.

I wonder a lot about what all violence has robbed from us...

:cry:

[Padraig18]

3. Kick

[yellowdogintexas]

4. thank you for that!

[candy]

5. I saw him in person the night before the election in 1960------

and remember every detail of the day he was assassinated.

[Padraig18]

8. My parents saw him, when he visited Ireland.

To the day she died, my mother couldn't talk about his death without crying.

[candy]

9. Yes,they were historic times. We all felt as if we had been------

sucker-punched the day he was killed. My own mother heard about the death while sitting at a lunch counter in Boston in her lunch hour and she said that she,and everyone else there,just sat and sobbed.

[Padraig18]

15. My mother said it was only the 2nd time she saw my daddy cry.

The only other time she ever saw him cry was when my paternal grandmother died.

[redsoxliberal]

6. R.I.P, J.F.K

[Padraig18]

7. Aye.

May God rest his good soul...

[flamingyouth]

10. My dad still says it was the worst day of his life

My mom's Republican grandfather dropped dead of a heart attack when he heard the news of Kennedy's assassination. My mother flew to his funeral while my dad sat at home alone watching the Kennedy funeral on TV.

When we visited Washington, D.C., when I was a freshman in high school, we went to Mass in St. Matthew's, where his funeral was held. The Kennedys were both larger-than-life heroes to my parents and really influenced their outlook on life.

I paraphrase, but to whom much is given, much is expected. :thumbsup:

[bigwillq]

11. I'm not Irish but

we always had and still do have a picture of JFK up in our house.
We have gone through a few over the years but both my parents had such a respect and admiration for him.


JFK-R.I.P.

[Padraig18]

12. We have one, as well.

:)

[bigwillq]

13. My sister has tons of books and pics of JFK

and Jackie. She's in love with Jackie.


My mom works at the Yale School of Medicine and one of the docs she works for, his son roomed with JFK, Jr. at Brown.

[Padraig18]

14. How COOL!

I still have a book about JFK that my grandmother gave me, called 'For One Brief and Shining Moment'. I can quote whole passages of JFK's speeches by heart.