Just the other day, while cleaning out a built-in cupboard in
the dining room, I found beneath a yellowed paper drawer liner a
dusty 29-year-old edition of a San Jose newspaper. It was doubtless
left there by my great-aunt, known in the family for tucking things
away.
Her little tidbits encountered years later have made for
entertaining conjecture. Not unlike the time we found two $100
bills inside a musty attic bureau, this particular copy
materialized at an opportune moment.
Just the other day, while cleaning out a built-in cupboard in the dining room, I found beneath a yellowed paper drawer liner a dusty 29-year-old edition of a San Jose newspaper. It was doubtless left there by my great-aunt, known in the family for tucking things away.
Her little tidbits encountered years later have made for entertaining conjecture. Not unlike the time we found two $100 bills inside a musty attic bureau, this particular copy materialized at an opportune moment.
Dated Nov. 22, 1973, the front-page center photo portrayed the Kennedy clan. As they have invariably done all these years, the relatives were kneeling, clustered around JFK’s eternal flame at Arlington National Cemetery. Sen. Edward Kennedy was pictured placing a single rose on the grave of his brother, John.
The 1973 news story commemorated the 10th anniversary of Kennedy’s death. Thousands of mourners came, just as today, to pay tribute to the handsome, seemingly vital young man who was, for that brief shining moment, our nation’s president. Even now visitors still pause to read those quotations from his inaugural address and other words carved in stone at his gravesite. Especially the one about asking not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And the other memorable line, promising our nation would bear any burden and pay any price. Earlier in 1973, those were ominous-sounding words for troops returning stateside in the final U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.
It’s 39 years ago today that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as his open-air entourage drove through downtown Dallas. In some ways for those of us who remember the event, the day is as crystal-clear as if it just took place. But in more ways than not the world has moved on with alarming speed. Nothing will be the same as it was that day the world paused, in shock, on Nov. 22, 1963.
I remember those ringing words “Ask not what your country can do for
you,” because when John Kennedy was inaugurated, on Jan. 20, 1960, I watched him first utter the phrase on live black and white television. The solemn Washington, D.C. occasion was scheduled to be broadcast mid-morning, West Coast time. To mark the historic event, Mr. Bullard, our Gilroy High School principal, called a school assembly and rounded up several television consoles. They were placed at intervals facing the bleachers inside the main gym as 1,000 of us filed in to watch the swearing in. I was a junior at the time and had mixed feelings about the inauguration. That day the World War II hero, President Eisenhower, our family’s favorite, was handing over the reins of power. It was hard, listening to Kennedy’s brief-but-electrifying speech, not to also feel sad. An era in our nation’s history was ending. The torch of power was passing to a new generation. I wondered if a man as young as JKF would attain Eisenhower’s popular appeal, much less match Ike’s aura of manly fortitude.
We had no inkling that bright inaugural day that within a few years some of our friends would be headed to a faraway place in Asia called Vietnam. Or that one class member, John Wentworth, would never return. Our parents told us their generation had fought to save the world for democracy. But by the time Vietnam came along, both the challenge and the cause were ethereal, even meaningless. We watched our childhood playmates sent to do dubious battle and wondered why.
For years, the pundits blamed JFK for first getting us into it. Years afterward we found out the root plans for sending preliminary advisers to Vietnam came from his predecessor, our magnificent President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In retrospect, with both Vietnam and the Cold War behind us, the speech about bearing any burden and paying any price has a different ring to it now. Perhaps its scope is broader, in light of Sept. 11, 2001.
Other newsworthy events in my surprise 1973 newspaper find included Skylab astronauts completing a record 6½-hour space walk; Egyptian and Israeli military officials failing to agree on the final phase of a six-point Middle East cease-fire agreement; Iraq and Libya ignoring a U.S.-aimed Arab oil cutback, continuing to ship petroleum to the West, and a House Foreign Affairs Committee study concluding it was ineffective for the U.S. to embargo food shipments in retaliation against other Arab nations. In Rome, a newspaper received five photographs of J. Paul Getty III, minus his right ear, along with a kidnap ransom letter.
Today’s anniversary of Kennedy’s death is a time to reflect. When I think back on the JFK legacy and how it affected my generation, I like to remember beyond Vietnam to his concept of our nation being a cause for good in the world. The Peace Corps, which still functions, epitomizes his plea to give something back to the world as a whole.
His words now seem nobler, lasting, and true. And perhaps shows how far as a nation we’ve grown.
And that’s what comes from finding an old newspaper, hidden 29 years
ago, in a linen drawer.
Elizabeth Barratt can be reached via email at: [email protected]
