Camelot

Although yes, I did love the musical and the Warner Brothers film version with Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Harris, my love today is for the JFK Presidency, fondly referred to as Camelot.  It was 51 years ago today that the unthinkable happened and ended the dream.  I have seen some people complaining on social media that there isn't much coverage today of the assassination that gripped the nation all those years ago.  I guess the thinking is that last year, the 50th anniversary, was enough?

Well, I will pay tribute here.

My favorite person growing up was my grandmother.  She was a fanatic Democrat and a devout Catholic, so of course, she was in love with JFK.  And so was I.  I can still see myself, sitting at her kitchen table, composing a letter to the President, requesting an autographed picture.  And I received one . . . a picture of Jack and Jackie.  The "autograph" wasn't real, but I didn't care.  (I do have Robert Kennedy's real autograph, however.)  I didn't understand a whit about politics; I was in love with this young, handsome President and his beautiful wife.  Little Caroline and JonJon completed the love.  I still have a copy of the Vaughn Meader LP, The First Family, a satire on the Presidency.

Fifty-one years ago today, I was in 8th grade.  On that afternoon, the 7th and 8th grade girls were in the 7th grade classroom, watching a filmstrip called Growing Up and Liking It, a lie that was forced upon us.  The boys were in the 8th grade classroom, having a study hall.  The boys were informed when the President was shot, but the powers-that-be didn't want to interrupt the filmstrip, so the girls were not told.  By the time the filmstrip was over and we returned to our classroom, the President was dead.  I felt very strongly, for years, that if I had been told sooner, I could have prayed very, very  hard, and the President would have survived.

Nobody wanted Camelot to end.

I understand that we tend to romanticize certain times in history.  I also understand that JFK may not have been the Prince that we thought he was.  But a look at what followed . . . VietNam, Watergate, endless war in the Middle East, 9/11, etc. . . . and the Camelot years look pretty good.

So I choose to be in love with a time when everything seemed possible, when we felt relatively safe, and when a little girl could write a letter to the President and receive a large envelope in the mail . . . from Camelot.