Robert, Ted and John Kennedy

I was in 4th grade class of Mrs. Freeman at Broadview Elementary School on the corner of 125th and Greenwood in North Seattle when the P.A. system came on. Mrs. Amy Loughlin, the principal, spoke carefully and I could recognize an emotional sound in her urgent words. She told us that President Kennedy had been shot and was dead. Mrs. Freeman turned off the lights and sat at her desk. She was quiet and I believe she was crying. I, like the rest of the class – dressed in our Beaver Cleaver style clothes – sat quietly. We knew something big had happened, but I don’t think any of us really understood.

5 years later, early one morning, my mother came into my room at the Flamingo Motel where we lived and gently shook me awake. She said that Bobby Kennedy had been shot and killed and she wanted to tell me about it because, and I hope I never forget her words: “I know he was important to you.” I was now in 9th grade and paying a great deal more attention to these issues. My brother was serving in Viet Nam and my sister was an avowed anti-war protesting hippie. I don’t think I fully comprehended what it all meant.

The other evening I was lounging on my couch watching some innocuous TV show. It was interrupted by a special report banner and the talking head, I don’t know her name, came on screen to report that Teddy Kennedy had passed away, dead from the brain cancer he’d endured the past year or so. I had a gut level reaction to it. I said out loud, no one was with me, “Thanks Teddy.”

I think I understand some of it. ~blm