REMEMBERING WHEN

By Edwin Cooney

Yes, indeed, I actually remember that far off time Fred Foy (The Lone Ranger’s radio announcer) used to refer to as “yesteryear.” Fifty summers have passed since a youthful New Englander named Kennedy took the presidential oath of office at age 43 years and 236 days. It’s one of those bittersweet memories that, except for how it dates me, I’m nevertheless happy to recall.

January 20th, 1961 occurred on a Friday and there was snow everywhere. To borrow a phrase from singer Brook Benton’s 1970 hit “Rainy Night in Georgia,” it seemed to be snowing all over the world. Certainly, it had snowed heavily in Washington, D.C. and in Western New York State where I, at age 15 was attending the New York State School for the Blind.

Using my teenage “lingo,” President Kennedy was a “curious” person—which meant that I was curious about him. He was, as a number of my schoolmates reminded me with pride, “…the first Catholic ever elected president of the United States of America.” Even though I wasn’t a Roman Catholic, that was alright with me. However, I had to adjust to two factors about him.

I was a Republican who had very much wanted Vice President Richard Nixon and UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge to be elected president and vice president, so I was naturally disappointed on that ground. However, even more personal, since my image of a man’s worth was audio rather than visual, I was overwhelmed by the new president’s combination Boston/Harvard accent. How, I wondered, could America pick a guy who sounded like that to be their president? The very idea stunned me. (Perhaps if I’d heard a recording of Calvin Coolidge at that time in my life, I wouldn’t have been as surprised. Mr. Coolidge’s accent was thicker and less polished than either JFK’s or Franklin D. Roosevelt’s — which I hadn’t heard back then, either).

Thus, I listened with fascination, but with little comprehension, as our new president promised to “…pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

That part of the inaugural address even I understood. Even more, I was pleased that our new president, like Vice President Nixon, was dedicated to our national safety. Perhaps President Kennedy might be as determined and as capable as outgoing President Eisenhower to keep us safe from the clutches of “Godless Communism” as advanced by that “devil incarnate” Nikita Khrushchev! I could only hope.

Adults who couldn’t watch the inaugural during the day surely tuned into NBC’s
Huntley-Brinkley Report or CBS’s Evening News (anchored by Douglas Edwards) to catch details of the inaugural.
Some will recall how the sun, reflecting off the snow, got into poet Robert Frost’s eyes making it difficult for him to see his script and how Vice President Johnson attempted to obstruct the glare with his top hat.

Years later, Thomas (Tip) O’Neill in his memoir “Man of the House” told an amusing story about JFK’s Inauguration. Pointing out that people often wonder what’s going through a president’s mind as he takes the most important oath in his life, O’Neill recounted the story, explaining that as JFK stepped forward to take the oath from Chief Justice Earl Warren, out of the corner of his eye he noticed that sitting in the Kennedy box was one of his father’s “gofers,” George Kara. The president knew his name, but as far as he knew, the man wasn’t that important. Hence, as JFK was becoming America’s Thirty-fifth President, what was on his mind was: “how the hell did that guy get that seat?”

Young as he was, Jack Kennedy received, for the most part, the respect he needed to fulfill the duties of his office. His legislative achievements were substantially less than some presidents, but he carried himself with poise and substance whether he was addressing an annual Gridiron dinner or reminding the nation that civil rights was primarily a moral issue.

Fifty years ago last Thursday, youth, vigor, and commitment in the person of John Fitzgerald Kennedy strode into the national spotlight to lead us for 1,036 days. Jack Kennedy was young enough to have both of his parents at his inaugural. Although Ulysses S. Grant’s parents were alive at both his 1869 and 1873 Inaugurations, they attended neither. Sadly, JFK was the first president to be survived by both his parents.

John Kennedy’s personhood and presidency, imperfect as they were, streaked across America’s historical firmament like Halley’s Comet only to be quashed like a candle at midnight.

As for those immortal words: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”…my adolescent awareness didn’t even take notice of them!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY