A President was murdered 50 years ago today. I wasn't born yet. I grew up hearing great stories about this man President John F. Kennedy. I grew up around schools, libraries, and airports named after a much beloved President that had been killed one afternoon in Dallas Texas.I was taught about Camelot. I grew up seeing plates of Mr. Kennedy next to his wife. I grew up seeing things like this:



Images of President Kennedy were everywhere. He was the man who put us on the moon. He was exotic because he was Catholic. Everyone loved this man, I was told.

Yet, There was something else. I also grew up hearing about plots to kill the president; conspiracies were mentioned in hushed tones by the adults in my life. Words like communist, the Soviets, Castro, mafia, Hoover were mentioned in a way that I knew these were things not to be talked about. This was grown-up conversation, and it was private. Talk of what happened to the president was not encouraged. He had been assassinated, and what we may have heard as children was not to be discussed outside the home, if even that. We were children, we didn't need to know. It happened before I and my siblings were born. I have always lived in a post-JFK world. It was inferred that it was disrespectful to speak ill of a dead president. Still, the adults whispered about it. They whispered of affairs and Marilyn Monroe. They whispered because if they said it aloud, people might laugh at them... think that they were crazy. They whispered because it was considered too out there, too fringe.

As I grew up, these conspiracy theories became mainstream. With the onslaught of 24/7 news channels and my ability to go out in the world and read, I learned that the things I heard whispered quietly as a child had somehow became okay to discuss publicly, even the stranger theories about this man's murder, and subsequently, the murder of his brother, Robert. I've read the theories. Here on this blog there is ongoing debate. To me, he was a president that was killed before I was born. I have always lived in a post-JFK world. I never really identified with the red scare or the iron curtain. It was before my time. And, to be honest, I can say that I don't identify with those who were alive when President Kennedy was assassinated. Believing the Warren Commission or not is just not a priority for me. He was killed and the psyche of our nation was forever changed, so the historians say. I believe that, I saw it change again September of 2001. A new generation would now question: was it Mihop or Lihop?

I have always lived in a world where there are conspiracies everywhere. Perhaps it's because I live in a post-JFK world. What does it matter what I believe? Would it change anything? 50 years people have been claiming to know what happened, and 50 years things that were once considered fringe have now became the norm, Are we a better nation for it? Personally, I say no. Personally, I think my generation has suffered for it. This is what happens when the fringe is allowed to become normal. Perhaps this is the remnant of a cold war paranoia that still lingers in our society today. Perhaps we are all crazy ourselves, and in our collective search for our truth, we have prevented ourselves from really seeing. That makes us suffer as a nation.

In the mean time, 50 years ago today, we had a great man taken away from the nation, his family and the world. Everyone I know that was alive and of a certain age can tell you exactly where they were when they learned of his tragic fate. One can only hypothesize what would have happened had he not been gunned down in Dallas on November 22, 1963. 50 years later, people are still doing just that.



I dreamed I was the president of these United States
I dreamed I replaced ignorance, stupidity and hate
I dreamed the perfect union and a perfect law, undenied
And most of all I dreamed I forgot the day John Kennedy died

I dreamed that I could do the job that others hadn't done
I dreamed that I was uncorrupt and fair to everyone
I dreamed I wasn't gross or base, a criminal on the take
And most of all I dreamed I forgot the day John Kennedy died

Oh, the day John Kennedy died
Oh, the day John Kennedy died

I remember where I was that day, I was upstate in a bar
The team from the university was playing football on TV
Then the screen went dead and the announcer said,
"There's been a tragedy
There's are unconfirmed reports the president's been shot
And he may be dead or dying."

Talking stopped, someone shouted, "What!?"
I ran out to the street
People were gathered everywhere saying,
Did you hear what they said on TV
And then a guy in a Porsche with his radio hit his horn
And told us the news
He said, "The president's dead, he was shot twice in the head
In Dallas, and they don't know by whom."

I dreamed I was the president of these United States
I dreamed I was young and smart and it was not a waste
I dreamed that there was a point to life and to the human race
I dreamed that I could somehow comprehend that someone
Shot him in the face

Oh, the day John Kennedy died
Oh, the day John Kennedy died
Oh, the day John Kennedy died
Oh, the day John Kennedy died

Lou Reed, 1982




and
Raine