The 22nd, and it becomes inescapable: the Kennedy
assassination, 50 years ago. A before and after, where-were-you event.
I was a very young boy. In fact, the assassination may be my
earliest conscious memory. There’s a fine way to start off a life: televised murder
and national grieving before you know what death is. And people wonder why my
work has a dark sensibility.
Here’s how the political becomes personal. At the time, my
dad worked for the Spokane Chronicle. The news came over the TV or radio in the
cafe where he ate his lunch, and, when the shock subsided, my father turned to
the waitress and, in his droll way, asked: “Can I get that to go?”
I didn’t see him for the next three days. The newspaper
staff basically lived at the office, publishing nonstop updates. I still recall
the anxiety and confusion I felt. Adults—men and women—spontaneously,
inexplicably weeping for reasons I couldn’t understand. This great man, dead. And,
to my mind, my father missing.
I do have one weird, vivid memory from that time. Waking up
early, while the rest of the household slept, and wandering out to the living
room. Turning on the TV. Black and white, hearses moving slowly past blurred
faces lining the street. And, for some reason, I put my hands flat against the
screen, as though I might receive some kind of physical transmission. I don’t
remember ever having done that, before or since. The screen seemed to sizzle.
It all gets muddled, of course. Did I see Cronkite announce
the president’s death? It seems like I did, but I’ve seen the clip so many times
since then, Cronkite removing his glasses and choking up, that I can’t separate
the real-time event from subsequent footage.
It was frightening, of course, even though I surely couldn’t
understand what was going on. I remember fear. And I remember trying not to show
it because everyone was already upset. The event t became a touchstone for
years of “oh no” moments. Bobby . MLK. Chicago .
“This is a CBS/NBC/ABC news bulletin….”
Years later, I’d have my own chance, as a radio reporter, to
become The Voice. I’m sure I announced a few deaths, but the only even I really
remember was announcing we’d invaded Grenada . Grenada ? Where? Isn’t that a soft
drink? I suppose it had its weight, so close to Cuba . I ripped the story off the
teletype, just like in the movies. I can’t tell you how somber…and
marvelous…that felt. That sort of thing makes you a news junkie.
The killing marked another cultural change, one that took a
while to settle in. Those various shoot-em-up films from the Fifties? Where a
character gets shot, clutches, and slides to the floor, perhaps a thin,
discreet trickle of blood showing? No more. Not after the president’s head
explodes. “The pink mist” as the soldiers say. Coupled with the nightly
televised carnage of the Vietnam War, a visceral reaction against the true
horror of violence led to its hyperrealistic portrayal on film. “Bonnie and Clyde ”
probably set the tipping point, but a whole generation of filmmakers expressed
their fury with fountains of blood, as if to scream: look at it, look at it,
look at it!
Understandable, but now moviegoers watch gory torture flicks
for entertainment, and mutilated bodies show up on network television, and
every other week, it seems, someone with a gun flips into overload and goes
full medieval on total strangers. So I’m not certain the aesthetic choice
achieved the desired effect.
When the light faded from JFK’s eyes, it’s said a certain innocence
went with it—an optimism and, as he would say, vigor. But it could also be said
that a veil ripped away, and we saw a truer portrait America : violent, dark, paranoid,
and vengeful.
The two, paradoxically, co-exist. And perhaps it’s ironic
that a man who’d known his own share of loss and violence, war and illness,
would unwittingly pass on a profound lesson. JFK turned out to be one World War
II veteran who told his whole story.
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