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50 years ago, Bowie gathered to watch RFK's funeral train rumble past
John McNamara was one of the five journalists killed in Annapolis yesterday.
50 years ago, Bowie gathered to watch RFK's funeral train rumble past
By John McNamara
jmcnamara@capgaznews.com
JUNE 7, 2018, 6:00 AM
Chris Padgett remembers how eerie it all seemed. ... On a steamy Saturday afternoon in June 50 years ago, Padgett rode along with some neighbors from Levitt-built Belair to the train station in Old Town Bowie. Dozens around town had done the same thing. ... They were there to bear witness, to show respect, to touch history in some way, as the train carrying slain U.S. senator and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy passed though town on the old Penn Central line.
“I saw a lot of people there,” recalled Padgett, who is now in his 50s but wasn’t much more than a toddler in spring 1968. “It was very calm, very surreal. Why does that stick in my mind? I don’t know. It’s still in my mind. It just sits there. At that age, I couldn’t appreciate it, but you could sense the sadness.”
Kennedy died after being shot at a Los Angeles hotel on June 6, 1968. He had just delivered a victory speech after winning the California primary, a triumph that seemed likely to earn him the Democratic nomination to run for president that fall.
Kennedy’s body was flown back to New York for the funeral Mass and then transported by train to Washington, where it was taken to Arlington National Cemetery for burial. He was buried just a short distance from his brother, John F. Kennedy, who’d been assassinated in Dallas less than five years before.
....
Copyright © 2018, Bowie Blade-News, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Privacy Policy
By John McNamara
jmcnamara@capgaznews.com
JUNE 7, 2018, 6:00 AM
Chris Padgett remembers how eerie it all seemed. ... On a steamy Saturday afternoon in June 50 years ago, Padgett rode along with some neighbors from Levitt-built Belair to the train station in Old Town Bowie. Dozens around town had done the same thing. ... They were there to bear witness, to show respect, to touch history in some way, as the train carrying slain U.S. senator and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy passed though town on the old Penn Central line.
“I saw a lot of people there,” recalled Padgett, who is now in his 50s but wasn’t much more than a toddler in spring 1968. “It was very calm, very surreal. Why does that stick in my mind? I don’t know. It’s still in my mind. It just sits there. At that age, I couldn’t appreciate it, but you could sense the sadness.”
Kennedy died after being shot at a Los Angeles hotel on June 6, 1968. He had just delivered a victory speech after winning the California primary, a triumph that seemed likely to earn him the Democratic nomination to run for president that fall.
Kennedy’s body was flown back to New York for the funeral Mass and then transported by train to Washington, where it was taken to Arlington National Cemetery for burial. He was buried just a short distance from his brother, John F. Kennedy, who’d been assassinated in Dallas less than five years before.
....
Copyright © 2018, Bowie Blade-News, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Privacy Policy