My mom shook Jack Kennedy's hand - Do you have a JFK story?

[bleedingheart]

Jack Kennedy was coming to Pittsburgh to campaign and he was going to be at the old Syria Mosque. My aunt wanted to see him and she asked my mom to go. My mom told me she was doing wash at the time and didn't know if she wanted to go through the hassle of getting gussied up..(remember..this was the time when people got dressed up to go shopping)....but she told me that she thought "this guy might be president"...so she went and she shook his hand......

She never went to see another presidential candidate until I took her to an Al Gore speech at CMU. My mom had tears in her eyes as she related her previous experience to this older fellow...they were both crying about it.... it was really sweet.

[patdem]

1. I shook JFK's hand,.,..my Catholic school was let out to greet him

his car passed behind the Norfolk Catholic High School..and all Catholic schools in the city were released to greet hinm...Maybe not released??? Bussed to greet?? I do not remember ...but i do know we had no class that day...and I was at the Automobile to reach in and shake his hand...I was thrilled, though I was about 11 at the time!!

[bleedingheart]

3. that is so cool!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. My dad had his pic taken with JFK and Bobby

He was a big supporter and very active in union activities. For years that picture hung on my office wall. Unfortunately. in late 97 my office burned down over the holidays and that along with several other pics I had of myself with folks like Willie Brown, John Garamendi, and a couple other state senators burned with it.

[bleedingheart]

4. Sorry to hear about the loss of those photos

:-(

but that is cool that your dad was involved with the campaign!

[mopinko]

5. my mom too

can't imagine where it was, as i am from a very small burb, but maybe she was in chicago.
my dad sent a telegram to bobby kennedy and told him to get a haircut. but he did go on to tell him to keep his brother the heck out of viet nam. he did get a letter back. wish i knew where it ended up. have no idea.

[bleedingheart]

6. he really sent him a telegram to get a haircut?

that is kinda funny but a sign of those times....

:-)

[mopinko]

11. my dad was a crazy guy

a brilliant waste of space for the most part. but brilliant, really. it was really about viet nam, tho. have no idea how or why he knew what a mess it would be, but he did. he's been gone a long time.

[Submariner]

7. All through the '20s, '30s, and into the late '40s

my grampa was the barber for all the little Kennedy boys and their father. Joe would bring his sons with him into the old Boston Federal bldg where the barber shop was. It was a huge all white marble room in the basement of the building with the huge mirrors and brass spitoons.

As a little kid in the '50s I used to like to watch the spitters get a bullseye into the spitoon almost every time.

[bleedingheart]

10. another too cool!

[SharonAnn]

8. Rose Kennedy held me when I was a baby!

In the Sioux Falls, South Dakota airport.

"Ambassador" Joe, his family, and his entourage were there for pheasant season hunting. Mom was with me and the luggage and trying to juggle it all to get checked in. Rose walked over and asked if she could help and offered to hold me while Mom got the luggage checked in and the tickets taken care of. She said something like "I've had a little experience with this."

At least that's the story that my Mom told me many, many years ago.

Oh, and then Mom was in Boston with Dad at a convention in the early 60's and they went to Mass at the same church with Ted and Joan Kennedy. Mom got his autograph after Mass (in my missal that she had taken on the trip because it was smaller than hers).

And I was a freshman in college on Nov. 22, 1963 and in my room at the dorm when someone came in to tell me that Kennedy had been shot. I'll never forget the day.

[bleedingheart]

9. Rose did have a lot of experience!

that is a cool story!

[jobycom]

12. Worked for former Senator Yarborough before he died

He was a friend of JFK's. In one speech that Yarborough made in the Senate, Yarborough wrapped up with the Churchill quote about the people being the lion, and him being the mouth that roared. JFK passed him a private note (this was while JFK was a senator), saying "Senator, you are the lion." Yarborough saved that note forever.

When JFK was running for president, he wanted a running mate that could help him carry the south. According to most history books, JFK wanted Yarborough to be his running mate, but asked LBJ as a courtesy, expecting him to decline. LBJ then learned that Yarborough was going to get the job, so he accepted (they were big Texas rivals). According to Yarborough, that isn't quite true. He and JFK both agreed that JFK needed LBJ to win, so they leaked to LBJ that Yarborough would be asked if he declined, expecting that to sway LBJ. It did.

Yarborough's interpretation is sometimes questionable, though. History says JFK was in Dallas to settle a dispute between LBJ and Yarborough, as the leaders of the two factions in Texas. Yarborough says that's false. He claims that he was more popular in Texas than LBJ or JFK, and both were in Texas with Yarborough to boost their ratings. It's hard to say-- Yarborough was more popular. But it's possible that JFK told Yarborough one thing and LBJ the other, and that both were true. Yarborough also supposedly had a guilty conscience, though I never saw this myself. Supposedly in an interview at Parkland Hospital (Yarborough was in the motorcade), Yarborough was wracked with sobs, and starting telling a reporter to tell John it was okay, that he'd do whatever they wanted, that he was sorry he'd made them come to Dallas.

I only worked for him, so I didn't know him that well. But the couple of times I saw him asked about JFK (never by me), he would smile, but you could see he was choked up inside. This was almost thirty years later, and he still couldn't handle it.

He once told me that JFK was the greatest person he'd ever met. And he met everyone.

So that's not about me and JFK, but I've never looked at JFK the same since. I was born in 1965, in the south, to parents who had little interest in him, and never thought much about him as anything but history until then. But Yarborough was the most amazing man I've ever met, and his devotion to Kennedy swayed me.

[bleedingheart]

14. thanks for sharing that story!

and boy that is really strange about the Parkland incident. As a side note this fellow who did some plaster work at my house was working as a plasterer in Parkland when they brought JFK in...
he of course remembered what it was like at the hospital as the president died...

[seventhson]

13. When I was eight or nine I saw him speak at a Yale graduation

My brother's class. I remember I was sick as a dog with a fever and was extremely uncomfortable and I am sure annoying to my parents as I lay across their laps to try and get comfortable on a hot day outdoors on the hard wooden folding chairs.

But I could see him up at the podium and could feel his magnetism, charisma, and power.

My cousin died that day too.

When the assassination occurred I remember the news saying two men with guns were apprehended on the bridge by the grassy knoll and I thought "they got 'em" It is a clear memory of live coverage only a few minuted after the shooting.

I wrote a consolence letter to Jackie and I still have her reply with her "franked" signature (probably a stamp, but her signature nevertheless) on the envelope -- although I remmeber hearing that she had signed them all herself. I doubt it though and I still treasure it.

Two weeks ago after the proitests in DC I took my daughter who is fourteen to the gravesites of JFK, Jackie, their children, and Bobbie's simple and small white wooden cross memorial a fe dozen feet away on the hillside.

What a sad and absurd tragedy.

How different our world would have been...

[Zomby Woof]

15. yeah

Back in December of '78, our family arrived at JFK, after living overseas for 3 years. It was quite exciting to be back on American soil after that long.

Oh! You meant JFK, the guy, not the airport. Never mind.

[bleedingheart]

17. ho ho ho ..you are too funny

;-)

actually I remember in 1975 having a cop stop my dad because he went the wrong way on some bizarre road around JFK airport... my brother and I started wailing...we thought dad would go to jail.. the cop told my dad how to get out of the place..

[Zomby Woof]

20. you're a good sport

My joke was bad, but the story true! lol.

At least you also had your own JFK airport story, and it was cool too! :-)

[dflprincess]

16. My friend's mom sat behind JFK at Mass

This was in 1960 before the national convention. JFK was in Minneapolis campaigning and attended Mass at St Olaf's in Minneapolis. My friend's mom (and dad) just happened to sit down in the pew behind him (there really was no security back then.)

According to the story she told my friend many, many years later, (after they'd had a couple drinks) she nearly swooned when she figured out who was in front of her. She was 8-1/2 months pregnant at the time, after Mass, my friend's dad asked her why she didn't go to Communion, especially as she had been to Confession the day before. The reason, she told my pal, was the thoughts she was having made her decide she shouldn't take Communion. (To this day, my friend's dad has not heard that part of the story.)

[bleedingheart]

18. whooo hooo.... too interesting

I was watching this documentary on PBS and there are some pics of some hollywood starlets looking at Jack in a lustful way... he had that magnetism... I wouldn't have wanted to be Jackie (I am a jealous soul)...

[OneBlueSky]

19. I took JFK's picture from about 3 feet away . . .

my dad was in the army, and we lived in a military housing development near Niagara Falls Air Force Base . . . I was in high school at the time . . . JFK was coming to the Niagara Falls/Buffalo area and was landing at the base, so we all trucked on over to watch him come in . . . I was standing behind a roped off area right behind the reception committee, and as he reached in to shake hands with the wife of the base commander, I snapped his picture . . . still have it, too . . . :)

a few years later, I got some good closeups of RFK at a rally in Troy NY when he was running for the Senate . . .

[WilliamPitt]

21. My grandparents were invited to the White House for November 23

My grandfather was a Kennedy advisor and attorney, and he and his wife were invited to a White House reception for the 23rd. My mom came home from school after the assassination - they cancelled school - and found the dress my grandmother was going to wear to the event crumpled on the kitchen floor. My grandmother was in the other room, weeping.

My mom used to sneak onto the other phone when Kennedy called the house. Apparently. ol' Jack swore like a sailor when he talked politics.

[alexwcovington]

22. Nope

Sorry.

[monchie]

23. I shook JFK's hand too...

JFK was doing a motorcade through our Republican-dominated county in the Philly suburbs. His campaign was a big deal, though, as the area had also become heavily Catholic in the post-WW2 era and the nuns who taught us treated him almost like the Second Coming. If JFK was elected, we Catholics would no longer be second-class citizens in a Protestant-dominated country.

So, needless to say, I was excited when I heard JFK was coming. I was 10 years old at the time and I can't remember whether any of my family went with me to greet him. When I got to the route, people were lined up about 5-10 deep, a very good turnout for that area, especially a Democrat.

By the time the motorcade came through, I had wormed my way to the front of the crowd and reached out my hand as his open convertible passed. He grabbed my hand, shook it, and moved on to the next person. My first thought was "I'll never wash that hand again"...though of course my mother would never let me do that. I believe I did go a few days without washing it though.

It's been 43 years now since that Saturday in October, which is exactly how old he was that day. Will I ever feel the same optimistic excitement about a presidential candidate that I felt that day? Probably not...after all, I was ten years old, and optimism comes more naturally to a child.

Also, optimism took a big hit on November 22, 1963, when they shot JFK...and then 5 years later they shot RFK and Martin Luther King. And we got Nixon.

Yeah, being an optimist has been very difficult ever since...

[cosmicdot]

24. my parents went to one of JFK's last campaign speeches in 11/1960

... just days before the election ... in Norfolk, VA ... they got to ride in a motorcade which went to Granby Field where the rally was held; and, I have a vinyl copy of the event/speeches ...

she said he was so close to her, she could have reached out to touch him

he was brilliant and funny ... and, I know I can hear my mom ... especially when he said: "both of my brothers went to the University of Virginia" ...

my mom came home with a large Kennedy for President campaign button, which I, also, have

[soothsayer]

25. My GF gave Jackie a flat twice in church

Walking down the aisle behind her in Middleburg, my GF (a young gal at the time) stepped on the back of Jackie's shoe twice, knocking it off both times. Jackie was gracious, my girlfriend's parents were horrified, snatched my GF away from Jackie before she could do it again.

[BrotherBuzz]

26. Family had a JFK doodle...

that he drew in the oval office. My uncle, one of those military advisers, asked for and received it after he autographed it, and sent it to my mother. We framed it and proudly hung it in the hallway. I hadn't seen it for years and asked about it recently and nobody knew where it was. My brother and sister know nothing, hmmm!

[MaineDem]

27. When he was campaigning for President...

JFK and Ed Muskie were riding in the back of a Caddy convertible in a motorcade from the airport to downtown Portland. I stood on a corner with my father and grandfather and I held a "Kennedy for President" sign on a tall pole. I was about 9 at the time.

My father and Ed Muskie were friends and when the car drove by us, Muskie waved to my dad and said "Hi, John." JFK waved and said (although he didn't know my father) "Hi, John" too. I was so very impressed, my grandfather was very proud, and my dad was thrilled! It was my introduction to politics and my father didn't have to drag me to events from then on. I went eagerly!

Later on I was fortunate to meet Bobby and get his autograph and I have a funny story about talking to Rose on the phone with my mouth full of Pop Rocks (remember them?)when I worked in Hyannis.

Moments one never forgets...

[latebloomer]

28. and she hasn't washed it since, right?

Sorry, bleedingheart, I couldn't resist.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

29. My God...can you imagine the world today if those men hadn't been killed?

I sit and weep when I think about it...
Duckie

[bif]

30. I saw his motorcade go by when I was about 7.

He came about 20 feet of me. I can just barely remember it.He was campaigning fro president at the time.

[1gobluedem]

31. My father was in the crowd...

...when the Peace Corps plans were announced on the steps of the Michigan Union. Next morning when he was walking to class, a car pulled up and the driver asked directions to the highway. When my father leaned in to give the directions he noticed JFK in the back seat! Not usually one to do things like that, he stuck his hand out and introduced himself. JFK thanked him for wearing his campaign button.

My father has the jacket he was wearing and that campaign button to this day.