... a good morning ...
July 19, 1999
6:30 a.m.
Things are progressing moderately welll here. We had a very nice weekend away from Columbus, and I've had some progress on "1 is True..." I would like to be farther along, though. Of course. I wanted to stop a couple minutes early this morning, though, because I wanted to take a moment to sort through the JFK Jr. thing. I found out he and his family members were missing Saturday morning when I flipped on the TV. It's a really incrediible thing. And I don't know that I have any way of truly describing how I felt right then. There's the historical context--what the word Kennedy means to how the world is now. I think of JFK's Camelot, of course. But I also think of his brother's visit to Indianapolis, and how his words in a downtown city helped to stop riots the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. I think of how he shared the feelings he had about losing his own brother, and how that brought a sense of community to that place. Now, another likely death in the Kennedy household brings another sense of community to the country. There's the coincidence context, too. Of course. 30th anniversary of the moon shot. And how can you ignore Chappaquittick (spelling terribly uncertain there, and I don't have time to check it now--hope you'll forgive me)? People say that the Kennedy's lives get played out on a grand scale because they choose to live their lives on that grand scale. They bring attention on themselves. But do they really? Certainly, JFK, RFK, and their father did. Certainly Teddy Kennedy does. But John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Caroline are not their parents. I've never heard of a good portion of the Kennedy family--probably because they want it that way. But they will carry this name and this legacy for their entire lives. They will be public people. They can't avoid it. And so now reporters gather around the Kennedy compound with their telephoto lenses like great safari hunters in the African brush. The networks gawk on their all-day reports full of nothing to say, the anchors each sitting with smug looks on their faces and stumbling over themselves to put in the best one-liner sound bite. These people were buzzards circling a non-existent carcass. But slowly the news trickled in, and slowly it began to look more and more like the obvious concerns were actually true. The murk was clearing, and it appeared the John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife, and her sister would not be found. And I felt the queasiness inside that you get when you know something is wrong. I felt like I had lost something myself, though I couldn't tell you why. And the more Dan Rather and Peter Jennings talked, the dirtier I felt. And I finally realized that the problem was that they were up there entertaining, doing their best Walter Cronkite impersonation, each more like the other, each trying to appear more serious than the next. Each speaking of their personal contacts with the Kennedys as if they were tokens into the anchor game. So I turned it off. After awhile, the news is no longer the news. I know the Kennedy family will mourn in public, and will again show the country how to do it. But for now, I wish them time, and I wish them their peace.   Have a great day, and remember to give those that love you a special moment today, okay?  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"Step back, guys. Give him some air." My high school basketball coach |
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