55 years ago. Seen Robert F Kennedy. Ambassador Hotel.

[electric_blue68]

55 years!
Here and there I've forgotten in certain years.

I was too young to get what we lost with his brother JFK till later since I was 10. I knew, of course, it was a terrible thing.

But I knew with Bobby.

The Kennedy supporters though he could win the nomination. The Humphrey campaign said -no way- he (HHH) had the numbers.
Even if Hunphrey had won which would have been a massively better outcome, I think RFK would have nudged him to do more, and of course end the Vietnam War .

With Nixon he'd have been a clarion voice of dissent where needed.
-----------------------------

In RFK: A Raging Spirit - we find out as a kid he was a gentle, empathetic soul - but his father hated that. So he toughened up with football, and in demeanor probably.
But losing JFK - the grief cracked that shell, and we saw that caring unfold, many not knowing it was there in the first place.

I know that when he started running my mom a deeply liberal person who'd probably paid some horrified attention to The McCarthy Hearings (before my time - but close enough to hear about them as I grew up getting attuned to politics early [through my dad]) - she said to me; "He's changed.".

There was a drama made (and I don't know the reviews of it but I saw it) if him when he was AG. He net with leading activist African-Americans & African-Carribeans who really confronted, and schooled him.

I think having such a glaring example of immeasurable callouness, and cruelty (besides the rampent greed) in tfg makes RFK stand out (and no one is without flaws) all the more these days .

[FakeNoose]

1. Bobby Kennedy would have been our greatest President ever

[jimfields33]

3. Was not born yet. Many in the country were not born.

Must be over 50 percent. The years go by fast. Very soon no one alive that day will be on earth.

It will always be historical. Kinda like December 1941. JFK shooting. Nobody left to remember. However they did take good written facts of those days.

[electric_blue68]

5. You are right. It's so vivid to many when recalled that the truth of what you say..may be a.

. bit ?strange.. in some aspect- at least for me.

Which is why History when taught well makes things, people, places, events "come alive" for those too young, didn't pay attention, not interested, or needed their attention seriously to be elsewhere at that time.

[electric_blue68]

15. I believe he would have been one of the greatest.

[keep_left]

2. Lawrence O'Donnell wrote a book a few years ago about the 1968 election.

It's been in a stack of things I need to read for a while, and I finally got around to it recently.

Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/playing-with-fire-lawrence-odonnell/1125762009

[electric_blue68]

6. Oh, ty for that info.

[keep_left]

8. You're welcome.

It's been an enjoyable read so far (I'm about 70 pages into it).

[electric_blue68]

20. Welp my big Bronx library doesn't have it, butt I'll check our big Manhattan one

[Stargleamer]

4. This song came out a short time after that night. . .

https://m.

&pp=ygUXYWJyYWhhbSBtYXJ0aW4gYW5kIGpvaG4%3D

[electric_blue68]

7. Oh, yeah ... Beautifully done. Definitely got teary eyed.

[Tree Lady]

9. I was 11 and parents took me to

bay area town he was driving in a parade. I wish I remembered it better but my memory is spotty before junior high.

I saw my parents cry after both Kennedys died. I was only 7 when the president was killed.

[electric_blue68]

11. Wow! ..even if spotty...

I was 15 and for the most part at that point... parades for me were sort of passé: may be teenage blaiséness, or maybe it had to be something Really Important to go see.

Me being a NYC'r and RFK being our Senator he was at the Greek-American parade. But it's held at a sketchy weather time - late April.

I figured (thought bubble) - "he'll be in NYC at some point to campaign for the NYS Primary I'll go see him then!". I sigh at that, still. I was going to volunteer, too.

(My dad had me slipping flyers under our neighbors' apartment doors by the time I was ?12, ?13. 😄 Started early. My first campaign was for Mayor Lindsay's re-election. A genuine Liberal Republican )
..................

fellow tree lover, too. I draw them

[Tree Lady]

13. Cool about the drawing

I was born in July and every year after we camped in the woods 2-4 weeks. I fell in love with the woods because they mean peace to me. My parents argued a lot and our summer trips with other friends and family a big fun time was the only time I saw them relaxed and happy.

I still feel best in the woods, we live in Oregon only a 15 min drive to hike in them.

[electric_blue68]

16. I'm glad you found something to give you more peace, and the fact those vacations mellowed them out.

And nice, a quick hop by car now

We vacationed a lot in New England, and NYS. We drove through forests. Sometimes stopped in them.

[Boomerproud]

10. I still can't watch the doc about the funeral train with the folks lining the tracks.

I was 12. Not sure if part of me as a naive child full of hope didn't die that day.

[electric_blue68]

12. {hug} Oh, the reverse for me. I Had To see it live (on TV)! ...

In one way you were lucky being only 12 because I had my first (HS) PSAT which was given in June back then or it was for regular end-of-year HS tests. So I had to study resentfully dividing my attention.

So I had to study while I was watching it on TV.
----------------------

Earlier that day I went (my mom sent my dad with me bc she said I looked too wan) to see the funeral procession at 34th St on it's way to Penn Station. It was So quiet as they passed by.
----------------------------

I also in the '90s I visited Arlington to see JFK's (final memorial grave - I saw the White Picket Fence in ?64 w my folks), and then RFK's. Both very simple, poignantly beautiful. You can just see RFK's from JFK's.

[DFW]

14. My dad and he were good friends

As in Al and Bob. The shock and sadness in our house the next morning were so intense as to practically be physical in nature.

Bobby once autographed an informal photo of himself to my father saying « to (my dad), with high regard, » and then signed it in his modest scrawl. I still have that photo, in the frame it was in when Bobby gave it to him. It’s a little faded now, but still, only somewhat. The two of them were a tiny mutual admiration society.

[electric_blue68]

17. That's something! And a bit of that high regard & relationship still resonates in....

that object I think, as well as your memories.
.
My god yes, the intensity of that Horror for your dad, thus the rest of you. Also depending on how old you were, too

In NYC we had a radio guy who did talk, and interviews later at night. As 1967 progressed he had pretty much all of JFK's and now RFK's people on from Fall '67 onward . Including a very young Jeff Greenfield. "Is he going to run?" Discussing his views, etc.

I went to sleep of course for HS the next morning. But I borrowed my dad's little transistor. I woke up sometime after 4am NYC time with the strangest stomach ache I ever had.
Now I wasn't like thinking somethhing's wrong - but I figured I'd find out if there was good news from the California results! Flicked it on and it'd had only happened not long before. Well, I didn't get back to sleep.

The next night same thing woke up strange pains turn on transistor and Frank MacKowitz was just finishing the announcement. "He was..."

I and friend did wait, and paid our respects at St Patrick's as well. As someone who bopped around Mahattan, and that area among others - it took a long for St Patrick's to "just" return to being a Cathedral, and not that experience.


A highly regarded String Theory Theoretical Physicist has said our Universe is so vast there could be a few parallel Earths out there. I like to think on one of them he made to being President, and often did a superb job. Many people would remember him there with great regard, and affection somewhere far away in some other galaxy's Earth. That gives me a bit of comfort even though it's not us.

Best regards on these few days of painful memories.

[DFW]

18. I was 16. I think you are referring to Frank Mankiewicz, Bobby's press secretary.

Even back then, no one could spell his name! My dad was on the phone to Frank several times a day. Bobby had a wonderful (and beautiful) receptionist named Brandi, with whom I was desperately in love. One day, while we were in Bobby's Senate office, she broke the awful news to me that she was getting married. I pleaded with her to reconsider and let me finish puberty first, but it was too late. I don't think I was emotionally whole again until I met my wife, 6 years later.

[electric_blue68]

19. Yup, that kind of thing can happen... glad you found your wife!

Yes, was definitely refering to Mr Mankiewicz. He could have been on that radio show, too.

I took a guess, wasn't going break my train of thought.

[DFW]

21. So am I! Brandi was seven or eight years older than I was.

It didn't matter when I was 16 and she was untouchable. My wife and I are the same age, and we've been together for 49 years now. No one is gladder than I am. I got over Brandi. I never would have gotten over losing my wife.

[electric_blue68]

22. May you continue to enjoy a wonderful partnership.

[DFW]

23. Thanks! As long as I have my wonderful partner, I will!

In Germany, just after having met, 1974, at age 22:


Last year, 48 years later, at our 70th birthday party at Waikoloa on the Big island-100% financed by our younger daughter, who is prone to insane acts of generosity like that (and who can afford it!):

[electric_blue68]

25. Sweet photos! And what a wonderful 70th BD gift! Here's to many more BDs & Anniversaries.

🍷👍

[Kid Berwyn]

24. Thank you for remembering and posting, electric_blue68!

You are doing the work America’s free press is supposed to do.

Who Killed RFK?

Martin Porter
The Ann Arbor Sun, December 31, 1975

Excerpt…

…An autopsy report by Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi (famed for his work on the Tate-LaBianca murders) found that all gunshot wounds came from "right to left directions and upward and back to front directions." From deeply ingrained powder burns on the Senator's ear, he concluded that the bullet entered Kennedy's brain from a distance of "one inch and no more than three inches away."

Continues…

https://aadl.org/node/200562

The above was written before Philip H. Melanson’s work was published, which anyone interested in the impact of political violence on democracy needs to read.

[electric_blue68]

26. Aw, KB you are too kind! I actually found DU bc of looking for RFK rememberences back in '20...

I'm on a very long running rock band's fan site that has a liberal/progressive bent.

Like many specially dedicated sites there are the Off Topic Sub forums. There's been a robust Political section!

Anyway no one was doing a rememberence so I added one. Not much response. With drumphf in office it was extra glaring.

So I went looking for some Liberal Political Site. I don't remember what I input for a search - but then remembered DU. That was from 20 years ago!
Originally found DU on line at a Net Cafe the first year it started. But w/o internet at home, and many other things to be on line for I forgot about it.

Wow was I Surprised to see still here!
And people were properly imho remembering Bobby

Took a quick glance...will read the rest of the piece. Ever since I read years ago that there were more bullets holes in the hotel pantry walls than Sirhan had in his gun... alarm bells went off.