when I was a bright, young, 17-year-old smart aleck kid who left home in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and joined the Army. One day, my great grandma and I were sitting in her dining room, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. She said, "In my mind I feel like a teenager, but look at these hands, they belong to an old lady."
I now understand exactly what she meant. She was one-of-a-kind and probably had some pretty thrilling adventures. We'll never know because she didn't write them down or tell them to me so I could keep those memories alive. I wish my Mom could tell me some of her adventures, but she is far too guarded to do that.
All I can do is try to write things down for my own kids.
I want to start with a memory that isn't even mine. It belongs to the kids' dad. He told it so many times, but it's still a good, if doubly-sad story of how a child is impacted by what is going on for the rest of the world. He was about 7 years old and had a gerbil. The gerbil lived in the basement and with some iteration of his brothers and sisters (there were 7), they got the gerbil out of its cage and it scampered across the floor. Mike put his foot out to block the gerbil from going too far, but instead accidentally landed his foot on the gerbil, killing it. This was his first experience with death and he was devastated.
Later that night, he was laying in bed. His parents had to walk through that bedroom to get to their bedroom, which was in the back of the house. His dad was preparing for bed because he had to go to work the next day and his Mom kept popping back to the room to update him on the status of Bobby Kennedy. She'd say things like, "They say he is still alive..." and she continued updating him throughout the night.
Mike said he layed in bed and would hopefully ask him mom, "Is the gerbil still alive?" He thought those updates were on his hamster, not RFK.
Robert Francis Kennedy, Sr. was the younger brother of assasinated president John F. Kennedy. He had been JFK's attorney general. He was running for president as a Democrat in 1968. Things were looking good in the primaries and the momentum was amazing once they hit California. After the California primary results came in and RFK was announced the winner, the campaign held a celebration at the Ambassdador Hotel in Los Angeles. Kennedy gave a brief speech and then moved toward the kitchen, where he and his family would cut out to their limo through the back entrance. He never made it. At 12:15 am on June 5, 1968, on the way to the exit, Sirhan Sirhan jumped out in front of Kennedy and shot him in the head with a .22 caliber handgun. In front of Kennedy's wife and some of his children.
Kennedy was raced to the hospital where doctors struggled to keep him alive. All through the day and into the next night, the news would break in and update America on his condition. At 1:44 am on June 6, 1968, he was declared dead.
RFK Funeral Train: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYJ6Pk4Mo2Y
