Ten Years Ago Today

B_Stronzo

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I wasn't intending to post today but this bears mention.

I was reminded by Good Morning America that it's been ten years to the day (July 16, 1999) since John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane went down in Nantucket Sound. John died with his wife and sister-in-law.

I recall the shock and horror of a promising young life abbreviated at age thirty-nine.

John was first, last, and always a gentleman.

He was tremendously easy on the eyes and made everyone around him immediately comfortable - ever (apprently) unaware of his physical presence. His sister Caroline has that same affect on people. I think too, now as I'm thinking back over the decade, how difficult it must be on Caroline to be the lone surviving member of a family who once represented the term "Camelot".

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis has been called many things by many people but the one thing she never gets called is a "lousy mother". I think she did an incredible job teaching both her children values of the REAL variety and humility... That legacy I hope will be carried down through Caroline's Schlossberg children.

My family (until my own generation) have been staunch Republicans and despised everything Kennedy. My dad and I used to get very heated over the Kennedy topic. But when John Jr. died ten years ago today it was the end of an era to many here in New England.

I have too many emotions floating around in my mind to go on much more about JFK jr.'s death but let it suffice to say;

Johnny? I miss you sorely.

John and Carolyn
 

Flashy

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Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis has been called many things by many people but the one thing she never gets called is a "lousy mother". I think she did an incredible job teaching both her children values of the REAL variety and humility... That legacy I hope will be carried down through Caroline's Schlossberg children.

http://www.blisstree.com/ouroneheart/files/2007/09/classic_kennedy.jpg

well, the best thing she ever did was to keep them away from the Kennedy Clan. I believe that is why they grew up to be pretty normal and not at all like the disaster that many of the other Kennedy children became.

she deserves a great deal of credit for that.


but i think because of who he was, JFKJr has an inordinate amount of importance conferred upon him, far beyond what he actually was or was capable of, through no fault of his own, but by the hope of fulfilling a "dream" cut short with his father's death, and then with his own untimely demise.

He never meant very much to me at all, as anything other than a nice, wistful image of what "could have been" of the Camelot years etc.

the only Kennedy i have ever liked was JFK. by extension, the good job that Jackie did in raising Jr and Caroline, endeared them to me, in that i associate them with the "best" of what the Kennedy mystique had to offer...the possibility of greatness and something finer...and not the besmirched legacy of all the other Kennedy's, who i find to be rather vile.

Camelot was a fleeting moment, and Jr and Caroline were the enduring hope that maybe it was real. But they were just nice, well raised kids, doing their best in a situation which was probably unimaginably difficult.

Frankly, when i think of JFK jr, i really do not think of him actually doing anything remotely important...but he will always be the little boy in the peacoat, saluting his father's coffin...an enduring symbol of that time in america and the *possibilities*.

IMO :smile:
 

B_Stronzo

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Camelot was a fleeting moment, and Jr and Caroline were the enduring hope that maybe it was real. But they were just nice, well raised kids, doing their best in a situation which was probably unimaginably difficult.

Frankly, when i think of JFK jr, i really do not think of him actually doing anything remotely important...but he will always be the little boy in the peacoat, saluting his father's coffin...an enduring symbol of that time in america and the *possibilities*.

IMO :smile:

I share your opinion Flashy.

Today, for me at least, is one of those days one looks back on and says "I can tell you just where I was when I got the news".

**Happy Birthday Charles Finn in spite of its convergence with the death of JFK jr.
 
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yes on my birthday no less
I am now 42 years old today

Happy birthday! As for JFK he is highly overrated and even if he had lived he would not have accomplished anything. As for his son JFK jr. at least he did not turn out like Teddy Kennedy and become a slobbering hypocrite alcoholic who killed Mary Jo Kopechne.