The Last Time

Fall was upon us as the last leaves fell from their trees. Harvest festivals of apples and cakes were over and jugs of juice hung from dorm windows, hopefully fermenting. In a week's time it would be Thanksgiving break and three weeks after that the Christmas holidays of dark days and colored lights.  But it had not yet snowed.

Morning classes were over and, in the crisp air of a bright, mid-day, I headed up to the Main House for lunch.   My personalized copy of the New York Times waited for me on the big table just past the entrance.  There would still be time to peruse the headlines with casual curiosity before lunch.

I had just walked up the front steps when an underclassman burst through the doors and ran passed me yelling that the president had been shot. As a senior, it was my responsibility to put a lid on such imbecility and I brusquely told him to shut up.  "It's true, it's true; I swear it!" he said before running off shouting "they've shot the president! they've shot the president! Kennedy's been shot!"  Fool.

In an hour the student body joined in solemn convocation; in 24 hours, school was suspended and, in three days, eyes clear but heart hurting, I would be standing on a patriot tombstone 100 yards from where the martyr was being laid to rest as the flags fluttered in the cold air and the shrill dirge of bag pipes pierced into the crisp blue skies.

Earlier, in August, it had been my plan to meet up with classmates and join the Civil Rights March on Washington.  We were a liberal bunch who felt that discrimination was a disgrace. The Negro's fight was, we youthfully thought, as much our own because it was, after all, our country.  We were supposed to meet up at Port Authority but the terminal was jammed with people looking for space on a bus. I was unable to find my crew and when last I ran into one of them, it was announced that no more buses were available.  I returned home wherefrom, on the following day, I joined the march "in spirit" on television. 

Not this time.  This time there would be no missing the bus.  No marching in spirit, but being in place as one of the watching watched. I knew -- we all knew -- that this was a unique moment in human history in which the entire world came to a halt in disbelief and dismay.  Shared loss stood helpless before the senseless villainy of the deed. He was killed in the flesh, I would be there in the flesh, no matter what, this time.

I have no recollection of how I got to Washington, whether I took the train or the bus.  I do recall that I had arranged to meet some classmates at the D.C. bus station which I did in fact do.  We then met up with additional classmates in front of the Capitol, where we stood in line to file past the coffin.

The city was silent.  Thousands of people milled about quietly speaking, if at all, in soft murmurs as if in a vast church.  The streets were lined with young sailors, soldiers and Marines standing handsomely and still along the route which the caisson would follow.  I wished I were one of them, so smart and true and closer somehow to the man who had been felled.  I will enlist on graduation I said to myself.
 
The coffin was brought down the Capitol steps and placed upon the gun carriage.  The flags fluttered in the breeze and the drum roll began.

It was a cadence I would never forget.  On this last phase of the journey there was no music that I can recall; nothing but the repetitive roll of drums accented by the sharp hoof clacking of the horse without a rider.  I decided to follow the caisson to its final resting place and walked alongside it down the Mall and over the Arlington Memorial Bridge.  On the Virginia side, I ran ahead so as to have a place....

To my surprise there weren't that many people on the slopes under the Custis Lee mansion.  I stood close to the cordon that had been set up and watched the sailors and soldiers march up the hill followed by the caisson and a long line of black limousines and dignitaries.

Kennedy's clarity allowed us to see our better selves in him.  He was the man we wanted to be.  The husband we wanted to have.  The hero of our own ideals and the embodiment of what we expected from that cornucopia of hopes called "America." 

I stood on the tombstone of a long dead patriot atop the knoll that overlooked where the slain man was being laid to rest.  Under a clear azure sky, the rays of the setting sun turned white marble monuments to a golden pink. The flags fluttered in the cold air and the shrill dirge of bagpipes pierced into the crisp blue skies.  I had never felt so sad, so proud to be an American. 

That was the last time.

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