We were leaving the gym that afternoon, in our PE outfits. Goddammit, I hated PE. Even though, now, looking back on it, it was quite good for me. I watch what schools call PE now and just have to laugh at the lax standards to which we hold our kids. It's a national disgrace to have this many fatass kids slopping around eating Cheetos. Hmm. . . Oh, what? . . . What was the subject?
I don't mean to make light of this, but the response from the folks in the place where I was at the time of this event would not please you. And I wasn't one of them grinning and saying "the nigger-lover deserved it" and all that. But it has been hard for me, thinking about that phenomenon as time has etched its mark on my soul.
There have been a lot of mistakes made from all sides on this political war we’ve had for so many years. Right now, I watch Paul Begala paint a map of America where he says all Republicans come from the land where blacks are tied behind trucks and dragged to their deaths, and where gay men are tied to fence posts and left to die, and so on. I don't think there would have been one politician who would have called JFK a nigger-lover in public. So I wonder where the hate really starts, and where it can ever end?
As a matter of personal recollection, the live image of Jack Ruby killing Oswald in broad daylight has always stayed with me more than the destruction of the President. I saw this on live TV as it happened. Can you imagine the balls it took to do that, knowing that every camera in the country was focused on you? Can you imagine how evil to the core the folks were (are) who concocted that plan?
I guess we could ask Ruby about it all, eh? Oh, wait...