Dallas is as Dallas does
Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the event that changed Dallas' reputation forever. Fortunately, those who remember where they were "that fateful day in Dallas" are getting outnumbered by those whose 'memorable event' was the Challenger explosion or September 11th.
Personally, I was three years away from joining you folks.
This is not to diminish John Kennedy. I am sure that he was a great man - I just never 'knew' him other than in history books. He was young and handsome and his pretty wife and kids made us all kind of feel good about ourselves. The fact that he was a womanizer, whose polices directly led to our involvement in Viet Nam is usually glossed over. My generation has never known a President that you could "trust". This was a different time for the United States - and it all ended in Dealey Plaza.
Dallas has been trying to get over that image on the Zapruder 8mm for 42 years. Okay, JR Ewing went far to rid us of that image, but replace it with...well...something perhaps not better. It was like we had some sort of guilt for taking away Camelot. Yes, the Dallas mafia (which is still alive and well and cooking pizza on Mockingbird Ln) had a hand in it. You didn't do anything in those days without consulting Campisi first. Jack Ruby, by all accounts, was a great lackey and did his job well. Oswald was just one step above moron...he could shoot, thanks to the USMC - take orders too. Of course, he could not shoot THAT well, if you know what I mean. Just like the typical citizen of Birmingham didn't loose the dogs with Bull Connor, the typical Dallasite wasn't standing on the grassy knoll that day - yet we seem to feel we were somehow responsible.
The 6th Floor Museum is a wonderful walk through the past. I recommend it highly. Then, walk through the rest of downtown Dallas - the commerce, the arts, the culture, the cuisine. Find out that Dallas is more than the place "they" shot Kennedy.
Personally, I was three years away from joining you folks.
This is not to diminish John Kennedy. I am sure that he was a great man - I just never 'knew' him other than in history books. He was young and handsome and his pretty wife and kids made us all kind of feel good about ourselves. The fact that he was a womanizer, whose polices directly led to our involvement in Viet Nam is usually glossed over. My generation has never known a President that you could "trust". This was a different time for the United States - and it all ended in Dealey Plaza.
Dallas has been trying to get over that image on the Zapruder 8mm for 42 years. Okay, JR Ewing went far to rid us of that image, but replace it with...well...something perhaps not better. It was like we had some sort of guilt for taking away Camelot. Yes, the Dallas mafia (which is still alive and well and cooking pizza on Mockingbird Ln) had a hand in it. You didn't do anything in those days without consulting Campisi first. Jack Ruby, by all accounts, was a great lackey and did his job well. Oswald was just one step above moron...he could shoot, thanks to the USMC - take orders too. Of course, he could not shoot THAT well, if you know what I mean. Just like the typical citizen of Birmingham didn't loose the dogs with Bull Connor, the typical Dallasite wasn't standing on the grassy knoll that day - yet we seem to feel we were somehow responsible.
The 6th Floor Museum is a wonderful walk through the past. I recommend it highly. Then, walk through the rest of downtown Dallas - the commerce, the arts, the culture, the cuisine. Find out that Dallas is more than the place "they" shot Kennedy.
posted by bisbohemian at 6:19 AM
1 Comments:
I don't understand how anybody could have got an accurate shot off with all those tourists milling around underneath the 6th Floor museum, not to mention the bums cadging change and the conspiracy theorists passing out pamplets...oh wait, its possible those people may not have been there in 1963...
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