Comments on: The Passing of Presidents

By: Steve C.

Steve C. — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:37:43 +0000

Queuno: I have been to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. I agree. It is worth the visit. Daley Plaza is quite interesting. Not to get off track too much, but when I was in high school our hs band marched in the Cotton Bowl parade. Our band had a cowboy motif and the drum majors shot .38 revolvers (loaded with blanks, of course) as part of the routine. We were about a block away from Daley Plaza (and could see the Texas Book Depository) when our drum majors shot off the .38s. You should have seen the security jump out of the woodwork when they heard gunshots.

I enjoy visiting Dallas and all there is to do there. Thanks for the reminder.

By: queuno

queuno — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 03:44:10 +0000

I’m a little late, but I liked this post.

Let’s be sure not to accuse Dallas of killing JFK. Lee Harvey Oswald, possibly aided by (pick one) the CIA, the Mafia, etc., killed JFK. Oswald had minimal ties to Dallas itself.

And if anyone ever visits Dallas, I’ll invite you to go through the Sixth Floor Museum… It’s a sensational museum. You can even go stand behind the grassy knoll. And people (not the museum) keep an X painted on the street at roughly the correct position where JFK’s motorcade was. It’s really, really eerie.

By: Bill MacKinnon

Bill MacKinnon — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:13:53 +0000

Ardis,
Thanks for this. I remember the assassination and its aftermath well. Would that we could hear Richard L. Evans read his words on this occasion today. He had a tone, cadence, and dignity that made anything he read or said a pleasure to hear, second only to the talents of today’s David McCullough.

By: Hellmut

Hellmut — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:27:13 +0000

Thank you very much for this important message, Ardis.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:02:59 +0000

One thing to be said about “today’s poisoned political climate”–unlike that of 46 years ago, it hasn’t resulted in the assassination of a president. So, ugly as some of the talk is, maybe Hunter’s right–the talk isn’t exceptional. But, thankfully, actual political violence is relatively rare.

Regarding John Mansfield’s comment, perhaps the JFK assassination has been relegated to the “quirky crimes from the past” because so many have no memories of that day. My ward is relatively young (I’m old enough to be father of most of the members), and almost nobody seemed to have any idea what had happened on November 22.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:08:10 +0000

I bemoan “today’s poisoned political climate” as much as the other commentators. I suppose, though, that the type of acerbic rhetoric we hear so much of in 2009 is not really exceptional in the grand sweep of time. Caustic and and destructive exchanges will probably always be with us; it’s human nature.

And so it’s that fact that makes this Richard L. Evans article all the more important to me. I applaud his model of modest and respectful commentary.

By: Phoebe

Phoebe — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:32:06 +0000

Add my note of thanks for your thoughtful post.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:28:31 +0000

Very nice, Ardis.

Thank you.

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:18:03 +0000

The Washington Examiner is a free paper that is tossed in my driveway every Sunday. On the page with news of crimes there is always in one corner an historical crime, something a bit quirky and interesting to hear about thirty or seventy years after the fact. Yesterday that space was occupied by the Kennedy assassination, recounted in just the same way as the usually obscure items found there. It was weird to see the event shifted out the “world-shaking calamities we mark our lives by” category into the “quirky crimes from the past” category, more like the murders of McKinley and Garfield.

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:16:39 +0000

A wonderful antidote to the viciousness elsewhere in the world. Thank you, Ardis.