It’s like Elvis died. For the first time in 63 years there will be no Kennedy in congress. Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy will not run again. The legacy has ended. There is no prince to carry on. But what a ride it was. The explosion of America’s young people began with John Kennedy. The country had found it’s youth after the dreary leaders with hats had bored us to death in the 50′s. Things would be different now. Freedom, equality and prosperity were just around the corner. It was in our hand. Then the shots rang out in Dallas.
Perhaps it died there and then but we refused to let it go. The dream would never die we told ourselves. Dreams become memories. They were rekindled for us and the Kennedys when we passed the mantle to Barack Obama. But now President Obama has hit his biggest hurdle with the election of a republican to the old Kennedy senate seat. We didn’t see it coming. Shots rang out again. As that Irish senator from New York Daniel Moynihan said so long ago, ” there’s no point in being Irish unless you know that some day the world is going to break your heart ”.
The Kennedys broke our hearts like a first love. There will never be another. But we had them once. John Kennedy liked to quote the New England poet Robert Frost at the end of his speeches…” The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep ”. The Kennedys sleep now. They are gone.
It was a heck of a ride wasn’t it ?
Tom Durfey
