. . . and now we are the elders

[Tangerine LaBamba]

I was a freshman at Temple University, all set for a West Point cadet weekend at the Army-Navy game. My date was cute - I'd seen his picture, and we'd talked on the phone.

I walked into our dorm room that Friday, after my noon class was over, and my roommate, Fern Bernstein, was slouching on her bed. She said to me, the radio loud beside her, "The President got killed in Dallas."

I didn't know where to go, so I went with Fern to the Hillel Center, where they had a TV, and we stayed there, watching it all unfold. The widow with the coffin, his brother jumping up to help carry it off the plane. The strange, harsh lights at Andrews Air Base.

That was JFK. That was our President. He was so young, and handsome, and really cool. God, he was cool!

The Army-Navy game was canceled that year, and so were all the weekend parties that had been planned. (The game was played later, in early December, but that was all - no parties, no celebrating.) I often wondered what happened to that boy who was to be my date for the weekend - did he end up as an officer in Vietnam? Did he return?

My parents came to Philadelphia, to visit me at my aunt and uncle's house, where I was in the suburbs of the city, when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. We all watched it. I remember my Uncle Jim as they showed the shooting - he said "This is getting more and more bizarre," and it struck me, because it was the first time I'd heard that word spoken. I'd only read it before.

June of 1968, I was on my way back to the States from Peru. I'd been living in South America, ostensibly to do some academic research (and get academic credit), but mostly having a ball. I was engaged to an architect in Lima, but I was also engaged to a physician in Philadelphia. I figured I'd work it out somehow, but it was time to spend the summer in the US, where I had a lucrative job waiting for me in Maine, as part of an academic program of some kind, all of it arranged for me by my adviser.

My flight from Lima had a layover in Panama, but I stayed for a whole day, because the nightclub I'd been taken to by a friend who’d met me for a drink at the airport was just too good, and so was the herb, and we partied and danced, and played the best pinball machines I've ever seen. Then I caught my flight to Miami.

I landed and cleared Customs without getting caught with the switchblade knife I had tucked into the waistband of my pantyhose (a gift for an old boyfriend - they were illegal in the US). When I entered the terminal on my way to my connecting flight to Pennsylvania, where my parents waited for me, I saw that all the TVs were on the same channel, and the terminal was silent except for the sound of the TVs. People stood like statues, staring up the sets.

RFK had been shot in Los Angeles.

Just two months earlier, I had been at Machu Picchu in Peru, exploring the Lost City of the Incas, traveling alone and having the time of my life in the Amazon jungle, when a German man came up to me - Jan from Dusseldorf, he told me, and we partied nicely later - and said "Your Martin Luther King has been killed."

Now, Bobby Kennedy was in the hospital, shot in the head.

I stayed in the terminal until they announced his death.

Then I continued on to my connecting flight. A few days after that, I was in Maine, where I met another man, and a year to the day after MLK, Jr. was killed, I married that man, leaving the other two behind.

Yesterday was my birthday, and Ted Kennedy died. By now, I have lost so many loved ones, I should be better at this, but, you know, I'm not. The same numbness, the same bottomless sense of loss, the same tears not quite shed, the same disbelief that anything like this could possibly have happened again, they all own me now.

I am no longer the young girl who stood at JFK's grave a week after he was buried, the weekend when she should have been wearing a pretty dress and high heels and dancing with a handsome young cadet in an immaculate uniform. I have danced everywhere, and worn every pretty dress. There have been plenty of handsome men, some of them keepers, all of them dear to me, even now.

And now I am almost relieved. There is nothing left to lose. We have lost the last Kennedy brother, they are all gone.

Gone, like my youth is gone, and things have changed forever. They changed in 1963, and they changed in 1968, and they changed yesterday for the last time.

Now, we are the irrevocable elders. We are the adults. We are the next to go.

We are the ones who hoped we did a good job.

We are the ones who fought an unjust war, a criminal President; who went to far-away lands to teach people how to read, how to build houses, how to lay pipe, how to make clothes; we won for women the right to decide what happens to their bodies, and we helped register people to vote, something that those people had so unjustly been denied all their lives.

We made mistakes. We did our best.

We have arrived here.

And here we shall remain, watching it all, telling our stories, doing what we can, hoping for the best, and yearning, always yearning for one more speech, one more conversation, one more moment of flight, that wonderful instant when the plane leaves the ground, the wheels come up, and you are lifted, lifted, high and away on your way to yet another adventure.

Our heroes are gone, and now we are the elders. It is, today, a very sad place to be, but, Daniel Patrick Moynihan told us, and he told the truth, when he said, speaking of JFK's assassination, that "in the end, the world will break your heart."

We just never counted on having our hearts broken so often, to end up with them in so many scattered, shattered, bloody pieces.

We never knew it would hurt so much..............

[saltpoint]

1. A thousand damns that fate bruises us so hard and for so long and

a thousand grateful thanks for beautiful writing.

Ma'am, you are using the strong mind and true heart to kick ass.

[Robb]

2. Very happy to rec this.

Thank you.

[Suich]

3. We're about the same age.

Thank you for expressing the way I've been feeling.

K & R

[HeresyLives]

4. Okay, now I have tears.

And I'm Canadian.

But that's exactly what I felt, every time it happened.

[panader0]

5. A very good post---Rec'd

Personal stories have true weight.

[TokenQueer]

6. Thank you.

:toast:

[Mari333]

7. yes, the Kennedy Brothers were the impetus to much change in this country

their passing literally set the stage for a lot of things..and now, with Ted having passed, its the end of an era..
k/r

[Frosty1]

8. Beautiful

Thank You

[malaise]

9. Super post

Laughing, crying, having fun, growing up and suddenly realizing that indeed we are the elders. Those of us who had a ball are the lucky ones.

Happy belated Birthday Sis and yes we can cry for Teddy at the same time.
He too knew that having a ball is an important part of growing up.

My favorite aunt used to say 'Life is a Bitch and then we all die'. Then she'd add so you'd better make the most of it - celebrate the good times because the bad times are coming.

------------

Rec this lovely OP

[alittlelark]

10. Thank You for a beautiful post.

[babylonsister]

11. Very nice. Thank you! nt

[FirstLight]

12. Thanks for the vision of what it was like

I don;t think I ever got the story from my folks about where they were or ow they felt. My dad is 77 now, and I worry about him every day...

I am of another generation and I am grieving for the end of the era as well... it seems like the 60's went by and so much was lost...freedom and hope and the power to change was really in your hands...and I am sorry that the icons for the movement were taken from you before the change could happen. Teddy was the one who hung on, sometimes even waiting 40 years to see something happen ...he took the quiet route, but made those changes nontheless.

and it remains to be seen if my generation will ever have those kinds of people to look up to.

beautiful post, thanks again

[Tangerine LaBamba]

32. Call your Dad tomorrow,

and ask him about November 22, 1963. I bet he'll tell you a whole lot, stuff you never dreamed.

He's old enough to be able to remember Pearl Harbor, too, I bet.

Your father has stories to tell you. Ask him. I wish I could hear that conversation.

Old people are great resources, with lots to share, so don't ever be shy about asking. We love to tell those stories, and you'll learn so much, so much that's not in history books.

I hope your generation will have heroes like we had. I wish I could give you all that we had, especially during the sixties, but those days are gone forever. As it should be.

You are at the luckiest time of your life, and it's up to you to make your memories. Get out there and shake it up. Don't ever duck a chance to take a risk, and don't be afraid. There's plenty of real stuff to fear, but living a rich, full, adventurous, complicated life isn't one of them.

Thank you for your kind words, and you're very welcome. All these nice people who said such nice things - thank you to you all.

Enjoy your conversation with your Dad, and if you get a really good story, don't forget to post it here.........................

[LuckyLib]

39. Your words are an important message to young people who have grown up with

fearful, overprotective parents:

"You are at the luckiest time of your life, and it's up to you to make your memories. Get out there and shake it up. Don't ever duck a chance to take a risk, and don't be afraid. There's plenty of real stuff to fear, but living a rich, full, adventurous, complicated life isn't one of them."

Take that risk -- travel, move to a new place, live where you want to live, join the Peace Corps, work to help others. Let go of the cell phone and the Facebook and live.

[PatSeg]

48. I know many of our generation

did not see the change we had envisioned, but when I look at the bigger picture, there was a lot more change than we often realize.

I've tried to convey to my children how different life used to be. I remember segregation in the South and discrimination against women in the work place. I remember being interviewed for jobs where my marital status and the prospect of having children was an acceptable consideration for my eligibility for a position. Can any young person imagine the fear and dread that our young men lived with, knowing they could get drafted and their whole lives altered forever?

Gay people stayed in their closets and black people stayed on their side of the tracks. Abused wives were told "they'd made their beds, and they had to sleep in them". Molestation was swept under the rug and therapy was for crazy people - "We don't air our dirty laundry for the neighbors to see." Premarital sex was a sin and single pregnant women were sent away to homes for wayward girls. Single mothers and divorce were very rare, and the fodder of hushed gossip.

For all the steps we've taken backwards, there are others that went forward. I take comfort in knowing that in spite of our failures, we've evolved in many ways. The fact that we have a black man in the White House is something many of us never dreamed we would see in our lifetimes.

[havocmom]

13. Ah, that's the one I was waiting for. Thank you.

May I add:

We have daughters, you and I. Did what we could to grow them straight and true.

Mine is quick to check in when something happens, quick to lend her strength. But there has always been a sadness in her, and some envy. She has mentioned that it must have been something, to live when dreams and hope were affordable. Ever the historian, she envies us our first hand knowledge.

She has never had leaders to believe in so fully as did we. She has understanding enough to recognize the pain of our losses, yet she envies us. And she guardedly hopes someone will come, in her lifetime, to light a candle so bright she can really understand 'how it felt.'

For you, my dear, a bit from an old poem:

The Ladies born of August
are a stout hearted lot
The young ones have some fights ahead.
The older ones have fought...

Be comforted, my friend, in the irrevocable knowledge that you have fought. And in such glorious crusades! Our daughters, some of them at least, tend our old wounds and keep banners held high and ready, should a call to the good fight be made again by leaders worth following.

[havocmom]

14. I got to give the thirtieth rec on this one

oh, to be thirty again....

[Jennicut]

15. All the Kennedy brothers have been a big influence on younger people

I am 33 and I just don't want the dreams of those brothers to die.

[Stinky The Clown]

16. Thanks

The understanding it doesn't make it better or easier, does it?

We are, indeed, the elders.

:hug:

[MichiganVote]

17. Happy Birthday Tangerine....let's all hope we become wiser elders

to forgive our unwise youth.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Thank you for saying so eloquently what my heart has been whispering all day.

I was simply struck too dumb to form the words.

Well said.

[lunatica]

19. Teddy's death is the symbolic end of an era that has deteriorated

in spite of his best efforts. But he would tell us never to give up, never to stop believing, and never to stop dreaming. He stands as an example that there's no law that makes you less idealistic as you age. Or less of a lion for a cause. I feel he lived in positive awareness until the very end. We've all benefited for having him so dynamically in our lives.

[Mira]

20. I am so very touched by your personal,

inspiring, reverend account of these gravid happenings that affected us all - us, of that irrevocable elder status you identify.
Thank you for writing it. Recommended !

[chill_wind]

21. What an exquisitely written passage-

"And here we shall remain, watching it all, telling our stories, doing what we can, hoping for the best, and yearning, always yearning for one more speech, one more conversation, one more moment of flight, that wonderful instant when the plane leaves the ground, the wheels come up, and you are lifted, lifted, high and away on your way to yet another adventure."

Oh how I lived that, and loved living that (literally as a flight attendant for a time back then) but I miss the metaphorical of your meanings in a far, far more poignant sense. I share your profound sadness.

[Lifelong Protester]

22. I do so know how you feel, as I feel it too....

Somehow I felt if Teddy was still with us, we were 'safe', and now I feel we are so exposed. And you are also right, in that we now must look around and say that WE are the elders, and we need to look out for the 'youngers'.

Thank you for your very remarkable writing.

[lordsummerisle]

23. Great writing

but what's up with being engaged to two guys at the same time...?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

31. It sounds a lot more complicated

than it really was, what with them being in different countries.

But, by the end of the summer of 1968, I was engaged to a third man. I married him the following year.

It just seemed so rude to say "No" when they proposed, and the rings were really beautiful, and they were wonderful men, and I figured I'd work something out. Somehow.

The insufferable arrogance and air-headedness of a very busy young woman who never gave up her belief that, somehow, if you're just quick enough, things work out.........................

[Lugnut]

24. Thank you.

Nothing was ever the same after November 22, 1963. Camelot is no more.

Happy birthday, Tang.

[Alameda]

36. November 22 was amazing.....so much hope, so much optimism!

I wish I could convey the hope we all felt when JFK was running..............and then he won!!! The joy, the optimism we all felt.............then the assassinations began.....Medgar Evers June 12th, 1963, Malcolm X February 1965, Martin April 4th 1968, Bobby Kennedy June 5th 1968.................it has not been easy.

[Lugnut]

51. I remember it well.

When candidate Kennedy was running for election his motorcade stopped in our town. A large group of us were chosen to represent our high school as Kennedy Girls. It was a very exciting and hopeful time.

[Odin2005]

25. K&R

[proteus_lives]

26. I'm having lunch with my mother tomorrow.

I'll ask her what her thoughts on Teddy's death are. I vividly remember her re-tellings of where she was when JFK,RFK, King and X were killed.

As a history buff, I've pestered my parents all my life with details of those times. I've listened to my mom's journey from the small farming town where she grew up to the helter-skelter of university life, protest and change. My dad talks of darker things. Drugs, rebellion, crime and the jungles of Vietnam. But I've always loved those stories. Things like my mom protesting about campus ROTC or my dad fighting his way out of pool hall in Gary, Indiana.

I wonder what it will feel like describing the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Challenger exploding, watching riots on tv, the birth of the internet, the election of the first black president or how it felt wake up on 9/11/01 to a full voice-mail and utter silence in a college dorm. (The concept is unsettling to this day.) How it will feel to describe these events to a smaller version of myself?

It's a wheel that we are all connected to. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mother's father and listening intently to where he was when Pearl Harbor was attacked. How it felt it to sit in a movie theater and watch on newsreels as fascism descended on the world. And how the day after Pearl Harbor, the occupants of the all-mall college boarding he was staying marched down to the naval and army recruiting station. I was amazed how he said there was no discussion about it, no plan. They just got up the next day and joined up. (My grandfather included. He would serve 41-45 on several ships in the Pacific.)

I have always been amazed how when you ask people to describe moments like this and you can see the years drop away and they're there again. Instant recall. I love moments like that. I find myself astonished that I've collected a small number of my own already.

I suppose the Chinese were dead-on with their wish/curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Thanks for sharing.

[Lars39]

27. Start recording her memories.

There's been a few times I would have given anything to have had a tape recorder....when the memories start flowing it's hard to get a person to backtrack so you can write something down.

[voc]

28. Thank you

for writing such a beautiful post.

[Libertas1776]

29. Beautiful,

beautiful post.

[jannyk]

30. I thought I was done crying, but...

...no...
:cry: :cry: :cry:

I'm just a little younger than you, and I feel not just unbearably sad, but also a little rattled - scared. It's like the Party has now lost it's moral compass, the biggest advocate for us, 'the little people' has gone. No matter what 'they' say, all the others have one eye on us and one on the polls and the next election - all of them apart from Dennis, but he will never have Kennedy's stature and has been marginalized. Who is going to fight for us now?....


That was very profound and beautifully written - thank you

[calimary]

33. Really lovely piece. And yeah, we never knew it would hurt so much.

It's a real marker, a milestone moment, for this baby boomer. SO much of our ideas took shape as we watched that gorgeous young family in the White House. For those of us who were kids and teens during the '60's, we'd become aware that there was youth and the frequently quoted Kennedy "word" - "vigor". The country had just moved out of the Eisenhower era, led by a congenial grandfatherly gent and the kindly-if-matronly grandma who stood beside him. Now, all of a sudden, there were kids in the White House. There was youth, energy, style, dynamism, with adorable, photogenic kids, and a sleek young First Lady as unlike a grandma as Michelle Obama is now. And we were slowly starting to awaken, nudged by the emotional grip of those images of those kids, that youth, that style. It just really resonated. I dunno - maybe that's why the Kennedy family exerts such a pull on so many of us Americans. All visceral. Just really resonated. And now the last elder, America's Uncle, who was a direct part of that - our one last link to that primal, critical early era, has died. As that generation moves on, that leaves - us. The stability of that familiar ground shifts beneath our feet.

Feels pretty shaky, I'll tell ya.

[The Doctor.]

34. That was heartbreaking... and beautiful.

The Kennedys were the enemies of avarice.

Avarice is pro-active.

[Le Taz Hot]

35. **Sniff**

A profound thank you from another Boomer.

[redqueen]

37. The Irish know it hurts that much.

Lovely piece, thank you.

[Kajsa]

38. Thank you, TLaB.

You expressed so well what many of us went
through back then.

:(

and

Happy Birthday to you!

:pals:

[OneBlueSky]

40. for some reason, the one that really hit me was John Lennon . . .

I don't know why . . . I was a lot closer, in my mind, to the Kennedys and to Dr. King, but for some reason John's death just crushed me . . . maybe it was that he seemed to have really found himself as a house husband, enjoying family life and just getting back into recording away from all the Beatles hoopla . . . I remember thinking that it's just so unfair that someone like that could be gunned down by yet another crazy in a country that seemed to get crazier by the year . . .

John's assassination still saddens me more than I would have expected, especially when I hear one of his songs . . . I occasionally wonder what contributions were still in him that he never had a chance to make, both musically and culturally . . . unfortunately, we'll never know . . .

[OneGrassRoot]

41. oh goodness.....

This breaks my heart for several reasons, but when I got to the last line, that did it.

It reminds me of a conversation with my father, who passed two years ago, several years ago. He was talking about how the world has changed and how it's hard to rely on anything, or anyone. He grew up in a time when, if you were a good, loyal employee, you could count on staying with a company your entire adult life, if you so choose. The lay-offs of the 70's and 80's changed that, and changed people to the core. Rocked their world.

My dad was one of them.

So, in reflecting upon life and how, at his age (at the time, he was only in his late 50s, as he was 62 when he suddenly passed) he was still having to prove himself in the workforce, he said, "No one ever told us it would be so hard, that it would hurt so much."

[Bluerthanblue]

42. you have captured

an important aspect of this loss, at least in my heart.

That Ted's death, is also an extension, a reawakening of so many other losses.

it hurts to feel, to love, to live and especially to say fare well.


:grouphug:

[road2000]

43. Lovely post.

Haunting and evocative. There are no elder wings under which we can shelter, now. It's an eerie time, like a solar eclipse. Even the quality of light isn't quite right... the source is covered, but it hurts our eyes to look at it.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

44. {{{{{{{{Tangerine LaBamba}}}}}}}}

Thanks, hon, for this beautiful post. I'm sorry your birthday had to include such an element of sadness.
Here's hoping the rest of the year is better for you. :hug::hug::hug:

[PatSeg]

45. You've captured it so well

I was trying to understand why I was moved to tears all day yesterday, as I knew Kennedy wasn't going to be with us much longer. Then I realized an era has passed for good. The tears weren't just for Kennedy and his family, but for an ending. It was similar to the feelings people have when their parents pass on and the children become the elders.

Over the years I've relived the many events of my youth, trying to understand from a more objective viewpoint. Being young and preoccupied with life, I often wasn't paying complete attention. I frequently urge my kids to watch and listen, as they are witnesses to and participants in history. They need to be able to give their children a first-hand account of the history they are part of.

[old mark]

46. TlB: Thanks for this post - I heard about JFK one day in a

study hall in high school-2 of us car nuts were talking to a nun about the Honda 50cc bikes - she was amazed that they were so quick, and pointed out that 50cc is about the size of a salt shaker....then we heard an announcement, and that was that....

TlB, it only hurts if you care, and hurts worse when you try to change things. A lot we did turned out wrong, but we did a lot of good things and it took a lot of pushing and kicking to get where we are now. Young folks who scorn us boomers, just wait - it will pass you by before you realize it is gone, and I hope you have as much of a time as we did - and still are.
Good luck, young ones - you will need more than you can imagine.
Rec.

mark

[tularetom]

47. Eloquent post as usual

Those are three days I'll never forget - after all these years the events of those days are as vivid as when they happened.

On November 22, 1963 I was on my way to a hydraulic engineering lab at Cal when some kid came running across the Plaza screaming "they shot Kennedy". By the time I got to the lab everybody was gathered around a radio listening in shock. The lab was canceled. When I went home that afternoon I found my wife sitting there holding our one week old daughter sobbing.

April 4, 1968 we had just left a movie theater after viewing "The Graduate", and we walked past a TV store and saw a picture of Dr King on the TV sets in the window. We spent the rest of that evening in shock.

Two months later I was between jobs and baling hay for my cousin. After voting in the CA primary, I went to bed early and didn't learn of the shooting of Senator Kennedy until I went out to the field the next morning. At that point I understood he was still alive but when I got home that night I learned the bad news.

I lost a lot of my innocence over that 5 year period. I watched my mother worry so much about my baby brother in Vietnam she turned from a happy extrovert to a bitter and cynical middle aged woman. I got in a fight with an asshole in a bar when he called me a "communist" for opposing the war (even though I was the one with the honorable discharge and he had somehow managed to evade service). We brought two kids into the world during this period. We grew up during those years because we were forced to do so. Our stimuli were not positive and unifying like a world war, but divisive and destructive like cultural war and political dissent. We got in family arguments over shit like long hair for crissakes.

Now like Pogo we have met the enemy and he is us. People around here think I'm a hardass, a grumpy old misanthrope but I still get choked up hearing certain music from those years. And looking back I'm not sure we did a very good job but at least from my standpoint I can say I've never backed down and I've always done the best I could for the things I've always believed in.

Thanks again for a great post.

[nolabear]

49. Beautiful, beautiful. May we make them proud.

It's all we can do to assuage the pain.

[valerief]

50. Beautiful post. nt

[Atticus]

52. A great post. Thank you.

Yes, we are the elders now. And, I just wonder if that doesn't mean that---have mercy!---it now falls to us to show the way; to be calm and confident and optimistic; to demonstrate the sense of pupose and commitment and the steely resolve to stare down the forces of greed and ignorance and privilege.

Don't look now, but it is OUR turn to put up or shut up; to lead by example or get out of the way and follow someone who can and will.

My wife and I are "marching on Washington for healthcare" on September 13th. On the Mall, at Abe's place. Join us.

[texastoast]

53. We are the ones who hoped we did a good job

Indeed. And we had some serious shoulders to stand on as we worked. And how we have worked. It's hard to understand until you get here. Hindsight is priceless and useless to everyone but those who are the very smartest.

Thank you for this beautiful post. And may you have the happiest birthday you can.

You are right, it feels so rude to say no when they propose.