| The plague of death and despair has visited the Kennedy clan, again.
It is apparent that JFK, Jr. has died in a
plane crash off the waters near Martha's Vineyard. The Kennedys have
been an omnipresence in most of our
lives, even here in the hills of Calhoun County. It was to the
mountain state that JFK and his family came in 1960
to perform a litmus test of voter acceptance on his candidacy for the
Presidency. It would have been difficult not to
have met them. Most of us did. Robert Kennedy gave a speech in the
Calhoun Courthouse on behalf of his brother,
and many other campaigners held roadside rallies. JFK spent part of
the day in Spencer in a soaking rain. He
dropped into O.J. Morrison's Department Store and bought a hat, and
then had a hamburger in the Shamrock Pool
Hall. Grantsville attorney, Lorentz Carr Hamilton and Forest Gunn,
a local businessman, went to Washington to
work in the Kennedy era. Lorentz Carr spent 23 years with the SBA,
before returning to Grantsville. He and his
wife, Sue, socialized with JFK, Ted, Bobby and other members of
America's best known political families. "I have
been to their homes on several occasions. Bobby was a great supporter
of the Special Olympics. I hold them in high
regard," he said. These many years later, it is difficult not to be
brought to tears by the picture of John John
saluting his father's passing coffin. JFK, Jr. sent a reporter from
GEORGE magazine to do a story about Calhoun's
economy in 1996. He somehow managed to rise above many of the problems
that seemed to plague the bunch. He
worked hard at being a regular guy. Our thoughts and prayers, we
extend to the family. BW |
