At random

On November 23, 1964, Lee Harvey Oswald murdered President John F. Kennedy in the streets of Dallas. I hear that most of today's Americans were not yet alive that day. That means I've survived in a Kennedy-less country for 40 years, and that's what surprises me. My God! Where did all the time go! It truly does seem like only yesterday.

I was 23, out of school, and working at a company in New York City that published boring catalogues of all America's railroad cars and equipment. November 23 fell on a Friday that year, and my friend and colleague Lenny Macaluso and I had just finished lunch at a coffee shop on West 33rd Street, and were walking back to our office on West 33rd Street. It was roughly 1 p.m. All around me, a discordant hubbub began of voices near me on the street and from inside shops, offices, on radio and TV: "The President's been shot!!" There must be some mistake; John Kennedy is the President; he can't be shot.

When we reached our office, and returned to the 11th floor, our fellow-workers were all huddled around the radios, listening for more details. No one said a word; it was a hushed silence.

The boss let us leave work early that day, and the experience of riding the subway home that affternoon was something not to be forgotten. People who ordinarily would not talk to strangers were sharing their thoughts with whoever would listen. People were gathered and talking in groups on the sidewalk. My friend and colleague Bob DeMarco and I had never experienced anything like it. They talk about the cold harshness of the New York personality, and I believe it; it's one of the ways people have found to exist in the city. But that night, everywhere you walked there were people openly weeping, trying to talk through the terrible event to which they had been witnesses.

I went to Ginny's house in Jackson Heights that afternoon, and between that moment on Friday and Monday morning, we sat in front of a small black-and-white TV set, and witnessed Jack Rubie shoot Lee Harvey Oswald, watched as John Kennedy's body lay in state in the capital rotunda, watched little John-John salute his father, and watched the funeral procession. It was, as one witness put it, "quite a weekend." JFK was a shameless womanizer, but we didn't know that at the time.

He had help writing Profiles in Courage, but we didn't know that at the time. Historians would later write of the absolute moral nullity of JFK's father, but we didn't know that at the time. All we knew was what we wanted to know: that here was a very young politician who had a glamorous lifestyle and a baby-talking young wife. His inauguration speech was an open invitation to join him in the wonderful world of politics. In a contest between JFK and Tricky Dick Nixon, who represented the old and dreary world of Washington politics, was there really a decision to make? I don't think my generation ever quite got over that November Friday.

* Since I'm supposed to vacate my academic office in Rubie Burton Hall by May of 2004, I figured I'd better get rid of some of the innumerable magazines and books that are piled from floor to ceiling in my home study. (In my book cases at home, there are books behind books.) Before you mention it, I know I resemble one of the infamous Collyer brothers who squirreled away tons and tons of daily newspapers, an automobile, and literally millions of books in their New York City apartment, and lived in complete contentment until one massive pile of newspaper collapsed on one of the fellows and crushed him to death.

I'm trying to be ruthless in my weeding process. I used to have lots of books from which to gather information to impart to my Cottey students. Since I no longer teach there -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- I have the luxury of discarding all but the books and magazines that are of interest to me. And here is the beauty of having a study utterly jammed with books behind books behind books: every once in a while, I‚ll unearth a book I'd forgotten I own. That sends a kind of chill of delight down my spine.

If I have books which I have no further use for (and such is the case with the books I review for Library Journal), I either put them in a carton and leave them outside my academic office door with a "Help Yourself!" sign taped to the door, or put them in cartons and take them to Joplin, where Bob, proprietor of the "Always Buying Books" store, on route 43, is happy to buy books of scholarly interest. That way, everybody's happy.

* Our daughter Jessica is coming home from Galway, Ireland, on December 23, to celebrate Christmas 2003 with us. And this is amazing!.

I've done all my Christmas shopping already, with seven weeks left until the big day!