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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 1963)
12 A TIIUnSDAY. DECEMBER 5. 1363 MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD, OREGON From Life Magazine: 'For President Kennedy An Epilogue' EDITOR'S NOTE; The fol lowing is from the current issue of Life magazine where it appears under the title, "For President Kenned)' An Epilogue": By THEODORE II. WHITE (Copyright Time Inq.) Distributed hy IT I HYANNIS PORT She re members how hut the sun was in Dallas, and the crowds greater and wilder than the crowds in Mexico or in Vienna. The sun was blinding, stream ing down; yet she could not put on sunglasses for she had to wave to the crowd. And up ahead she remembers seeing a tunnel around a turn and thinking that there would be a moment of coolness under the tunnel. There was the sound of the motorcycles, as always in a parade, and the occasional backfire of a motorcycle. The sound of the shot came, at that moment, like the sound of a backfire and she remembers Connally saying, "No, no, no, no. no . . ." She remembers the roses. Three times that day in Texas they had been greeted with the bouquets of yellow roses of Texas. Only, in Dallas they had given her red roses. She re members thinking, how funny red roses for me; and then the UN wife J 'l' car was full of blood and red roses. Much later, accompanying the body from the Dallas hospital to the airport, she was along with Clint Hill the first Secret Service man to come to their rescue and with Dr. Burkley, the White House physician. Burkley gave her two roses that had slipped under t h e President's shirt when he fell, his head in her lap. All through the night Ihev tried to separate him from her, to sedate her, and take care of i her and she would not let them. She wanted to be with him. She remembered that Jack had said of his father, when his father suffered the stroke, that he could not live like that. Don't let that happen to me, he had said, when I have to go. Now, in her hand she was holding a gold St. Christopher's medal. She had given him a St. Christopher's medal when they were married; but when Pat rick died this summer, they had wanted to put something in the coffin with Patrick that was from them both; and so he had put in the St. Christopher's medal. Then he had asked her to give him a new one to mark their 10th wedding anniversary, a month after Patrick's death. lie was carrying it when he died and she had found it. But it belonged to him so she could not put that in the coffin with him. She wanted to give him something that was hers, something that she loved. So she had slipped off her wedding ring and put it on his finger. When she came out of the room in the hospital in Dallas, she asked: "Do you think it was right'.' Now 1 have nothing left." And Kenny O'Donnell said, "You leave it where it is." That was at 1:30 p.m. in Texas. But then, at Bethesda Hospi tal in Maryland, at 3 a.m. the next morning, Kenny slipped into the chamber where the body lay and brought her back the ring, which, as she talked now, she twisted. On her little finger was the other ring: a slim, gold circlet with green emerald chips the one he had given her in mem ory of Patrick. There was a thought, too, that was always with her. "When Jack quoted some thing, it was usually classical," she said, "but I'm so ashamed of myself all I keep thinking of is this line from a musical comedy. "At night, before we'd go to sleep, Jack liked to play some records; and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record. The lines he loved to hear were: Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining mo ment that was known as Cam elot." She wanted to make sure that the point came clear and went on: "There'll be great presidents again and the John sons are wonderful, they've been wonderful to me but there'll never he another Cam elot again. "Once, the more I read of histocy the more bitter I got. For a while I thought history was something that bitter old men wrote. But then I realized history made Jack what he was. You must think of him as this little boy, sick so much of the time, reading in bed, read ing history, reading the Knights of the Round Table, reading Marlborough. For Jack, history was full of heroes. And if it made him this way if it made him see the h e r o e s maybe other little boys will see. Men are such a combination of good and bad. Jack had this hero idea of history, the idealistic view." But she came back to the idea that transfixed her: "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot and it will never be that way again." As for herself? She was hor rified by the stories that she might live abroad. "I'm never going to live in Europe. I'm not going to 'travel extensively abroad.' That's a desecration. I'm going to live in the places I lived with Jack. In George town, and with the Kennedys at the cape. They're my family. I'm going to bring up my chil dren. I want John to grow up to be a good boy." As tor the President s me morial, at first she remembered that, in every speech in their last days in Texas, he had spoken of how in December this nation would loft the largest rocket booster yet into the sky, making us first in space. So she had wanted something of his there when it went up per haps only his initials painted on a tiny corner of the great Saturn, where no one need even notice it. But now Ameri cans will seek the moon from Cape Kennedy. The new name, born of her frail hope, came as a surprise. The only thing she knew she must have for him was the eternal flame over his grave at Arlington. "Whenever you drive across the bridge from Washington into Virginia," she said, "you can tha 1jp mansion on the side of the hill in the distance. When Caroline was very little, the mansion was one of the first things she learned to recognize. Now, at night you can see his flame beneath the mansion for miles away." She said it is time people paid attention to the new Presi dent and the new First Lady. But she docs not want them to forget John F. Kennedy or read of him only in dusty or bitter histories: For one brief shining moment there was Camelot . . . LOG ENDS Quick Delivery MEDFORD FUEL CO. PHONE 772-2111 S&H Green Stlmpi ItAKU. MdllT A rare sight for human eyes is this embryo swell shark developing inside transparent case in iirst-of-ils-kind exhibit at Marincland of the Pacific at Pains Verdes Peninsula, Calif. The baby shark gels its food from the round yolk and oxvgcn from water being circulated through the "purse" by (he shark's i own movements. 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