Everybody I have ever asked remembers exactly what they were
doing at the moment they were told about it.
And so it is with many defining moments of history within our
lifetimes—Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, Henderson’s winning goal in the Canada-Russia
series, and November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was shot.
I was not quite 11 on that day and remember drawing an alligator in a
moat around an English castle. (I now know better). Our principal came into our
classroom to tell us the news, then sent us home. Imagine that.
For some reason the particular events and the intrigue
surrounding the assassination of JFK has always interested me. I remember when
the Warren Commission offered their conclusions following exhaustive research,
forensic analysis and simulations. The Commission stated that as unlikely as it
may seem given the many apparent inconsistencies, they believe that there was a
single gunman and he acted on his own accord. For years I had a difficult time
believing it. Hundreds of volumes have been written accusing the FBI, CIA,
Soviets, Mafia and many others, all of whom had something to gain with
Kennedy’s demise, and I must admit that I gave credence to some of those
theories. That is, until my neighbour suggested I read “Case Closed” by Gerald Posner. And
I did. It is an exhaustive and impeccably documented work that chronicles the
terribly troubled life of Lee Harvey Oswald in minute detail and the author
reaches the same conclusion as the Warren Commission. One needs to read nothing
else.
Still, we find it so very difficult to accept. Why? Because
big, human precipitated events that have had a profound impact (either
positively or negatively) on the course of our history must logically be
initiated by big and influential people such as the Hitlers. Alexander the Greats.
or Julius Caesars. There is something quite unpalatable about the notion that an
event as pivotal as this could be perpetrated by a character as insignificant
and pathetic as Lee Harvey Oswald.
Today I stood at the window of the Sixth Floor of the Texas
Book Depository where Oswald pulled the trigger and I peered along the same
line of sight to the street below. I stood on the grassy knoll where the
non-existent accomplices are alleged to have stood but from where Zapruder
filmed the entire episode with his 8 mm movie camera. And as macabre as it
sounds I stood at the very spot in the middle of Elm Street where the fatal shot hit its
mark on that awful day.
This was a significant event for me. today, albeit creepy.
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| The Book Depository is in the background. Oswald was perched at the window on the far right, second floor from the top. Kennedy's limo was roughly in the position of the grey car on the left when the first shot was fired. |
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| Oswald hid himself behind a barricade of boxes and was at the window at the centre of the picture. |
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| View from the window. Kennedy's limo was in the position of the car to the right. |
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| Note the X on the pavement. The grassy knoll is behind me. |
Dallas/Fort Worth is another one of those megacities that
takes most of a day to drill through despite the high speed freeway system. It was a hot, muggy day and I spent quite a long time
walking the streets in my full leathers trying to locate The Bruiser’s parking
place after I got myself completely disoriented as I went in one building and out another.
Road construction throttled us back to a crawl on the way out of the city. And
when we set sights on a state park 50 miles outside the city, we found that it
was completely unmarked until we were almost right on it. Thank goodness for
the several helpful people that guided me into it. (North Texans are actually
quite friendly!)
OK, I’m tired of Texas
now. We have a plan to get to Oklahoma
tomorrow.
Stay tuned!
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| A Texas sunset. And as a matter of fact, I am riding off into it! |
