Per Michael Beschloss, that memo above are President Johnson’s notes from his first meeting with what had been President Kennedy’s Cabinet, 50 years ago yesterday.
Scott Murray was chosen to emcee the JFK memorial event?!
The weather has really screwed up two major television events in the area. You have the Super Bowl a few years ago, and on Friday at the JFK memorial even a flyover had to be cancelled as well as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra participation because of the clouds, rain, and cold weather. Overall the memorial service went well, but having the orchestra play with the Naval Academy Glee Club instead of a keyboard would have been more touching. But at least the bag-pipers got to play.
A lot of the overflow crowd was directed to watch the events on the big screens at Victory Park. KTVT reported numerous audio visual problems, which was funny because that area is controlled by rival WFAA, and WFAA’s PR firm stated they weren’t aware of any issues. But the Internet thought it was a poor idea as those big screens are actually four screens put together, which made for cross-hairs on JFK numerous times during a memorial video.
And some thought there was an inappropriate/humorous Dallas tourism ad that was badly placed on Texas Monthly’s website, just read the small print after the headline.
I knew the Parkland doctor that treated JFK also treated Oswald, but I didn’t now that years later he would end up treating Abraham Zapruder.
There’s a tradition in Dallas and for almost all slain police that the surviving spouse receives the flag off the coffin, somehow that was overlooked for J.D. Tippit’s widow but DPD finally presented her one on Friday.
JFK’s first letter as president had been to the Kennedy children. His second had been to the head of the Secret Service commending agent Rufus Youngblood who immediately after the first shot was fired in Dallas, threw himself on Johnson and his wife onto the floor of the car. CBS News
The Dallas Morning News had an article about a Secret Service agent that was assigned to protect the Oswald family after the assassination. LBJ actually made the order and the agent could not find a funeral home in Dallas to take Lee’s body.
In this LA Times article, it’s stated that before the end of 1963, Oswald’s mother received over $6,000 in the mail from various individuals show that the sins of the son would not be visited on the mother. I plugged that amount into the inflation calculator and that’s almost $46,000 in today’s money.
I didn’t know that Jackie Kennedy granted an interview a week after the assassination. Things in that interview that stood out to me:
She thought Jack’s last expression was so neat and wonderful even as a piece of his skull was coming off.
She’s specific about being covered in blood and brains. She knew he was dead but tried her best to hold his brain in. She mentioned nothing about it was repulsive to her, and that kind of reminded me of the time my mother kiss my father before the closed the casket for the last time. I thought it was touching, but kinda repulsing, but then again, I never lost a spouse.
Even though she was calm and repose, the docs tried to give her a sedative.
He was put in the coffin naked.
Everytime she got off the plane in Texas she was presented yellow roses, but in Dallas she was given red roses which she thought kinda funny.
She regretted wiping the blood off her face for the swearing in photo.
She really only wanted two things to honor him after his death, the eternal flame and the his name on the side of the nose of the Saturn booster rocket. She was advised that the name on the booster wouldn’t be dignified and it was arranged for Cape Canaveral to be named Cape Kennedy, which later returned to its original name and the space center being named after him.
She talked about John Jr’s interest in airplane and thought he might one day be a pilot or astronaut.
George Stephanopoulos stated “There is no family in American politics who is quite on par with the Kennedy’s.” I’d have to respectfully disagree with him as the Bush family has two presidents, one governor, a mafia kingpin (Barbara), and I’m sure I’m missing a few other Bush family accomplishments.
It was funny listening to Baylor fans for the past week. After the Tech game many were leaving AT&T Stadium talking about who they deserved to be in the national championship game and couldn’t wait to throttle Alabama. But as the week went on the reality of their soft schedule, lack of away games, and weakness of the Big XII this year started to seep in and most started to rightly fear Oklahoma State. Baylor has a good team and their fans should enjoy the season, but as I’ve been saying all year, because of their overly soft schedule and how they like to run up the score on weak opponents, they aren’t that good.
For the last week/week-and-a-half Barry has been blogging about Judge Jerry Ray chastising a Tarrant County jury. I actually went through the whole Mineral Wells school system with his daughter and we were both in the same graduating class of 122 students, but I don’t think I actually said more than five sentences to her, which is kinda sad when you think about it. I think a lot of that had to do with her father getting my favorite coach fired. The way I remember the story is that she was playing junior high basketball and that coach said a curse word. She told her father and with him being a prominent member of the community was working to get the coach fired over the issue. Keep in mind, this is all coming from the memory of events of me as a junior high kid. That coach had a good relationship with my family as he coached my brother about a decade prior and called one evening. When I answered the phone and heard my coach on the other end I thought I was in big trouble as I didn’t know anything about this issue. The first thing Coach told me was that I wasn’t in trouble and he just wanted to talk to my father, as it turns out, he was trying to get some trusted members of the community to vouch for his character to save his job. Well, he got fired, or maybe just didn’t want to deal with the small town politics and just quit. His wife continued to teach in the school district and they both remained in Mineral Wells, but he drove to a new coaching/teaching gig in Joshua for the rest of his career if I recall correctly.
I’ve noticed that Yahoo! is starting to make their video web presence more visible, but I don’t think the interface is as intuitive as it should be and they seem to be focusing on more professional made stuff, for instance, this ‘Royals’ parody of on white girls. There’s been such a backlash on YouTube lately because of their advertising measures and forcing users to be a part of Google+, Yahoo! has a real chance to do something.
Heritage Auctions has some slides on their websites that show the opposite site of where Zapruder was filming and you can actually see the first shot and Zapruder filming. Scroll down and it’s slide five.
I always thought the radio play-by-play of the assassination that you hear everywhere was authentic, but yesterday on The TICKET I learned it’s just a reenactment.
The London Telegraph thinks that Dallas is still trying to shake the moniker of “The City of Hate”. I think Dallas shook that off somewhere in the mid seventies when the Cowboys starting winning and for sure in the eighties when JR ruled television. And I certainly don’t think Dallas has done anything to shy away from the assassination.
A retired Miami Dolphin has admitted to peeing in his pants in every game, which is a brave thing to do considering they wear white pants.
Dad Films Premature Son’s Miraculous First Year – Seeing that mom hold him for the first time, just trying to get comfortable with that look on her face wondering if she is doing it right, and then breaking into tears as she sits almost made me cry.
Many, many thanks to my friend George who repaired some troublesome database issues on this silly website that kept me from posting. One way to thank George is to visit The Truckyard in Lower Greenville. He won’t be there, but he’d appreciate you stopping by.
The Rangers made a heck of a trade I never saw coming. Ian Kinsler was my favorite Ranger, but I think I’m happier with Prince Fielder which will make room for Profar to play.
I’ve read some articles about how to grill a turkey on a gas grill using indirect heat, and I think that’s going to happen next Thursday.
I’m really impressed with how an old bowling alley lane can be re-purposed as a desk and kitchen counter. The only element I would add to the kitchen counter would be to modify a bowling ball or pin as a knife holder.
I’ve always been impressed that Jackie Kennedy took the time to send J.D. Tippit’s widow a letter and to say the eternal flame she lit would also burn for her husband. But I never knew that RFK called the following day and LBJ later contacted her. She was asked by a reporter why she has never expressed anger at Oswald, and she said, “Nothing would bring J.D. back. That’s what I really wanted.”
The doctors that worked on JFK have been on all the local news stations doing one-on-one interviews. I’ve caught almost all of them and I can’t recall if it was the same doctor I saw in both interviews, but in one interview it was stated JFK arrived barely breathing and in another it was stated he wasn’t breathing at all.
The Secret Service agent that jumped in the car, Clint Hill, was interviewed on the CBS Evening News. He stated that Jackie was climbing out of the car to grab a piece of head/brain matter that landed on the truck when he pushed her back in and that she only said a few things . . . “Oh I have his brains in my hand.” And, “Oh Jack, oh Jack, what have they done? I love you, Jack.” He described the scene by saying he saw brain matter, blood, bone fragments all come out of the wound, JFK’s eyes were fixed, and an area through the skull there was no brain matter in that area at all. Most awkward car ride ever?
On NBC Sports Network last night Bob Costas had a special on the 1963 Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys were about to take practice as Landry was told that both Kennedy and Connally was shot. He told the players since both are reported as alive that practice would continue. The Cowboys played in Cleveland that Sunday and Art Modell instructed the PA announcer not to say “Dallas” but only refer to the team as the Cowboys because of all the hatred towards the city and the game started without any of the usual introductions. Fans and players of Cleveland hurled insults at the Cowboys all game in reference to the slain president, and that happened for years where ever they played. Oswald actually died during the game. Roger Staubach was a student at Navy on his way to class and just saw an issue of LIFE magazine with him on the cover that was going to be released the following week when he heard the news. That cover never hit the news stands as a Kennedy memorial edition was released, but Staubach has a rare copy of him on the cover. The ARMY/NAVY game was postponed that year and actually played on Pearl Harbor day, and that was the day Jackie and the kids moved out and the Johnson family moved in.
Last night on ‘The Daily Show’ when Stewart was talking to Tom Brokaw he talked about how Dallas got a bad rap regarding the assassination as Oswald really wasn’t from the area. That was a bit surprising to me because I only thought local folks thought that.
I thought with the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination and living in the area with all the news coverage I’d have some fatigue over it all. Heck, I thought I’ve learned all there is to know, but I’m not fatigue over it and I’m still learning new stuff about that day.
Surprisingly Kennedy.com is not an active URL.
The pastor of First Baptist Dallas sure has been quiet as of late.
@BradBiggs – Fox Sports has given Howie Long a Sunday off for the first time in 20 years so he can attend Sunday’s #Bears #Rams game and watch his sons.
I love that LiberallyLean.com guy but he sure does hate UT, the NFL, and Peter King for some reason. 😉
Our high school boys basketball locker room had a wall painted with the phrase, “If you want to dance in Austin you have to do your homework in Mineral Wells.” I’m pretty sure it was “dance” and not “play”. For you non-Texas folks, basketball state championships are played in Austin.
Kansas State head coach Bill Synder is a class act, he sent a hand written note to an injured player of an opposing team he wasn’t even playing.
Liberals tend to underestimate the amount of actual agreement among those who share their ideology, while conservatives tend to overestimate intra-group agreement, according to new research published in Psychological Science.
How to Open a Can without Can Opener – YouTube – Basically, you just rub it against concrete.
I don’t get what women find so sexy in Adam Levine, and maybe that’s a good thing.
