1968 Arlington National Cemetery

My family and I went to Washington DC sometime in the late 60s.  I don't remember anything about the trip itself, just being at Arlington Cemetery.  It must have been in the summer of 1968, because Robert Kennedy's grave was not completely grown over.  

I was 21 and not quite sure where my life was headed.  I missed France terribly still and hated everything about America or New Jersey.  

When RFK was shot it just confirmed everything and showed me I was right.  

Seeing his grave brought it home somehow.  It was just a simple white cross with a grave marker.  





It was the JFK site that ripped me apart the most though, along with the eternal flame and the Custis-Lee Mansion, so fresh in my mind from the funeral.  It had only been five years since the assassination now with the new pain of RFK.





The Custis-Lee Mansion is itself a memorial.  It was once the home of Robert E. Lee.  Now it's called Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial.  It sits about the Kennedy grave sites with the flag eternally at half mast.

We had planned to find the statue that had been sculpted by Sir Moses Ezekiel, my great-great-(great?)-uncle, but we were more emotionally distraught than we had expected and didn't look very hard.  We said we'd come back.

Sculpture by Sir Moses Ezekiel at Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington Cemetery was one of the most emotional experiences I can remember, very similar to seeing Omaha Beach.  All those headstones... 

When we were driving back to the city, we looked back towards Arlington and saw the Custis-Lee Mansion and knew the graves were there.  My mother and I both erupted into a flood of sobs.  We were uncontrollable.  So of course, my sister started crying too.  My father even was very touched, I could tell, because he didn't say anything.  He didn't tell us to stop crying, because I think he couldn't talk.  It was much more overwhelming than we had expected.  I begged my dad for years to request burial at Arlington, but he always said no.  I don't know why.

Funeral Procession JFK

Arlington Memorial Bridge

Pont Alexandre III

When we had arrived, my mother and I both had commented on how the Arlington Memorial Bridge reminded us of le Pont Alexander III in Paris.  





In 1970, David and I went to Arlington when we went to the peace march.  Once again, we
looked for Sir Moses' statue, but we were on foot and it was too far away.  I was still as 
moved as ever at the graves of RFK and JFK.

1961 January 20

When John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated, I was in school at Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela.  We had a radio and we listened to the ceremony in class.  I remember Robert Frost reading a poem, but that he had problems.  What actually happened was that he had written a special poem called "Dedication" for the occasion, but the sun that day was so bright he was blinded and couldn't read the poem.  He had to recite one he knew by heart.

The Gift Outright

The land was ours before we were the land's

She was our land more than a hundred years 

Before we were her people. She was ours 

In Massachusetts, in Virginia, 

But we were England’s, still colonials, 

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by, 

Possessed by what we now no more possessed. 

Something we were withholding made us weak 

Until we found out that it was ourselves 

We were withholding from our land of living, 

And forthwith found salvation in surrender. 

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright 

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war) 

To the land vaguely realizing westward, 

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, 

Such as she was, such as she will become.

1961 School in Venezuela

Our school was a small prefab building; there were several of them that constituted the entire school.  Each one held 2 grades.  I remember listening to Robert Frost reading a poem for JFK's inauguration during class.  That would have been January 20, 1961.  Our Boxer, Velvet, was always escaping from our yard and he would come find me at school.  The teacher would let him in the classroom, and he would lie beside my desk all day.  

At the time, I could still speak French, and we were being taught Spanish.  Our teacher couldn't speak English at all and so it was pretty confusing.  Every time I tried to say something in Spanish it evolved into French!  I spoke Spench or Franish.

I remember once during a bad storm, I was sitting at my desk with Velvet beside me, and a fireball came in through the window and flew across the room and out the window on the other side.  We were all stunned..  It smelled like electricity.