the calendars say it was fifty-three years ago today, this young, bold leader was struck down but on this day i’m transported into my 12 year old self sitting in my 7th grade classroom in a sleepy, backwater town… the world took a dramatic turn when the principal appeared at the door of our classroom with a newsflash: the president has been shot and is dead… i re-member my outrage as if those words were just pronounced and how i could not believe how cavalierly he uttered them and with a smile… we were shooed out to recess where all of my classmates circled around me knowing JFK was like a member of our family… three years earlier, I had traipsed around the state with my father to his speeches and to his senate office in DC and i can still feel my heart almost beating out of my chest every time i’d get to greet him and shake his hand… and then the inauguration and his address that stirred a nation and now, 1000 days later, we’d be heading back to DC for the state funeral…

today, i’m a 9 year old living in Camelot on the brink of a new world and a 12 year old taking comfort in hearing strains of We Shall Overcome rising from the somber and dignified crowds of people gathered to say goodby to our fallen leader…

i salute all poetic peace pilgrims with JFK’s invocation of peace…    namaste…