What if……..what if? Will never know what would have happened if RFK and MLK and all the others had lived.

Thank you Bobby.

1968 a moment in time; a year of tears. Most of the photographs shown here I have in my scrapbooks. I’ve not looked at them in over 20 years. There are two schools of thought of whether RFK would have won the White House. I am of the school that believed he would have won but the wish might have been the dream. I know his children have carried on as best they could; some successfully, a few got lost along the way. Ethel carries the legacy well and remains in the background a great deal. It is understandable. If a current President appointed his brother Attorney General, I think the Nation would rise in revolt. Even at that time, I am sure there was dissent but I heard none of that. School was my priority. We watched from California the battle for school integration and was shocked. Not that the University should be integrated…just that it wasn’t. We school children of the West and with no ties to the South were simply aghast that a student could not got to school simply because of their skin color. We were angry at the South and especially Governor Wallace. Robert Kennedy was our hero and Jack Kennedy was our leader. I was a child in 1960 and a young lady in 1968. By 1969, I was an adult and America was in mourning. Just a few reminisces here…. nothing really significant; only a remembrance of a lost feeling… something from childhood. And soon I put away my scrapbooks and started my life’s journey. Much of the Kennedy aura was make-believe, Camelot perhaps, and the President apparently had a wandering eye for the ladies. Another disappointment. But that feeling of ‘everything is possible and achievable’ in 1963 and then again in 1968 will be with me forever. Schooldays.

Can it be 40years? Everything changed with these boys, first the Camelot and the two assassinations and American was never the same after that. My thoughts and prayers are with Ted now, I wish him a complete recovery.

Here’s Teddy reading RFK’s famous ‘Day of Attonement’ speech at St. Patrick’s…still so true today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JTYnMpRyg RFK created incredible excitement esp with the young, and raised the social consciousness that remained with the people who are drawn to Obama today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSQRNKdxgGM&feature=related And Ethel interviewed at their home Hickory Hill (that they bought from JFK and Jackie after she lost her first baby, Arabella, and couldn’t live there.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0zB3NZ5Kt8&feature=related And Teddy interviewed in his house on the Cape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xC4czlP-Tk Here’s Rose Kennedy’s Boston Cream Pie recipe—when we lived on the beach in Santa Barbara would have lobster bakes in the summer and this for desert…really good. Recipe for Boston Cream Pie Bake a cake in two seven-inch or eight-inch layer cake tins using a cake mix, a one-egg cake or golden layer cake recipe; or use the following recipe for Boston Favorite Cake. Ingredients: 1-3/4 cups flour (if using all purpose flour, decrease the amount by 2 tablespoons) 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/3 cup butter 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 2 egg yolks 1/2 cup milk 2 egg whites Preheat the oven to 375 degrees for the cake layers. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the butter. Add the vanilla and gradually beat in the sugar. Beat this till fluffy. Next, beat in 2 egg yolks and stir in 1/2 a cup of the flour mixture. Stir in 1/4 cup of milk and then add 1/2 cup of the flour mixture and another 1/4 cup of milk. Mix. Add the rest of the flour mixture and beat just enough to blend well. In a separate bowl, beat the 2 egg whites until they stand up in soft peaks. Fold the egg whites into the batter. Spoon the batter into 2 7 or 8 inch cake pans (round) Bake the layers 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees. Please note: if you are using an electric mixer or beater, do not separate the eggs. Add to the creamed butter and sugar one at a time, beating well. Put together the cream pie: Put the layers together with whipped cream, cream filling or rich cream filling. Sprinkle the cop with confectioner’s sugar or spread with chocolate frosting. Recipe for the Cream Filling: Ingredients: 1/2 cup sugar 3 tablespoons flour or 1 tablespoon cornstarch few grains salt 1 cup milk 1 egg or 2 egg yolks (slightly beaten) In a small heavy pan, put the sugar, flour and salt. Stir in milk. Mix a cook over low heat until the mixture thickens (about 5 minutes) Add the 1 egg or 2 egg yolks and mix. Cook and stir for 3 minutes more. Chill and Flavor. Recipe for the Chocolate Frosting: Ingredients: 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 cup milk 2 cups confectioners sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Place the chocolate, butter and milk in the top of a double boiler. Cook on medium low until the chocolate melts. Stir Well. Take off the heat and let stand until lukewarm. Stir in the sugar and vanilla. Beat until thick enough to spread. This Boston Cream Pie was submitted by Rose Kennedy for the “Cook Book-Favorite Recipes of the Ladies of St. Francis Xavier Parish Guild” Published in 1969.

I remember The night of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, we stayed awake all night watching the news…..So Sad. Two times I will remember where I was at the time. JFK and RFK. I’ve had so many tragic events/deaths in my family that I can relate to the Kennedy family. They will always hold a special place in my heart. Who knows what the World would have been……of course we could say that about a lot of people.

I really wanted him to be President. I even quit college to work on his campaign, and then he was gone. 1968 was a crazy year; something was happening all the time, and most of it terrifying. http://timelines.ws/20thcent/1968.HTML There is a wonderful set of essays by RFK’s children in today’s New York Times. They really give a great portrait of who he was.

Alas…the things that might have been.

I was 31 that year and full of the excitement and hope. In all the decades since I have never had that same feeling again until Barack Obama stepped into the public forum. Each of these men make me want to be a better person. Thank you for the video.

The NYTimes invited Robert Kennedy’s children to the Editorial page today to write some memories of their dad. It’s worth going and reading. Tender moments at Hickory Hill where they grew up. Because my sister lived near that house 40 years ago, we would drive past it, and I remember seeing one of the little kids standing under a horse. Tender moments; I simply can’t believe that 40 years have gone! It will be a bittersweet day for me as I think about all the could-have-beens…

Bobby was killed on my 18th birthday. I was returning to school from a short holiday in Sweden and remember people in the airports and trainstations talking with each other (a rarity in Europe). They really believed the US was on the verge of revolution…a feeling only emphasized during the Chicago convention. Europeans looked to the ordinary Americans in their midst for answers and reassurance that the world was not ending. It was then that it became clear to this 18 year old, how much the rest of the world looked to and depended on the United States of America. Its true today - if we can’t make it work, who will? And that is the worry that fuels so much anger and resentment towards America….much like children when their parents stumble and fall. However, please keep in mind, during this reflective moment about Camelot, etc.; Attny Gen. Kennedy utilized the FBI, CIA and Secret Services to compile information on US citizens. While the need for this information was probably well intentioned, how was it different than LBJ, Nixon, Clinton and Bush’s use of the same agencies? We need to remember with love but with open eyes.

The last best hope, in days after I heard those words many times, the last best hope, over and over again, the stunned grieving look on my friends at University, the people I saw in the street, openly crying, mourning, grieving without restraint; it was as though a greatly loved member of one’s family had been wrenched from our midst, had been taken from us too soon, too young, like his brother. It was the last best hope many of us had for our country. Anne rushed into the bedroom where i was reading a book and looked at me as she had two years before in another circumstance in the midst of war and the shock and the stunned looked on her face told me more than I needed to know that someone had died. She whispered, Bobbie is dead and the sinking feeling in my gut and the pain I felt in my heart grew and grew and grew until i could no longer bear it and she came and we held one another so tightly that I could barely breath. And then I went and watched and lost every bit of hope I had for my country. We sat through night night holding one another, not talking, just being together, and beginning the grief we would go throught for many days to come.

So, Frank, not to be insensitive, what have you done and thought since that terrible day? Has your life and his been for naught?