RFK Remembered

Bobby Kennedy quoted Aeschylus announcing Martin Luther King's death 4APR1968

"Drop, drop in our sleep, upon the heart
sorrow falls, memory's pain,
and to us, though against our very will,
even in our own despite,
comes wisdom,
by the awful grace of God"

December 2006 Pacifica Grove, California:
I just got back from walking two blocks into downtown Pacific Grove to fetch my morning cup of java (I lava my java!) at a combo coffeehouse-bookstore. Behind the counter were these two bubbly, silly 16-year-old high school girls who work there on the weekends. They remind me of how my daughter was at their ages. One of the girls was wearing a John Lennon-style hat, if you know what I mean. A Bolshevik-style hat. I said to her, "Well, I see you are wearing your John Lennon hat this morning." The look in her face told me she had no idea what I was alluding to. I asked, "You do know who John Lennon was, right?" She said no. SHE SAID NO!! But her com padre behind the counter said, "Wasn't he a rock-n-roll singer in the old days?" The "OLD DAYS"?

To that I said, "No, you're getting him mixed up with someone else. John Lennon was the great-grandson of the mastermind behind the Russian Revolution in 1917, Vladimir Lenin. John changed the spelling of his name after he immigrated to America from the Communist enclave in Liverpool, England so he would not confront any prejudice. Then he married a Japanese Communist artist by the name of Yoke-O Eggo. He was assassinated 26 years ago this week in New York City by Stephen King."

The two girls stood there speechless and wondering what the hell I was talking about. But when I turned around from the counter and looked at all the other geezers like me sitting around the room, I saw lots of smiles and chuckles. One older gal said to me, "Shame on you for putting those poor girls on that way." But she said it with a chuckle.

Are we that old, huh, that teenagers today have no idea who John Lennon was?

I guess you know we're over-the-hill when the very music from our Sixties acid-rock flower child era is routinely played as MUZAK while you shop at Safeway. The very music in its prime that was condemned by our parents' generation as taking us all "to hell in a hand basket". The very music that rallied us to march in the streets against the Vietnam War and racial prejudice. Now it's elevator music, just benign/banal background noise to lull the shoppers into a buying stupor.

I went to see "Bobby" last night against my better judgment. I know the story intimately because I worked on his California campaign in 1968 (when I was 18) and I had met him one-on-one the previous year in his D.C. senate office. I know what a great man of deep spiritual integrity he was, in spite of all the sleazy anti-Kennedy press that has come out in recent years. His brother JFK may have been a reckless womanizer who Bobby felt compelled to cover for out of deep brotherly love, but Bobby himself was the REAL McCOY through and through. There has been nobody on the American political landscape since Bobby anywhere close to his depth, integrity, and potential to turn this country around.

NOBODY!! (Update 5JAN2008)

I had to remain behind after the credits and everyone else had vacated the theater because I was crying. Something was dredged up from the deepest remote recesses of my memories, something I had totally lost touch with over the past 4 decades since Bobby's assassination. The movie served as a catalyst, a purgative that triggered a very painful awareness. It was on that tragic night in June of 1968 that I lost every shred of political hope and became an embittered cynic about America.

The memory that flooded forth last night about that horrible night 38 years ago is that as soon as I saw that Bobby had been shot -- I watched it on live TV in my parents living room in L.A. -- I ran out of the house sobbing uncontrollably, jumped into my car, and I drove into the most dangerous black ghetto near my town of San Fernando, an area called Pacoima. An all-black and angry area. I had no regard for my own safety that night.

When I saw three young black guys hitchhiking -- the sort who look dangerous -- I stopped and told them to get in. I was sobbing. They looked totally blown away that a young white guy would pick them up. They got in and I drove on. The whole time I was crying and rambling on about Martin Luther King and Bobby being killed by an insane society. Those three guys could have robbed me and beaten me up, and under different circumstances they might have, but they were so freaked out by me that they sat there never saying a word. I drove around aimlessly for sometime and they all just sat there quietly. Finally I let them out and gave them all the money I had on me.

Wow, I had completely forgotten about that incident until I saw "Bobby" last night.

Where is a "Bobby" today when America needs such leadership?

-Jeff from San Francisco





Learn More:
Barack Obama
Exquisite Safaris clients say...
Travel Connoisseur Magazine on Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel Worldwide
US Air Magazine on Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel: Travel with a Heart
My First Philanthropic Travel Experience
The Fable of Stone Soup
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
Are We Talking about Philanthropy Yet? No, We Are Not
Travel Philanthropy: Creating Peace
Fast Company Magazine on Philanthropic Travel
PersonalLifemedia.com on Philanthropic Travel
Philanthropic Traveler funded High School opens near Victoria Falls, Zambia
Exquisite Safaris donates $250 per traveler and your loose change..

Philanthropic Travelers:
The The One's Who Do: Visionary Philanthropic Travelers
Visionary Philanthropic Traveler Marc Gold 100 Friends Project
Visionary Philanthropic Traveler Chellie Kew
Rachael Paulson Philanthropic Traveler
Milton & Fred Ochieng: Philanthropic Travelers
Jane Kaye- Bailey: Philanthropic Traveler
Richard Branson: Philanthropic Traveler
Angelina Jolie: Philanthropic Traveler
Oprah Winfrey: Philanthropic Traveler
Palm Beach Life Magazine: Philanthropic Travelers