Beyond the Byline: Remembering a handshake of 58 years ago

Nov. 28—WILKES-BARRE — Monday, Nov. 22, marked the 58th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

And there was hardly anything said about it — anywhere.

That upset me, I must say. Having grown up in that era, I really thought JFK was the kind of man we wanted and deserved as President. I felt the same way about his brother, Bobby, who by the way, was gunned down on the day I graduated high school — June 6, 1968.

So in the absence of any new JFK-assassination information — our President and others keep finding reasons to keep those secrets from the American public — I choose to remember a day in November 1960 when then Sen. John F. Kennedy campaigned in Wyoming Valley.

It was a day of a memorable handshake that was well worth skinned knees and torn pants.

In October of 1960, that young presidential candidate passed through Wyoming Valley on his way to victory in the November General Election over Richard M. Nixon.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, then a 43-year-old senator from Massachusetts, was just a week or so away from becoming the country's 35th president.

It was Oct. 28, and I was a 10-year-old fifth-grade student at Central School on West Shawnee Avenue and we were released early to allow us time to get down to Main Street to catch a glimpse of JFK as his motorcade was passing by.

Getting a glimpse of Kennedy was not on my mind. I wanted to shake his hand.

So when the bell rang and we were released, I ran. I ran over Shawnee Avenue to Downing Street and kept running. About halfway down Downing Street's steep incline, my knee locked and I went elbows over ankles, landing on my knees.

My pants were split open and both knees were bleeding, but I didn't stop. I could hear the crowd cheering from afar so I ran faster.

I got to Main Street and looked to my left and I could see the first vehicles heading toward me. I ran past the old Ward P. Davenport High School to Wadham Street and I worked my way through the crowd to get closer.

I could see Kennedy sitting on the back of a convertible and he was waving to the crowd and shaking hands. I stuck out my hand and JFK touched it and briefly gave it a shake.

This memory is as clear today as it was back then. It is something I will never forget because it's a reminder of days gone by.

Oh, to go back to those days. To live in an America that had so many values and when family was real and meaningful.

Kennedy was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

He was a Roman Catholic, which made him a very popular candidate in my hometown, as evidenced by the crowd that came out to see him on his drive through old Shawnee. But it was the way he spoke, the words he said that made everyone proud to be an American. He instilled in us the pride that we so sorely need today.

I remember going home after the motorcade passed and faded down West Main Street. I walked up Academy Street, over West Shawnee and up Orchard Street to Second Street and around the corner to my house at 210 Reynolds St.

My mother was there and she looked at me and my torn pants and bloody knees and wondered what happened. I told her I just shook hands with John F. Kennedy. She asked if his car ran me over. We laughed.

I wouldn't let her throw those pants away. I asked her to please sew them back together so I could at least use them to play. She did, and every time I wore them I thought of that day when I shook our President's hand.

In the years since Kennedy, I have had the opportunity to shake hands with many presidential candidates: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, Al Gore, George W. Bush, and others.

I can tell you I would never run to meet any of them, but that's not to disparage any of them. It's a different world we live in now.

The world of 1960 was filled with hope and promise. Kennedy was the symbol of not just what we all could be, but what we all should be.

A little more than three years later, on Nov. 22, 1963, I was sitting in Mrs. Bogdon's eighth-grade English class when she was called out of the room. She returned in tears and told us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed by an assassin in Dallas, Texas.

I was stunned. We were sent home to watch the television reports of that day in Dallas. Walter Cronkite, the CBS news anchor and icon, was so shaken by the news that he had to pause, take off his glasses and wipe away tears to deliver the news.

We were glued to the TV, as was all of America. Then I went to my room and I tried to put on those pants. I had grown considerably in those three years, so the pants didn't fit. I lay on my bed and held the pants as I remembered that handshake.

And I realized that on that dark day in November, I just lost a pair of pants — the country and the world lost a lot more.

Reach Bill O'Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle, or email at [email protected]