On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 09:38:22 -0600, Big John
wrote:

40 years ago today I was ferrying a F-89J from the Maine Air Guard at
Bangor, ME to the Oregon Air Guard at Portland OR. Chugging along at
20K, keeping under the big jet stream blowing east, I was about 150
out of Oklahoma City, my next refueling stop, when ATC came up on
frequency and announced that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas
and was dead.

May he rest in peace.

Big John

But not the U.S., which now suffers under the Irish curse, or the
Irish wrath, which is a curse, for it is distinctly Irish. And it is
opportunism, (embarrassingly so) as clarified by the next paragraph.
What the U.S. actually lost was the influence of a particular
First Lady, who gave us her rendition of the White House, and whose
ancestors are French (not Irish, doesn't even look it), and who was
not satisfactory to the president in all his ways. But the JFK name
is above so much.
What the U.S. gained was LBJ managing of JFK's Asian commitments.
But I think congress was more committed to Asia than even LBJ, who
seemed a bit indecisive on the matter. (I'm guessing here. We were
committed, and warned against that.) I think he had good reason to be
indecisive.
T'was a sad time, after his death. But that may be a coincidence.

Mike