By Bob Gaydos

John F. Kennedy

The first editorial I wrote for the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., appeared on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I wrote the headline, too: “The measure of the man.”

Trying to “measure” the meaning of the life of a man who was literally loved and idolized by millions of people is no easy task, especially for a rookie editorial writer’s debut effort. But that’s what newspapers do and, in truth, I took it as a good omen that remembering JFK was my first assignment. He was a hero to me as to many young men my age when he was elected president. It was a combination of things: his youth, his wit, his easy-going style, his intelligence, his words, his sense of justice. Plus, we shared the same birthdate: May 29.

As fate would have it, JFK would come to be remembered, not on his birthday, but on the anniversary of his death. And not so much for what Americans received for having him as president for 1,000 days, but rather for what we lost by not having him much longer.

That first editorial said, in essence, that it would take more than 20 years to measure the meaning of the man. It acknowledged the things we had learned about JFK in the years since the shooting in Dallas — the flaws that made him human — as well as what I felt were his positive contributions.

Thirty years later, no longer a rookie editorial writer — indeed, retired after 23 years of writing editorials — with Nov. 22 approaching, I realized I had to write about JFK 50 years after his death (because that’s what old newspaper guys do). Before I started, I asked one of my reliable sounding boards, my son, Zack, what he knew about JFK. Zack is 19 and better informed than a lot of young people his age, so I figured his answer would provide me with a fair sense of what our education system had been telling kids about Kennedy.

“He was the first Catholic president,” Zack said. Correct. “He had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.” Uh, correct. ‘There’s still some theories that there was more than one shooter.” Right. “Do you think the Kevin Costner movie (“JFK,” directed by Oliver Stone) was true?” Well, the people portrayed were real. “The Bay of Pigs didn’t go too well.” No, it didn’t.

I took the opportunity to point out that Cuba was the site, not only of Kennedy’s biggest failure in global affairs, but also his biggest success. I was a little older than Zack is now when the world stood at the brink of a nuclear war over the presence of Soviet missile-launching sites in Cuba, aimed at the United States. I was a senior in college and knew full well, as did all my classmates, than no 2-S deferment was going to exempt me from what might happen if the Soviets did not — as Kennedy demanded — remove their missiles.

Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to blockade Cuba to prevent the shipment of Soviet missiles and equipment. Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet president, who had initially denied the existence of the missile sites, sent a naval fleet to Cuba, loaded with supplies and armed for battle. As the world watched and waited and prayed, Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged messages. Kennedy prevailed. The Soviet fleet stopped short of Cuba and turned around. I lived to write this remembrance. Kennedy was dead not long after.

So here I am 50 years later, still looking to take the measure of the man and still wondering how that is possible. Kennedy had the gift of engagement. He appeared to be comfortable with whomever he was speaking. He had tremendous appeal to young people, being so different from the older, stodgier presidents who preceded him. He created the Peace Corps — a legacy that continues to this day with not enough fanfare. He made many Americans — and this is not a small thing — truly proud to be Americans. Not in an arrogant, flag-waving, we-know-better-than-you way. Just proud.

And he cheated on his wife and kept his serious health problems a secret from us and sometimes needed to be prodded by his brother, Bobby (another tragic loss) to take the proper (courageous) stand on issues. So the question I still ask myself is, what might JFK have done, what might he have meant to America and the world, if he had lived longer? What did we lose at Dealey Plaza?

Certainly, whatever innocence we still possessed. The wind was sucked from our sails as a nation and our domestic politics have slowly and steadily deteriorated into such partisanship that is virtually impossible for any president to speak to the minds and hearts of a majority of Americans the way Kennedy did. Maybe it would have happened even if Kennedy had lived a longer life and gone on to be an ambassador to the world of what America stands for. Or maybe not.

It dawns on me in writing this that it is an ultimately frustrating task to try to take the measure of another man or woman. I know what JFK meant to me personally. I know a lot of others feel similarly and others do not. I know what history has recorded (he was also the youngest man to be elected president) and what the tabloids have told us. I have a sense of what I would like to think Kennedy would ultimately have meant had he not died so young. But it’s only speculation.

The only man I can truly take the measure of is myself. It is 50 years since that morning when I was waiting at home to go to Fort Dix, N.J., to begin six months of active duty training. How do I measure up today? That’s a question I work on every day. It wasn’t always thus, but the years have a way of insisting on perspective. Maybe the answer will appear in some other writing. I have neither the space nor the inclination to do so here. I will say that, on balance, I’ll probably give myself a passing grade, but there’s still some stuff I’m learning.

For now, I’m through trying to take the measure of JFK, as man or president. Let the historians have at it. I’m going to try to take his advice and ask not what life can do for me, but what I can contribute to life. And I’m also going to remember to honor him not on the date he died, but on the date we both were born.

bob@zestoforange.com

Anonymous

By Bob Gaydos

A couple of months ago, I watched a documentary on PBS: “Simon and Garfunkel, Songs of America.” In addition to being a musical tour de force, it turned out to be a moving history lesson of the turbulent times in which it was made, the 1960s. Interestingly, the film, tame by today’s standards, was shown only once by CBS-TV, in 1969, because its strong anti-war sentiments apparently offended too many sponsors. So kudos to PBS for rescuing it from the dust bin.

But my goal here is not to relive the ‘60s. There have been much more enjoyable decades to appreciate. Rather, it is to take something from that era and try to figure out its equivalent today: Heroes.

Watching the film and the footage of John F. Kennedy, I was instantly reminded of his powerful influence on America’s young people. We know today that JFK was, like all of us, a flawed human being. But he was an undeniable inspiration to tens of thousands of young people, who took heart and hope from his words and vitality. He connected with us. In similar, if less encompassing ways, so, too, did Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

And so I wondered, who do kids look to today for inspiration? Who are their heroes? I came up with next to nothing and set the idea aside until I could ask my own sons. Max, 20 and Zack, 18, if they had any heroes.

“Anonymous,” Zack said, without missing a beat. Max agreed immediately.

Having now confused many of my readers over 50, maybe even 40, I must explain that Anonymous is a loosely connected, international group of Internet communities that opposes efforts at Internet censorship and surveillance as well as taking on other causes its anonymous members agree is of benefit to the overall group. It hacks government and corporate web sites and delights in exposing the lies and abuses of the people in power in the corporate, political, military, media, you-name-it world. Members have been described as anarchists and freedom fighters. Its symbol is the famous — and now, ubiquitous — Guy Fawkes mask. Time magazine has named Anonymous one of the most influential groups in the world.

My response was almost as swift as Zack’s. Of course, Anonymous. It speaks to the voiceless millions of young people who feel they have been, to put it delicately, screwed by their elders. A generation that has been told there are no jobs for you, going to college anyway will leave you in debt for decades to come, and we don’t want to hear your whining so get out of the streets with your signs and out of the parks with your tents because we now outfit our police forces like small armies and they are permitted to use tear gas, peppers spray, rubber bullets, flash bang grenades, and clubs, if necessary, to make you stop reminding your elders of what a mess they have made of the world. Throw you in jail, too, because that’s where smart aleck, unarmed protesters like you wind up today in America.

End of speech. But to the point — today’s heroes will, of necessity, be different from yesterday’s I will allow for one possible exception, that being President Barack Obama. When he ran for the presidency in 2008, he inspired millions of young people. Some of that attraction has been lost in the subsequent four years, but Obama remains, and always will, a source of great pride and inspiration to millions of young, black Americans. History cannot erase his achievement, nor yet predict its impact on this nation’s future leaders.

But there have to be more. My sons also came up with TV personalities, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, also untraditional and altogether fitting in the expose-the-rascals genre. I also asked some friends who offered the likes of author Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey and former congressman Dennis Kucinich, all worthy nominees.

I have more names, but I’d like to hold them for awhile. Compiling such lists is a process and one for which the Internet and social media are especially well-suited. I would really like to hear suggestions from you. dear readers. Truthfully, I’m even more interested in suggestions from your children and grandchildren who are in their mid-teens through twenties. Who are their heroes? Not sports or entertainment idols; heroes. If the kids are not at home, post this on Facebook or email them and ask them to respond. This is an interactive medium, remember?

I’ll come back to this topic with more names and, I hope, a better understanding of what it means to be a hero to today’s youth. Who knows, maybe that will contribute in some small way to a better understanding of how we can work together for a world that embraces all generations.

bob@zestoforange.com