I program the GPS and laptop with a stop at the Texas Book depository and hand the laptop to my navigator, Mrs Phred. I met her exactly two years after the assassination.
When I heard the news, I was 'policing up an area' by field-stripping cigarette butts at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. Back then filter tips were rare. You pick up a butt, tear the paper down the seam, disperse the tobacco, roll the paper into a tiny ball and throw the ball away.
I take a wrong choice on the downtown interchange and head toward Fort Worth instead of Waco. We park the RV at a Carniceria/Fruiteria six miles from downtown and call a Yellow Cab on the cell phone. We ask to go to the Texas Book Depository.
We step out of the cab and are accosted by a street vendor. We spend 15 minutes talking to him. He points out the 6th floor window, the grassy knoll and the blue 'X' on the parade route where the fatal bullet struck. He's convinced it was five-way crossfire. He thinks there were thirteen shots fired. There was a shooter in the sewer, on the grassy knoll, two in the book depository and another in the building to the right of the depository. He rattles off facts and ancient connections.
Whatever happened, it's a near perfect killing zone. I could have made the shot easily with my M-1 carbine with no scope. It's only about 50-75 yards from the window to the centre of the street. Several major streets leading from downtown converge and curve gracefully toward the underpass choke point. The photograph of the brick building is taken from the spot where the fatal bullet impacted. The window on the far right on the second floor down from the roof, is where a 7.62 millimeter Carcano rifle was found. Mrs. Phred stands on the "grassy knoll".
Mrs. Phred she was eating at the Florida State University cafeteria with her boy friend of the day. He was a Jewish guy named Charley who got his start torturing rats in the name of psychology, probably bald and fat by now.
We have lunch at a Mexican Restaurant and then pay for admission to the Conspiracy Theory Museum. I take copious notes. On reflection, I decide it's not important who did it. It's an act that radically changed history. Kennedy had just issued an order to withdraw 65,000 troops from Vietnam. These orders were cancelled by LBJ and things went downhill from there.
We take a taxi back to the RV and drive South to Lake Whitney State Park to camp for the night.
Hi Phred! Great post.
ReplyDeleteI was in class, fifth grade I believe. Someone came and knocked on the door and Mrs. Swisher went out and talked to them for a minute. When she came back into the room, she was crying.
We were all shocked to see our hardboiled teacher in tears. She walked to the front of the class and said, without any preamble, "Class, someone shot President Kennedy. He is dead." After a while, she said, "Go ahead and read in your books if you'd like. As soon as the bus drivers can get here we are calling off school and sending you all home."