11/22/63

C.S. Lewis, who died less than one hour before President John F. Kennedy was shot, wrote in The Magician's Nephew, "What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are."

Today's date speaks to everyone who lived through the events 50 years ago no matter where they were standing. No one stood in exactly the same place, and today none of these people I will write about here have any connection to one another except the death of their president. And that they told me their story. These  people have sealed in the vaults of memory their own newsreels of that ominous day.

 

Meet David––"A primary source of data"

David is my brother-in-law, whom I have known for over 40 years.  Fifty years ago today, he and 3 of his friends were among the throngs that turned out to see President and Mrs. Kennedy arrive first at Love Field in Dallas. Afterward they sped downtown to situate themselves on Market Street under a viaduct, where "We knew the driver would make a hard right turn and we'd get a really good look at the president." These 4 high school seniors knew how to navigate the surface streets of Dallas.

They had skipped school that day after persuading their teacher in "Problems of Democracy" class to let them do some first-hand research on their project "Subversive Organizations in the U.S."

At Love Field, David said, contrary to expectations, there were no protest signs. "The sky was blue. He was the most handsome man I'd ever seen," he said, "and she, the First Lady, was stunning. I had never seen fashion like that. They both looked so happy."

By coincidence, he says, the street where these 4 students later parked was "exactly the street to take to Parkland Hospital. We were standing about 15 feet from his car when it sped past us. I saw his wound … there was no backside of his head. Horrible. Really emotional … 45 minutes earlier seeing this vibrant man and now," as David tells this story to me he says he remembers "a big bloody piece of nothing."

The 4 guys jumped into their car and followed the president's limo to the hospital. "We thought it was weird that it [the limousine] didn't slow down." The Press Corps behind the limo got caught in traffic.

Senator Ralph Yarborough and Mayor Earl Cabell were in the second car. David said he talked to Yarborough, "who was crying, inconsolable." And later, it was Yarborough who told the press to talk to David and his friends.

"These boys saw him," Yarborough said.

David said, "And then the press swamped us." David's friend Will had used his student press pass to get into the hospital press conference. "He had an ABC News Press card and went to the official press conference."

Meanwhile, in a second limo, in the backseat, the roses presented earlier to Jackie Kennedy lay strewn across the backseat.


The photo on the right shows what David was looking at: Jackie's roses. You can almost see in his expression and body language the wheels turning––should I or shouldn't I?

"I reached into the limo––I can't believe I had the nerve. There was blood on the rose I got."

The next thing he did was turn on the radio in the limo. "We didn't know what was happening… We heard Walter Cronkite saying," and here David couldn't finish his sentence. After a pause, he said, "I knew he was dead."

This picture of David ran in the Houston Chronicle on the front page of the 25th Anniversary of the assassination, November 20, 1988.

David has framed the blood stained rose as well as newspaper clippings and prints made from his friend's camera.

Dallas Times Herald, November 22, 1963

Behind the policeman, a man moves the glass bubble that could have shielded the president, but President Kennedy had asked that the bubble top be removed.

Crowd gathered outside Parkland Hospital Emergency Room

At the hospital, David's friend, Charles, took pictures with the camera he had brought with him that day. By the time reporters got there, people (Secret Service or local cops?) had cleaned up the car. They wiped off blood, took the top out of the trunk, put it on and drove away the limo Kennedy had been riding in. Charles, who later became a lawyer, started negotiating with reporters, who bid on his camera "sight unseen" and paid $700. for its film, with Charles retaining first prints and credits for any photos used.

"When I testified, 10, 15 or 20 years later," David said, "I flew into Dallas to the museum to record a filmed testimony. The only thing interesting [to them, those who questioned him] was that President Johnson came out surrounded by Secret Service men, guns out, and loaded him into a VW Beetle with at least 4 agents with him. They covered him with their bodies."

 

Meet Dr. Bob McClelland, a friend of a friend

I met Dr. Bob McClelland this past summer, a mutual friend introducing us, because she knew I had been particularly interested in the Kennedy history. Sitting around my friend Norma's kitchen table with her husband Royce, also a doctor, and their son Todd and my friend Pat, Dr. McClelland shared with us his first-hand testimony of that day in Trauma Room #1 at Parkland Hospital. Bob and Royce have been friends and colleagues for over 50 years.

This is the shirt Dr. McClelland was wearing that day, the shirt he has preserved, he says, because he once saw a piece of clothing in a museum that was stained with President Lincoln's blood after he had been shot.

"To start," he said, "with a worm's-eye view in the OR, 2 days after my 34th birthday, I had been on the surgical faculty [of Southwestern Medical School] since 1962. I was in a conference room showing a movie to senior residents on how to repair hernias."

Dr. Crenshaw said, "Mac, will you step out here? Got a call to ER. They're bringing President Kennedy in."

"He and I got on the elevatior, rode 2 floors down, trying to cheer each other. The door to 'the Pit' opened," a space he compared to the size of Norma's kitchen and den, with patient cubicles separated by curtains off that hallway. "Trauma rooms 1, 2, 3, and 4 were opposite, where we took seriously injured patients."

"What I saw … the area was jammed with people, men in business suits, a sea of hats … the crowd parted [to let them pass]. On a chair outside Trauma room 1, Mrs. Kennedy was sitting … I walked toward her. I forced myself."

"Oh, no," I thought. "I was it, or so I thought."

"There were 4 of us [doctors] inside now, and Doris Nelson, the nurse in charge of the ER." Later, Parkland hospital records would indicate 6 doctors attended the president.

"A surgical drape on the president, I saw him lying, cut out of his clothing, covered in blood. It was a horrible sight. Dr. Malcolm Parry and Dr. Baxter were there, and I [was glad] I wasn't by myself. Parry on one side and Baxter on the other," Dr. McClelland stood at the end of the gurney, noting that the doctors were working on a wound "the size of my little finger in his neck." Did a bullet hit the carotid artery? he wondered.

"Dr. Carricho put a tube in the trach [tracheotomy]. He was a resident at the time, but later he was chief of the department."

Here, at this point in the conversation, Dr. McClelland reached up and touched his own head near the crown, indicating where he saw "a huge hole in the back of the President's head." He thought before he spoke, "The right side of his head is gone, meaning the right half of the cerebral hemisphere is gone. However, he was breathing and had good cardio on the monitor."

The doctors completed exploration of the neck wound, about 6 minutes spent, he said, before they cut Kennedy's chest open and Mac [Dr. McClelland's nickname] massaged his heart.

Here Dr. McClellan looks at one of the countless books he has read about the assassination of JFK. The plastic bag contains the shirt he was wearing while he treated President Kennedy in the Parkland ER

Dr. Clark, a neurosurgery professor, noted that the ECG monitor had straight-lined. "Mac, you can stop now. The President is gone."

"Shows how news media can bend things," Dr. McClelland said. "Mrs. Kennedy wasn't in the room when Dr. Clark made his pronouncement." With that, he said, the crowd left the room.

"Dr. Baxter and I were shoved up against the wall of the trauma room, after the others left. Just as we got around the cart, a priest came in. Couldn't knock him down, could we? Father Huber, there to administer Last Rites. He bent down to the President's left ear, saying 'If thou livest' and then his voice dropped."

"Next, the door opened and Mrs. Kennedy came in. I couldn't hear, but I surmised [that that the priest had given] 'conditional absolution.' She grimaced but said nothing. She exchanged the ring from her finger to his, and his to hers. She stood by the President's barefoot, leaned over and kissed his foot. Then she left the room.

This detail, which I had never heard mentioned or written, was the most poignant, personal aspect of what Dr. McClelland witnessed that day. 

Meanwhile, Forensic pathologist, Dr. Earl Rose, later described to Dr. McClelland what he had seen while sitting downstairs in his office. He looked out into the corridor and saw O'Neal funeral home arrive with a coffin. The president's body was brought out [up to that place in the hospital] to an ambulance on the same cart he had been treated on. Two Secret Service men walked in front and Mrs. Kennedy was on the side opposite her friends Kenny O'Donnell and David Powers.

"Dr. Rose stepped out of his office to stop them saying, 'I'm required by Texas law to conduct a postmortem on any murder committed in this state. Dr. Rose said a Secret Service man picked him up, and set him down and waved his finger [back and forth] in front of his face."

Besides being in Trauma room 1 when Kennedy was shot, Dr. McClelland was called in on Sunday to Trauma room 2 where Lee Harvey Oswald lay mortally wounded.

"That's where our personal part goes," Dr. McClelland said, noting that it would be years later when he saw the Zapruder film on Geraldo Rivera's show in the early 1970's that he began to question what had happened at Dealy Plaza that day. He and the other doctors who treated President Kennedy found themselves in the midst of a battle, in an undeclared war, treating the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America. 

 

Meet Clint Hill, Secret Service Agent assigned to protect First Lady Jackie Kennedy

Earlier this week, I wrote about the book Mrs. Kennedy and Me, written by Clint Hill. Here, the view from where he stood that day reflects a different angle. Agent Hill continues to see things, not only in light of his protective detail's concerns, but also from his personal attachment to Mrs. Kennedy. 

Incidentally, later that same day I gave my book review, I was seated at lunch with a man whose uncle, a professor at Baylor University, served as a forensic expert at a mock trial held in Dallas. This man told me that his uncle actually got to examine the bullets, and his uncle's conclusion? 
Two shooters. 

 

What's that mean?

Bob Shieffer said on CBS news this morning, "Nobody knew what this meant." This meaning, the end of the innocence in this country. The end of believing in idealism. The end of trusting those in authority.

This date also marks the beginning of an era of unrest, of divergence from values that once held the disparate states and opinions of people together in something resembling a whole. One nation under God had elected a young, vibrant Roman Catholic president. A new day dawning, even though in hindsight, we have to admit that John F. Kennedy had his concealed flaws.

We have the buffer of history to interpret for us meanings. The nation was not attacked. Oswald, presumed guilty, met death equivalent to a lynching. He got what most people believed he deserved. That's how things were done in 1963. Find a patsy, which is how Oswald referred to himself. Hang him publicly. Quiet the crowds. Show everyone, "We got our shooter."

No matter where a person stands today to reflect on events that occurred 5 decades ago, the conspiracy conversation continues. Whether Oswald was the lone shooter, a misanthropic loser who sought a place in history books, or a conscripted assassin, the country took a hit that day, one that continues to ooze as questions reopen the wound.

For my part, whatever was concealed from the public must have been dreadful. I don't trust the Warren Commission's report. I have never found a place to stand where I could see what the Commission presented as the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Eclipse eclipses Twilight and New Moon

My grown daughters and I saw the movie Eclipse on opening day. Third in the Twilight Saga, we got tickets for the early matinee on Wednesday. Vampires are asleep that time of day.

Even as the three of us ventured to see the latest film, I felt uneasy. I had read online a well-written, thoughtfully documented, biblically referenced piece that purported the evils inherent in the whole story. The books and movies continue to trigger a range of reactions from Christians, everything from harmless entertainment to the devil’s doorway into lives. 

My husband, when I read aloud the entire article to him said, “Unless it’s The Hardy Boys, some Christians will find something wrong.” 

One thing will never change though. Opposition incites interest rather than quells it. 

What would C.S. Lewis do?

Questions raised are not questions answered. Is the Twilight series Satanic? 

I don’t know how to answer that question for anyone but myself, but if I believed it was inherently evil, I would avoid contact. If I thought its ideas poisonous, I would attempt to keep those I care about from exposure to danger. I might fail, but I would try. 

The world of thought remains an unsanctioned region, patrolled by one’s own conscience, contaminated by reality and filtered through experience. Are there better books to read? Yes; but in our family, my mother outlawed book-burnings. 

I read these 4 books to maintain a conversation with my book-loving family members whose diverse literary tastes expose me to selections I would otherwise bypass. When I posted several months ago my thoughts on the Twilight series, I maintained keeping this story in the realm of fantasy fiction frees readers to relate to the book as a creative endeavor rather than a treatise on vampires.

Without getting into particulars either about the movie or the Bible verses that may or may not apply as an individual sees fit, what struck me while viewing Eclipse was how often the audience laughed. In a crowded theater, laughter throughout a dramatic movie suggests that most people refuse to take this stuff too seriously. Most people, like my daughters, just find the story entertaining if not compelling. I’m the one who strives to figure out what’s going on here. 

Why do people love or hate Twilight?

Before the movie started, previews of coming attractions included the long-anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book in the J.K. Rowling series. Though book seven concludes the Potter series, the movie will appear in 2 parts, the second half released next summer. The trailer for the November movie release showing on You Tube already has over 3 million hits. Touted as “The motion picture event of a generation,” the publicity will help to make it so. 

The phenomena of Harry Potter and Twilight afford parallels. Both originally written for Young Adults, somehow these stories reached and resonated with a wider audience. Both authors dealt with themes characterized as occult: wizardry and vampires. Both book series portrayed heroes/heroines that represent good values held in the midst of an evil counterculture embedded in the contemporary settings; both occupy the seen and unseen world of men. Both publications attracted huge followings and both enterprises evoked strong reaction from critics, supporters and detractors.

One question for detractors: Did you read, watch and think for yourself? Even preachers have moderated, and many from pulpits have lately endorsed the Harry Potter series, saying that to disparage Harry Potter calls into question the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The main thing I see in Stepanie Meyer’s writing is creative repackaging of themes as old as fiction itself, especially romantic fiction. Not surprising since she divulged that she read to the point of emulation literary classics by Jane Austen and Emily Brontë. 

In the PBS movie, Miss Austen Regrets, the character Jane says, “The only way to have a man like Mr. Darcy is to make him up.” Could Meyer’s creation of vampire Edward Cullen represent a modern-day, under-worldly version of Austen’s Mr. Darcy?

What women want, Meyers gives readers through the characters she has created. Between Edward and Jacob, few female readers even try to resist imagining herself as the object of their fatal attraction. 

Women want a man who wants them, desire pulsating. Discussing the books with my husband who has not read, nor would he ever read these books, he said, “Vampires have always been about sex.”

His insight helped me to evaluate the so-called pro-abstinence some say these books promote. I do not agree that Edward’s love for Bella is as he calls it, “old school.” Author Stephanie Meyer knows that restraint heightens tension between the sexes, whereas “giving in” decreases interest. And she has written according to old school morals a commercially successful page-turner.

Theology 101

Everyone holds particular views of God, which is why an author’s theology will infiltrate his writing. Even the atheist refusal to believe in God, his non-view reveals belief that he has no one to whom he must answer. 

Myer’s Mormon theology, “Ye shall be as gods,” does bleed through her story as she had her characters end up choosing what Satan offered Eve in Eden.

By using the term immortal to describe the choice that Bella makes to be with Edward forever, it appears that the undead have a decided advantage over those who must experience the limits of mortality, including continuing to age. 

But the Bible teaches that all human beings are immortal by virtue of their creation by God. Only some will live forever separated from God, even after physical death, while the elect will experience eternal life with God forever—a life that as mortals commences this side of the grave. 

In seminary, students are taught exegesis, how to interpret from the content and context of a biblical passage its meaning. Eisegesis, however, interprets meaning by reading into a text one’s own ideas. Thus, unless we achieve sterile objectivity, each person must concede that most of our conclusions derive based on efforts to support preconceived ideas. Or as C.S. Lewis said, “What you see depends on where you are standing.”

This too shall pass

After the movie ended, my daughters and I talked about the movie and the books as well as the objections noted by the author of the piece I had read. My girls bring a lot of perspective that otherwise I might ignore. 

My eldest daughter has four children; my youngest teaches in a Title 1 high school. They live in the real world; I respect their observations and opinions. They both liked the movie even more than Twilight and New Moon.

The third book was better, one said. The other felt giddy after seeing a grown up movie without kids. Yes, the sexual tension between the characters appeared more overt, building in intensity. But is there anything new under the sun? 

Then we shopped. And I ran into a friend who has neither read the books nor seen the movies. 

“Oh, is it that vampire thing?” she said.

And then she brought up the vampire movies she and I saw at the movies when we were kids; Saturday matinee features that tweens—a word not yet invented— and teens even way back when stood in lines to see. 

All sorts of horror movies reigned at the box office during the late ‘50s and ‘60s. The 1922 silent movie, Nasferatu, is still considered the defining movie about vampires. 

Stephanie Meyer, however, has created a new kind of vampire, not one that glows in the dark but one that sparkles in the light. And some see this as a representation of Satan who the Bible refers to as an angel of light. Maybe. Maybe not. Is the author herself possessed?

Eclipse was not scary. Not in the horror movie sense, although there were some gory sequences.

But people don’t go to Twilight movies because they’re scary. The teenage love story has most people hooked. And the complicated relationship Bella has with her divorced parents tugs at heart chords. And her love for a friend who wants more than her friendship, that’s part of the chemical equation too. 

As for the proliferation of vampire books, movies and TV shows, well, I have lived long enough to venture this too shall pass.

“Reel spirituality”

Movies have ratings and parents have reason. And kids who want to read or see what their friends read and see will find a way. Rules break before relationships do. 

As for cautions, yes. Readers must think, movie-goers must decide which movies to view, and parents must teach their children how to think and evaluate, how to challenge ideas that threaten values. 

Discuss. Dialogue uncovers a multitude of insinuations. 

Blind obedience fails in the cultural crucible where too many voices cry in the wilderness.

A Pampa Footnote: "Circles inside of circles, inside of circles"

Although a number of women traveled 120–150 miles round trip from surrounding areas to attend, Janice flew from Dallas to Amarillo––up and back in a day––rented a car and drove by herself the 60 miles each way to and from Pampa contending with a 50+ mph crosswind. Janice had dressed for Spring, but nary a complaint about the Panhandle weather crossed her lips.

                                           Janice, me, Pat, Sue and Danina

Thank you, each and every one who got out on such a blustery day, Saturday past, to hear me speak at Faith Bible Church. When I overheard some women saying that the bad weather had made it possible for them to attend because ball games and various outdoor activities got canceled, it struck me how hollow my prayers sound when I ask for comfortable conditions, the removal of obstacles and the wish that things I value would come easy.

Since graduating from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2008, I have sought to discover and develop a speaking/writing platform. Based on remarks and written evaluations, I am encouraged to continue in this direction, to continue as Prof Hendricks tells his Creativity classes, "plussing," to make ideas better.

Several asked about quotes used in my talk, indicating that they wished these had been written out. Most of the quotes came from the books I recommended, titles and authors printed on the back of the outline I had prepared, then distributed.

Without repeating the full outline, here are a few quotes corresponding to each heading. 

I. Reading …
"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." C.S. Lewis

II. Writing …
"You are the custodian of your memories and they are perishable." William Zinsser

III. Creativity…
"All people are born originals, but most die a copy."
"The tragedy of life is not in the fact of death but in what dies inside us while we live." Both of these quotes come from the revered Dr. Howard G. Hendricks, who this year celebrates his 60th Anniversary as a professor at DTS.

IV. Transitions …
"The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask." Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Circles inside of circles, inside of circles …," my story reads better because of you.