The Legacy Lives Long

Teddy Kennedy was 17 when I was born.

I was 11 years old when his brother John was elected president. I was 14 when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

I was 11 days short of 19 when Robert F. Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles.

Joseph Kennedy, Jr., died August 12 , 1944, in a wartime plane explosion, a bit less than five years before I was born. His body was never found.

Four brothers, a quartet who gave their lives for this nation. Only one died of natural causes. What other family can truly say it has given so much to this country? Over 65 years the contribution the Kennedy family made to the USA has been overwhelming.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy, their father, was born in 1888, the son of a saloon keeper in Boston. As a boy he was ambitious, hard working. He delivered newspapers and did chores for neighbors.

He was a Roman Catholic and was educated by the church. He was accepted at Harvard where he excelled, but was shut out of some of the prestigious clubs because of his Irish heritage. At graduation he had two burning desires, to become a millionaire by 30 and show up the Protestants who snubbed him.

He married Rose Fitzgerald in 1914. They had nine children. Joe, Jr., and Kathleen, the eldest son and second daughter died during the war, both in aircraft incidents. Kathleen, though, had been estranged from the family because she had married a Protestant.

Their first daughter, Rose Mary, was born in 1918 with some sort of mental dysfunction and was subjected to a surgery of the era, a pre-frontal lobotomy. She became infantile and was relegated to a nursing home in Wisconsin. She died four years ago.

Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver, the third daughter, was born in 1921 and died recently.

Patricia Kennedy Lawford, born in 1924, married actor Peter Lawford. She died in 2006.

Jean Ann Kennedy Smith was born in 1928, married Steven Edward Smith and was widowed in 1990. She served for a while as the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.

In the meantime Joe Kennedy was building an empire of money. He got into banking, stocks and real estate. In the 1930s it is said he ran liquor from Europe to the U.S. During prohibition.

Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt named him as first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934.

In 1937 he was made chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission and in 1938 was named Ambassador to Great Britain. He was the first Irish-Catholic to hold the position. And he thought he was on his way to the White House.

Problems developed. He was a staunch isolationist and argued for appeasement of Hitler and wanted the country to stay out of any war that might happen between Britain and Germany. His attitude was not a big hit with the English or conservative leaders such as eventual Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Joe Kennedy resigned in 1940 as war became inevitable.

December 8, 1941, his dreams of becoming President went the way of the wind. After the war he set sights for son John to occupy the the White House.

It is thought that Joe's money put JFK over the top in his 1960 presidential campaign against Richard Nixon.

Joe, shortly after the election, suffered a series of strokes. He was told of the assassinations of John and Robert and Teddy's Chappaquidick incident and died shortly thereafter, Nov. 8, 1969. Rose died Jan. 25, 1995.

Joe and Rose Kennedy leave now a single child, Jean Ann. They and their children, each in its particular way, have contributed to the people of this nation.

Certainly other families have contributed in many ways to this country, but the Kennedy legacy, children who have served as soldiers and sailors, children who have served as ambassadors, and given to causes for good and even simply served as examples.

The legacy lives on.

Musical Seasons

I dread the oncoming of autumn. It is perhaps the most cruel of the four seasons. Wasn’t there once a vocal group called The Four Seasons? I think so.

For one who is in constant dread of winter and the nastiness of winter’s weather, autumn is the forerunner of things to be avoided.

Oh, I can enjoy the turning and falling of the leaves, the drop in temperatures just a bit and the shortening of daylight.

I can also enjoy to some extent the fact that I don’t have to darken the school house door for classes, though if given the opportunity, I’d spend the rest of my life taking college classes of my own choice at times chosen by myself.

But for one of my age, the oncoming of autumn is the metaphor for the dimming of sight, the extra ache in the knees and the decreased volume of sound entering the ears.

And speaking of the eyes and ears, one last blossom of summer is scheduled for Saturday as the London Community Orchestra presents its Summer Pops Concert beginning at 7 p.m. at First Baptist Church on West Fifth Street in London. Admission charges are $5 for adults and $3 for children.

If you’ve never heard the London Community Orchestra, this is a good time to try it out. It and the London Community Band do a total of four regular concerts each year. The orchestra kicks its season off with a Christmas concert, obviously with music of the season.

It then does a spring concert that highlights classical and light classical music.

On Independence Day, the orchestra becomes a band, by substituting its strings section for more brass and woodwind instruments and does a patriotic show.

And finally, as summer ends, the orchestra performs popular music.

For more information about the orchestra, go to www.londoncommunityorchestra.org.

Also, if you happen to be in Corbin Saturday night, the Free Time Band will present a concert at the Civic Center on Gordon Hill. It begins at 7:30 p.m. Proceeds go to the Corbin Backpack program.

And speaking of music, I guess some of my fondest autumn memories are on the gridiron. No, I didn’t play football. I was a drummer in the London High School band. It all started in late summer as the band gathered and began practicing and learning new routines for pre-game and half-time entertainment.

Jack McCarty, my band director for three years and good friend for much longer, would put us through our paces in the late afternoon, as the heat of the day would be upon us.

It was from Jack that I got my love of music. Listening is one thing, but actually playing something for an audience, even if it was just as a drummer, makes music really come alive.

And this fall, if I should actually attend a high school football game, I’ll remember Jack and my fellow musicians and those memories will make autumn worthwhile.

Carl Keith Greene is a writer for the Times-Tribune. He can be reached at cgreene@thetimestribune.com

Michael Jackson a homicide victim?

Word just came down that Michael Jackson's death was the result of a homicide.
His physician, the one who provided chemicals for his "sleep" is thought to be the "party of interest" for the Los Angeles police.
Intentional death or unintentional death?
Was the physician just tired of taking care of the weird little guy and just decided to get rid of him and perhaps get a large piece of the money that was perhaps just laying around the Jackson manor?
But you have to admit, Michael was a strange young man. Perhaps his success made him what he was. Perhaps his family pushed him as the really talented Jackson of the bunch.
I was never much of a Michael Jackson fan. In fact never much of a Jackson family fan.
I left most of my popular music fondness with The Beach Boys.
What's your take on Michael Jackson, his life and death?
And when do you think they'll ever bury him?
Or, are they leaving him out in wait for the second coming to make it easier for him to be the first to stand up and shake hands with Jesus?
Michael Jackson, heavy duty rock star, or just a kid who got lucky and couldn't handle the luck?

Heading for Homecoming

Missed Homecoming last year. I was under the knife, or something.
Heading out tonight to hear the Picnic with the Pops event, make some photos and put them in The Times Tribune.
Seventy five years of Laurel County Homecoming is hard to believe. But I've been to most of the last 55 or so, at least for a little while.
What's your thinking on combining the "Fowl Festival" "Homecoming" and the entertainment portion of the "Laurel County Fair?"
Let's discuss it. What are your comments?

Could Glenn Beck have been at Woodstock?

By Carl Keith Greene



Forty years ago I missed Woodstock. I was preparing to head off to Morehead State University.
Yes, I was there to get an education, and also to maintain my student deferment from the dreaded draft.
I still missed Woodstock. I don't think I would have gone even if I just lived down the road.
And I'm not even sure I was really aware that something of that magnitude was happening on the slopes of the Catskills. Seems that I learned about it after it was already over.
I remember some of the music. But I couldn't have identified the groups that played there and can only remember a few right now.
I think my musical mind was filled more with Beach Boys than Rolling Stones.
I got one of the very high draft lottery numbers, so I didn't worry too much about being shipped across the Pacific to die in some bog or marsh.
Since then things in this world have changed so much that if I hadn't lived through the '70s I couldn't have believed it.
Now that's not to say things have changed for the better or for the worse. Things have simply changed.
We've gone through Vietnam, Watergate, Chappaquiddick, attempts at the lives of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and now, the worst of the worst, Glenn Beck.
I suspect that our old buddy Glenn has made some suspiciously stupid moves in his life, as have we all. But on the one-to-ten stupid scale, I'd say good old Glenn has hit maybe 17 or 18.
And that frightens the bejebbers out of me.
First Glenn says our President is a bad president and in the next breath says he didn't say it.
I highly suspect that Glenn doesn't hear himself so he doesn't know what he is saying.
Recently most of his sponsors, on the network th
at I won't honor by using its name, dropped off Glenn's show. That should tell old man Beck something.
But I wonder if Beck isn't a shill, trying at the behest of persons smarter than he, to prompt another John Hinckley, who tried to kill Ronald Reagan or before that Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, who tried to kill Gerald Ford.
Last week the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a major warning.
The long-time civil rights organization said the recession, hatred of President Obama and anger at Democratic Party control of the federal government have produced a rise in armed militia groups.
Those groups, it says, are often racist and potentially liable to resort to what it calls domestic terrorism.
Mark Potok, Law Center spokesman, said last week the groups are not at the point of violent anti-minority, anti-government attacks, "but we seem to be getting there."
Potok said the center has identified at least 50 new militia groups in the past two years, mostly in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and Deep South.
And CBS News recently did a report on the groups that concluded with the line "... the right-wing extremists, historically motivated by a distrust of government, are now especially angry about the election of America's first African American president."
Eleven of those groups are identified as being in Kentucky. Four of the groups, Brotherhood of Klans Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Supreme White Alliance, The Knights Order of Klans and the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klans are simply listed as being in Kentucky.
A neo-Nazi group, called American National Socialist Workers Party is listed as being in Baxter and in Louisville.
Fellowship of God's Covenant People is in Burlington.
Imperial Klans of America is located at Dawson Springs.
A neo-Confederate group, League of the South, is in Lexington.
Appalachian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is in Pikeville and North American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is located in Tollesboro.
Though I know security has to be at it's highest, every time I see President Obama at a town meeting, throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game or simply being exposed to the public, I fear the worst.
My memories go back to Nov. 22, 1963, and April and June 1968 and chills go up my spine.
In fact, I try to not watch the event, especially if it's live.
In the nearly 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education was adjudicated, we've come a heck of a long way in our racial history.
But the Glenn Becks in the nation still have a long, tortuous way to go. And I fear there are more Glenn Becks out there than we can ever count.

August 14, 2009 Column from Times Tribune

New life for an old tradition

Carl Keith Greene

Summer draws to a close earlier now than it did when I was growing up. It’s amazing that school has already started.

August was the month for vacations, trips to Boonesboro Beach before it was a state park, Joyland Park in Lexington, Natural Bridge State Park in Slade and a couple of times even a trip to Florida.

And, of course, in my hometown, there was the Laurel County Homecoming for which to look forward.

I just got the first word of the upcoming August festivities for this year at the Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park.

In the old days the local paper would begin plugging the event months before it was scheduled.

It was then done on the “Weekend of the Full Moon in August.” Now it’s on the third weekend in August.

When it originated it was about the biggest thing that ever hit the county and it was looked forward to by all who had left Laurel County as a time to return and renew old friendships.

Lately it has seemed to be taking the last breaths of a dying tradition, not that I hope it dies. I hope that in some way it will survive.

And it looks like this year may be a year of rebirth.

It all began in the mid-1930s when the Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park was dedicated one Sunday in July.

And in some form or other the homecoming has, for about 75 years, reproduced itself each August.

This year it seems to be getting a new burst of life with younger people and younger ideas. Perhaps we are truly beginning the event’s next 75 years.

Early in the life of the homecoming, Laurel natives who have excelled in some particular field began to be honored each year, and this year John David Dyche, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s biographer, will be that honoree.

Once the honors were presented at a banquet in the park clubhouse prior to the Saturday night program. This year the honored guest will be honored at the Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Homecoming Ball at a tent near the park’s picnic grounds on Saturday night. By the way, a group called the Heritage Foundation has assumed the function of making sure the homecoming continues.

It consists of former honorees, former committee volunteers and former homecoming queens. Those who might be interested in participating in the Heritage Foundation can call 878-2775 or 682-1571.

Another new event at this year’s homecoming will be on Thursday night with Picnic with the Pops.

A 17-piece “big band” will evoke memories of the 1940s and picnickers will be eligible for awards for the party or group that picnics with decor that best fits the year’s theme, “There’s No Place Like Home.”

Friday night will see the Coca-Cola Classic Talent Contest, a new event in the park’s amphitheater.

Lots of new things, lots of new ideas, lots of new people organizing the events and, we hope, lots of people filling the park over that weekend, and lots of people lining Main Street for the “Downtown Affair,” a new event for Friday afternoon before the parade.

It all begins next Thursday, Aug. 20. I hope to see you there.

Carl Keith Greene is a writer for the Times-Tribune. He can be reached at cgreene@thetimestribune.co

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Welcome

Welcome to this new project. I'll post my weekly columns from the Times Tribune newspaper in Corbin Kentucky.
Keep your eyes out for new things and suggest column topics as well.