When Icons Die

I remember as far back as the day that FDR died. I was only three years old when the President died but I remember distinctly how my grandparents and parents reacted to his death. We had a big, old fashioned radio and my family sat in front of it all day listening for the bits and pieces of news that came out on that fateful day. I remember my grandmother standing in our kitchen with tears running down her face and me asking her why she was crying. Her answer, “I am peeling onions”, was spoken in order not to alarm a toddler who had no concept of death.

My next encounter with the death of a famous person was when John F. Kennedy died. I was 21 when he was shot and very aware of all of the details that ensued on that day in Dallas. I watched television from morning until night and beyond as the public funeral, the shooting of Lee harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby and all of the wall to wall coverage continued for most of that week in November. I cried when his young son John-John saluted his casket and when taps was played at Arlington as the Eternal Flame was lit beside his grave. As a young adult it had a great impact on me and I felt as if a member of my own family had died.

When Bobby Kennedy was shot I had a personal stake in the proceedings as I worked for his campaign and was supposed to attend the festivities at the Ambassador Hotel that night. Another long, sad week followed as his funeral train made it’s way to Arlington Cemetary for his somber burial.

Elvis Presley’s death was another shock and since he was my idol while in my teens I was probably even more shocked than ever before. How could a young man like my idol Elvis be dead? I was acquainted with one of his body guards, Sonny West at the time and his book had just come out about Elvis abusing drugs. No one believed that Elvis was a junkie until his autposy proved Sonny to be correct in what he wrote about in his book. Seeing the picture of a bloated Elvis lying in his coffin was a shock as I could only picture the extremely handsome and sexy Elvis of my youth and not this awful looking man who bore no resemblence to the Elvis I idolized.