November 22nd, 1963 Remembered 

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President, in Dallas, Texas. Pretty much everyone in the US knows where they were on that day and what they were doing.

I had not been a huge supporter of Kennedy, but in my family even my slight praise met with some resistance from my father, who aways referred to JFK as "That good-for-nothing Irish son-of-the-rich." My dad's side of the family had little use for the Kennedys, mostly stemming from Joe, Senior, having gotten some plum Washington job that, it was felt, should have gone to my grandfather.

I guess, like most of the people my age - I had turned 19 the month before - I was somewhat taken with the whole "Ask not what your country can do for you . . ." ethos and the fact that Kennedy was a lot cooler than other national politicians. I expected great things from him and his administration.

So, on that day, I was in the upstairs bedroom of a duplex apartment, part of a mansion built as a summer house for members of the Astor family in Astoria, Queens. It was not quite as grand as it had been in its heyday, but it boasted a good-sized living room, a dining room and kitchen on the main floor, actually the 2nd floor, and two bedrooms on the top floor. It was affordable for a young single mom and her 2-year-old daughter.

I had met the woman who lived there the week before in Greenwich Village, at a small storefront coffee house called, rather grandiosely, "The Cafe World." I had been quickly introduced by a mutual friend. The woman and I sat and chatted between sets by several folksingers we both knew. Eventually, she asked if I'd like to see her haunted mansion. What young boy could resist a come-on like that from a dark, rather exotic looking woman, dressed in a style several years out of date, but not stylishly retro?

By the time that eventful Friday had rolled around, I'd spent a week with her, being taught, with patient tenderness and a good deal of skill, the art of pleasing a woman and being pleased. We had not actually consummated our relationship at that point. 

It was early afternoon, sometime around 1:30 P.M. when the phone rang. My lady friend answered, spoke for a moment and put the phone down. "Turn on the TV," she said, "DG said that Kennedy has been shot."

Sure enough, anywhere you looked on the dial, the news people were talking of nothing else. It came in fragments, nothing like the way we get our news today. There was no live or even taped coverage of the entire motorcade, there were no cameramen rushing to the hospital, none of that. Just the news men, Cronkite, Huntley, Rather and others getting unconfirmed reports, tearing off flash bulletins from the AP and UPI teletypes. My lady friend and I sat at the edge of the bed, holding hands and with shocked expressions on our faces.

Then, at around 2 P.M. Eastern time, the news came that President Kennedy, despite heroic efforts of the staff at Parkland Hospital, had succumbed to his wounds. We looked at one another, I got up and turned off the TV, and in some unconscious human need for comfort and a restoration of some normalcy, we consummated our week-long bout of instruction and foreplay.

There was little else on television that weekend. Lots of pictures of Kennedy and his family from earlier days, coverage of LBJ being sworn in on Air Force One, with the widow of the late President standing near. There were even moments of silence and solemn music. The nation was in mourning.

I have been teased by some of my friends who said that it took a natural tragedy to get me to shed my virginity. After that day, nothing was the same, not for me or for any of us. It was, in truth, a loss of innocence in a great many ways. Fifty years ago. It seems like a lifetime and and yet only yesterday. The lady is dead, I am in my 70th year. And the world is a very, very different place than it was on that day in 1963. 

Frightening Read - The Enemies Trilogy - Foreign and Domestic

I've read books of all kinds since I began reading over my mother's shoulder. The school administration at McDonough #9 in New Orleans were annoyed with my mother for having taught me to read before I entered kindergarten, but it wasn't really Mom's fault. I basically taught myself.

Recently a friend sent me a list of free books at Amazon for the Kindle. Among them I found a novel by Matthew Bracken called Castigo Cay, a slightly futuristic speculative adventure story mostly set aboard a sailing vessel in the waters off the South Florida coast ( A worthwhile read with similar themes) there was a list of the author's previous work at the end, including a trilogy that began with Foreign and Domestic, whose title comes from the oath taken by so many of us to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

The book is the first in what is called The Enemies Trilogy. F&D is set in the present, in the area around Washington, D.C., an area I used to know somewhat from having been stationed there twice in my service with the Army. Bracken gives you a strong sense of place, with great descriptions you feel would allow you to find all of the locations. He tells a story about a small group of ordinary people who get caught up in a plan by a small group within the BATF&E to gain favor with the administration and enhance their standing within the Federal Law Enforcement community. They do that by perverting their mission and breaking their oaths to the Constitution.

The frightening thing about this book is how plausible the conspiracy at the center of the plot is, given current events. I've had to read it in small increments because the believability of the plot tends to get my blood pressure up to dangerous levels. I can see it all happening just as Bracken has written it.

The splinter group of rogue federal cops uses the technique of "plausible culpability" to further the agenda so many in the real-world current administration have put forward, that gun owners and "constitutional nut jobs" pose a threat. They use "false-flag" operations, which lead to draconian anti-gun laws and it gets worse from there. Anyone who reads the news will see parallels and possibilities aplenty here.

Bracken creates believable, human characters, heroes and villains alike, and, unlike many male-oriented novels, writes strong female characters, equal to their male counterparts.

If you are interested in how the present increase in federal power, the strong anti-Constitution agenda of the administration, the ever-greater militarization of law enforcement, especially at the federal level might play out at worst-case-scenario levels, thus book and the two that follow, which I am eager to read, will be to your liking.

To say much more would get us into spoiler country. If you've read Foreign and Domestic and want to discuss it or comment on this blog, I am on Facebook as well as here.