By Bob Gibson
Charlottesville political blogger
When I was 10, I attended the political event of a lifetime.
I have been to hundreds of political events since, none quite like this one.
My father, a federal employee who commuted each day from our house in Arlington to an office not far from the Potomac River, took me to witness John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s inauguration.
It was a bitter cold January day and snow still lay piled around Washington’s wide avenues, scraped clean for the occasion.
Tanks and soldiers made Pennsylvania Avenue loud that day as a military parade marked the occasion.
Kennedy’s words made an indelible impression that day on me as on many others.
We didn’t want to ask what our country could do for us.
We wanted to ask what we could do for a country we all thought was going to do great things under this new, young president.
I had viewed Dwight D. Eisenhower as a kindly grandfather, a hero and a guy who loved to play golf.
This new president was of my parents’ generation. He inspired.
Dad pointed out Joe Bellino, a Navy football hero, as he marched with his fellow Middies that cold day.
They looked damned sharp, I thought. He was awful short, but one great player.
Government wasn’t the enemy in those days for either political party.
The Russians were, those crafty people who beat us into space.
How did they do that?
I didn’t know, but knew that math and science mattered. Even engineering.
My dad was an engineer. I was proud of that.
I was even prouder of Kennedy.
I saw him once more before his life was cut short.
Another speech. Another time I knew politics mattered.
It mattered a lot because, well, because he inspired.
The day he was shot, I cried my eyes out.
I sought out my favorite teacher, and we cried our eyes out together.
Politics was a little different after that.
The country was a little different.
Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon were different.
Political heroes were different, and harder to find in the White House.
I found mine elsewhere.
You don’t have to be a hero to live in the White House.
You do have to have one fine day and one heck of a parade.
