Hello Ward 3, and all of Westfield. Along with being Memorial Day, Monday was also the 100th birthday of President John Kennedy. For all those old timers as myself, who were there, I want to share some thoughts. It was a special time growing up in the JFK era. I remember him in Holyoke’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and having Jacqueline almost trip over me as we crowded the viewing stand, and her just say excuse me please. For me it was more than that; he was perhaps my greatest inspiration. His youthfulness and openness was gave us a different perspective on politics. He made public service an honorable profession. The space program, was the doing of something positive that made us proud and excited about being an American. Proud of doing something good. While far from perfect, his humor, and those who imitated it created a different perspective. One of his humorous moments for me was when he met Soviet Premier Khrushchev. And asked Khrushchev what was that medal on his lapel, Khrushchev said the Lenin Peace Prize. Kennedy then said let’s see that you keep it. But, for me it was his message: “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” He was a Liberator, not a controller of Americans. As he sought ways and means for us to help ourselves and each other. He gave us the tools to do that: whether Job Corps, the retired teacher corps, the Peace Corps, VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America), NYC, (Neighborhood Youth Corps), etc. He wanted us together, to come up with solving our own problems, and not some state sponsored policy imposed upon us, with them telling us what our problems were, and how they were going to solve them for us. That, gave us the self-respect, and confidence to do so. His administration was as much about his family, as it was public policy that gave us appreciation for him. This era began the Civil Rights movement, a pro-environment, Social Justice, and the enabling of the people to take up our own issues, and resolve them; and not perpetuate them for the profits gained at tax payer expense. His honesty, and sincerity as well, reassured us, gave a sense of trust in our government, in the darker days of those times. The conflicts in his campaign for President also seem both remote and familiar, as his opponents sought to use his being Irish and Catholic as reason not to vote for him. How soon we forget that. He was the president that walked into the crowd to shake our hand. He cared more about us, than himself.
Lastly, to best describe him was the response to his death: Not so much a nation in mourning, but a people in mourning. I recall, I was in high school, when the principal announced his being shot, and we were dismissed from school. Walking home I held on to the hope that with our modern medicine he would be saved. But, that hope fell apart, for on my way home there were people standing there in tears wherever I walked and I knew he had died. Let us not forget what he did and work to revive that positive, inspiring, exciting and proud time it was to be an American….. Brian Hoose, a former Holyoker, and your former Ward 3 City Councilor.
