Robert Kennedy-What Might Have Been
“I like to quote Aesceles who said that politics is a noble profession.” Robert F. Kennedy.
Back in June of 1968, in a small New York Avenue storefront close to where the “Soundtracks” music store stood for so many years, was the Huntington headquarters for Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Glenn, now a local businessman, remembers working in that office during the days just prior to Kennedy’s assassination. A young man, fresh out of college, Glenn remembers the electrical excitement felt by all the campaign volunteers the night of the California primary. Their candidate was going to win and, what was ever better was that he and his wife Ethel were due to make a fund-raising appearance at a home in Lloyd Harbor that week-end. It was everyone’s expectation that they would soon be meeting the late-coming favorite in race for the White House.
Bobby Kennedy was shot that night and died the next day of his wounds. The United States has never been the same, seemingly suffering from the desensitizing process that comes after one too many losses.
There were many sides to Bobby Kennedy. He may be remembered as a young attorney in the 1950’s supporting as a Senator Joe McCarthy as a Red-baiter. He may be remembered as a righteous hypocrite who pounded organized crime despite his father’s roots as a boot-legger. He may be remembered as the ruthless alter-ego, political hatchet-man for his brother John.
But Bobby Kennedy may also be remembered for having gone through a pronounced metamorphosis during his last years on this planet. He went through a born-again phase reminiscent of Thomas Merton and future saints Francesco di Bernardone and Aurelius Augustinus the latter who, during a debauched youth, is said to have asked God to “Make me holy, Lord, but not yet.” Kennedy made that sort of transformation during his 1968 foreshortened campaign for President as he spoke out passionately and convincingly in support of the impoverished, the disenfranchised, the oppressed. He was humbled by his brother’s death an seemingly became a proponent of liberation theology which suggests that the poor may be blessed but do not have tolerate injustice.
It was during a television interview with David Frost that he first said that “politics is a noble profession.” Within a few months of the interview, within a a few minutes of winning the 1968 California Presidential Primary he was assassinated.
During the nearly thirty years that have gone by since Robert Kennedy’s statement there has been little sign of anything noble at any level of politics in America. Watergate, Abscam, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, are just a few of the obvious headline grabbers over the past quarter century. Rarely can you pick up a newspaper or listen to a newscast without hearing about some public official being investigated, fired, or indicated. Noble indeed…
Ode to the Man From Hickory Hill (an excerpt)
“On to Chicago and let’s win there!”
Those words so empty now.
Oh no, it can’t be true, tell me why, tell me how.
But wait, I’ve seen the killers before, I can call them each by name.
They are envy, ignorance, fear, and hate
We only have ourselves to blame.
Claudia’s Haunted Eyes
Van Allen’s Belt is falling,
To surround the city’s haze.
The calendar’s growing smaller,
As months turn into days.
Vitamins smelling rancid,
While the town clerk sits and cries.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s beautiful eyes.
The pencil point is broken,
As snow melts in July.
The novice knows his job too well,
A drowning lifeguard soon may die.
It’s plain to see that Hector
Fails much more than he tries.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s saddened eyes.
The gin-mill’s selling candy,
To Chinese garbage-men.
The captain cannot spare the time,
To look where he has been.
The dresser drawer is leaking,
The closet’s full of spies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s puzzled eyes.
A lug wrench jams the back door lock,
A blind man cuts the grass.
The wet-nurse chews tobacco,
Before and after class.
The sunset starts a new day,
As we chase away green flies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s frightened eyes.
A baseball sheds its cover,
A grave-digger cracks a smile.
His Uncle Edmond rose at dawn,
Just to spit on the Miracle Mile.
The Venetian blind is rusted,
Since the Bishop told those lies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s weary eyes.
The gypsy black-man dances,
For a Canadian dime or two.
Edsel hides in De-troit town,
Away from a relentless shrew.
Bi-focals made of isinglass,
Worn by a drunken narc who sighs.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s haunted eyes.
The end of the world is over,
Love can’t win this war.
A hooded queen shoots basketballs,
So high she can’t keep score.
I find this all can’t mean too much,
Beyond what she denies.
Until they see desolation,
In Claudia’s weeping eyes.
FrThom
Who Killed Evelyn Battel?
I made my way south along Broadway Greenlawn on that muggy August morning in 1984. I drove conservatively because I probably could have been cited for driving while comatose if pulled over by police. The sun had barely found its way above the horizon. No one in his or her right mind could voluntarily be up and attempting to function that early on a Saturday, or so I thought.
I had decided to work a few early hours to try to lighten the load of paper on my desk. At 5:30 AM, I was surprised to see any sign of life let alone a contingent of Suffolk County Police sector cars diverting traffic off Broadway. That much police activity and what was obviously a crime-scene investigation shocked me out of my mid-summer funk and my self-imposed somnambulism.
I read in the next day’s newspaper that the bloodied, battered, body of a young woman had been found on Broadway Greenlawn, close to the intersection of Milton Place. She was identified as Evelyn Battel, a 24-year old waitress who was living on Wall Street in Huntington Village. The fact that I am still thinking about this gruesome crime so many years later should serve as an indication as to profound effect that her death had upon me. Raising two pre-teenaged daughters at the time, I was overwhelmed by the horrific, senseless loss of life.
Years passed and little was heard about the case. A reporter made an off-the-record inquiry as to the status of the investigation. An off-the-record answer came back that, thus far, no arrests had been made and one was not imminent. The cops had a suspect but were taking their time putting together a case. Finally, three years after the crime, a local man was arrested. He was released prior to a trial because prosecutors lacked irrefutable evidence linking him with the woman. The accused persistently maintained that it was all a case of mistaken identity, and inconclusive DNA testing subsequently cleared him.
We hear a great deal about the unpleasant by-products of the bar scenes in our towns, villages, and hamlets: under-aged drinking, the altercations, the traffic accidents, the drug and alcohol overdoses. Yet, not enough emphasis is placed upon the dangers lurking in the corners of the clubs, the guys with too much booze, too much smoke, or too much blow or smack or Ecstasy or steroids in them, looking to prove yet unresolved manhood, to perhaps compensate for an underdeveloped or abused psyche, or to satiate restless hormonal surges.
And then there are the young ladies with their own growing pains, looking for companionship, looking for male approval, or maybe just looking for a dance partner. Parents caution kids so often about so much that we are more than likely “yessed” to the heights of condescension while the listening mode has actually been shut down. They often don’t hear us when we tell them that a drink or two, or a tablet or a toke or three can ease self-consciousness, can relax them into a calm, courageous state of vulnerability, which can transform that pretty young package of potential into a victim waiting to happen.
For every five young women sitting wistfully at a table sipping a drink, there is probably at least one guy coming out of the men’s room who’s not in touch with his manhood, whose brain is just toasted enough to snap at an implied rejection or the word “no.”
Is there an answer to all this? I have none. Cracking down on underage drinking, more counseling about the poison that is readily available in bottles and cans, closer monitoring of the over-crowded bars and early-morning drinking hours don’t seem to provide an easy answer.
There is a disturbing bottom line here. A woman gets off work, goes to a local pub, leaves with a man, and is found the next morning discarded in the middle of the road, beaten, raped, strangled, and dead. The killer could still very well be walking down local streets, frequenting the stores, the restaurants, the jogging paths, with your wife, your daughter, maybe mine. He’s aged since he murdered Evelyn Battel. But he’s killed before and is capable of doing it again.
I would like to be able to ask Evelyn Battel for her opinion on these matters, but unfortunately, she’s not available at this time. More than two decades have passed, we still don’t know why she never had the chance to celebrate her 25th birthday.
FrThom
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