John F. Kennedy was born on this day in 1917.

My posting this copy (directly above) of a November 1963 E.B. White essay (published in The New Yorker) is a small way of paying homage to the assassinated John F. Kennedy's day of birth.

He was born on the day of May 29th in 1917.

November Twenty Second is a Solemn Day

November Twenty Second is a solemn day. Fifty six years ago today, on November 22, 1963 (which was also a Friday) President John F Kennedy was assassinated.

Thanksgiving Day 2018 + November 22nd: JFK's Assassination + My Father's Last Words (PLUS AN UPDATE FROM FAA!)

On this Thanksgiving Day of 2018, I can hear the bands from Macy's Parade through my window, but have not gone outside to see it. The temperatures are some of the lowest on record for this day, and the wind gusts are abnormally high, which means the Macy's Balloons will be flying low to the ground, and not as easy to see, since people stand on ladders and put toddlers on their shoulders.

I'm not concerned re not seeing the balloons today, for I've seen them over the course of many years as they made their way down Central Park West ...

Monday's Memorandum: It's MLK Day (Assassinated nearly 50 years ago)

In just a few months time, it will be April. Fifty years ago (1968) on the fourth day of that month, the civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated. He was thirty-nine years old.

Today, Monday, January 15th, would've been King's eighty-eighth birthday. His memory is being revered, as it always is on the third Monday in January, when folks celebrate his life on the holiday known as Martin Luther King Junior Day.

According to Wikipedia, "Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.) is an American federal holiday marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around King's birthday, January 15. The holiday is similar to holidays set under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act."

I'm honoring Martin Luther King Junior Day by posting a You Tube video atop today's blog entry, it is the same You Tube clip that I included within an entry here on Blogger for King's holiday in 2017.

I find the song featured in the video haunting and worthy of posting again. Meanwhile, The Seattle Times, created a web-page tribute to him, and in it they state the following:

"Martin Luther King Jr. lived an extraordinary life. At 33, he was pressing the case of civil rights with President John Kennedy. At 34, he galvanized the nation with his 'I Have a Dream' speech. At 35, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. At 39, he was assassinated, but he left a legacy of hope and inspiration that continues today."

"The Monday after Thanksgiving."

As I mentioned this past Wednesday here on Blogger, John F. Kennedy was assassinated fifty-four years ago on the day of November 22nd 1963. I have written about President Kennedy in a number of posts here Blogger, dear reader, and you may reference them by clicking here.

But on that day, another event that occurred on November 22 (in 1995), which happened to be a Wednesday, just as it was this year, has been my mind. And that is the date that my father spoke his last words, into a tape-recorder from his hospital bed, saying, "the doctor hoped to have him out of the hospital the Monday after Thanksgiving," which fell on November the twenty-seventh, just as it does this year.

However, the doctor did not have my father out of the hospital on "the Monday after Thanksgiving," as he had hoped. Instead, he took a turn for the worse, before succumbing to death by septic shock eight days later, on November 30, 1995.

My father must have sensed death was near, and he took the opportunity to say a few things. His very short tape is included in this posting, and if you decide to listen to it, dear reader, you can click on "play bar " below the image of the cassette pictured here. FYI, it may take a few seconds before you hear any sound.

John F. Kennedy 5/29/1917-11/22/1963

John F. Kennedy was assassinated fifty-four years ago on this day of November 22nd 1963. I have written about President Kennedy in prior posts here on Blogger, dear reader, and you may reference them by clicking here.

The essay atop this post was published eight days after Kennedy's death in The New York Times. It was written by E.B. White and I've included it in a few entries here on Blogger. I've also written a number of blog posts which reference E.B. White, please click here if you'd like to read them.

In Honor of Martin Luther King Junior Day

Throwback Thursday: John Lennon's Murder: 12-8-1980

Today is the  feast of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as indicated in the photo atop this entry in an image from Prints of Grace.

It is also the thirty-sixth anniversary of John Lennon's murder. And just as it is said that people of a certain age remember what they were doing when they received the news that John F. Kennedy was assassinated (as I blogged about in a post here on Blogger), it is said that most people of a certain age will remember what they were doing when they received word that Lennon was shot and killed in New York City, just outside his home, a half a block away from where I now reside.

Tuesday's Truth WK 18: JFK's Obituary

In memory of the fifty-third anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which took place on 11-22-1963, I am posting an obituary written by E.B. White  (for The New Yorker magazine) atop this entry.

Stop and Smell the Cranberries (AT LEAST EAT 'EM)

Yesterday, November the 23rd, was Eat a Cranberry Day. This is not a major holiday in the scheme of things, but as an urban gardener, I had every inclination to write about it here on Blogger, and to illustrate my post with photo-ops of a cranberry vine which grows in my urban (NYC) garden.  

However, I became distracted, and did not utter one word about this unusual holiday, and, so without further ado, dear reader, with the photo-ops posted above this entry (taken in my garden), I wish you a happy belated Eat a Cranberry Day.

NOW Fifty (50) Years Later: November 23, 2013

Because, yesterday, November 22nd 2013, was the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of the USA 35th president John F. Kennedy, I am pausing from my "regular" topics as it feels somewhat disrespectful to veer from that subject.

"If it's Tuesday, it must be . . ." tumblr. Week Nine

Today is Tuesday, and yes, I have said, if it's Tuesday it must be tumblr (and it still is a tumblr day), but before I send you there, please let me digress a bit, as it is also the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, a time when many children are making line drawings in school — using their hand as a pattern — such as the one by yours truly posted above today's blog entry. Additionally, it is also November the 22nd, a day which changed the lives of many — in 1963 — when President John F. Kennedy (JFK) was assassinated. I wrote about what I was doing on that fateful day in a blog entry this past November (2010), and if you would like to refer to it, you may do so by clicking here.

However, as I stated yesterday, TLLG is not a political or social justice blog (there are plenty of good ones about those topics out in cyberspace), but, be that as it may, I do want to acknowledge Caroline Kennedy today. Forty-eight years ago on this day, November the 22nd 1963, when Caroline Kennedy was five days shy of turning six years old, there is a possibility, that she, too, was creating line drawings like the one I have just described, whimsical and carefree in structure and fun to create for Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, by the afternoon any whimsicalness she might have felt was obviously shattered. For by that hour, she had not only suffered the death of her newly born sibling, Patrick , who had died that past August, but her father, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated; and surely she must replay these events in her mind on this day, especially when the media will replay and replay the event that occurred in Dallas.

I do not keep tabs on what Caroline Kennedy does or does not do; as I am one of those — to quote Herb Gardner – who has "given up on the (21st) century in favor of making it through the week."*

Rather, Ms. Kennedy is on my mind today because, like her, I was a child when J.F.K. was assassinated (Caroline is my sister's age), and the impact of the tragedy, and of any tragedy or trauma on a child, forever shapes their view of the world. From what I observe, Ms. Kennedy does not seem to be burdened with her past scars as others (including yours truly) tend to be. But, before I get too philosophical or begin to sound presumptuous (after all I have nothing in common with Caroline Kennedy except that we both live in New York City, work as writers, and were children when her father was assassinated), I'll leave my thoughts on Caroline Kennedy for you to mull over, as I am certain you have your own ideas and perceptions, which you are always welcome to share with me within the comments field at the end of this blog.

P.S. *The quote is from Herb Gardener's play, I'm Not Rappaport, and I referred to Mr. Gardener at the onset of this blog in a post you may access via this link.

AND WITHOUT, FURTHER ADO, SINCE IT IS TUESDAY AND IT MUST BE TUMBLR, PLEASE CLICK HERETO GO THERE!

Chekov's Olga Seregeyevna Prozoro and me. Remembering my father's last days.

Following up to yesterday's post, I will tell you that my father did not leave the hospital on the "Monday after Thanksgiving," as he had hoped to do, which is indicated in the audio playing during the video clip in that post. Instead he was still in the hospital on the "Monday after Thanksgiving" and declining quickly. He died a week after that Thanksgiving — November the 30th, fifteen years ago today at 7:35 AM, due to complications with septic shock.


The year he died, Thanksgiving Day was November 23rd. He had evidently recorded a tape (that is being played in the movie-clip in yesterday's post) on the eve of that Thanksgiving, November 22nd — the day Kennedy was assassinated thirty-two years prior — as I recalled in an earlier entry.

My father had been in the hospital due to consequences brought on by severe emphysema, which was caused by his intense Pall Mall cigarette smoking. Although he had quit smoking a few years prior to his death, his wife continued to smoke. He insisted her second hand-smoke did not bother him, and even through his wheezing, as he was declining severely in health, he joked that when he died, the tobacco industry would raise the price of cigarettes in a phenomenal way, saying they would begin to miss his revenue.

The Monday after Thanksgiving

My father can be seen in this photograph playing the frying pan. His brothers are accompanying him with their instruments. Perhaps those earlier musical endeavors gave my father his apparent "love" for pop music. 

Most people when recalling my father's antics will remember him for having his own takes on "Top-40" music hits. For example, with the song, "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," the lyrics go,"I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden . . ." but my father's take on it was,"I beg your pardon, I never farted in your rose garden . . ." 

As for the once-upon-a-time hit song,"Bad Moon Rising," the lyric-line is,"There'a a bad moon on the rise."

My father's version? "There's a bathroom on the right." And with Paul McCartney's, Band on the Run, where the lyric-line,"band on the run" repeats over and over again, my father's rendition was,"band with the runs."

My father's sense of humor, and apparent relationship with songs, remained with him throughout his life. Even at the very bitter end, when he had hoped to be out of a hospital where he had been for treatment due to severe consequences of emphysema, he recorded a tape giving Louis Armstrong "a run for his money".

In the tape, my father expresses what the doctors had hoped to do: have him out of the hospital the Monday after Thanksgiving. Sadly that was not to be, as he was still in the hospital the "Monday after Thanksgiving" and declining quickly: dying that week after Thanksgiving instead.

How was your Thanksgiving? — Blue Friday. "We all have our private hell . . ."

It is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when many people do their holiday shopping. As I ask various people, "How was your Thanksgiving?," some of the answers make me think it is really Blue Friday — as in feeling blue. An owner of a wine shop told me "at least mine wasn't with any family . . ."  These words prompted me to recall a Johnny Carson quote: "Thanksgiving is a time when you get together with family or friends that you usually see once a year and discover why you only see each other once a year."

The Coming Week: Recalling November 22nd

I accidentally deleted all the content from this post when in the midst of adding an addendum to it. As soon as I retrieve the content from an archival file, I will update it.