Got a few minutes? Heres an old, yellow clipping from my New England past. Yes, JFK fans, it was 50 years ago. VISITS IN OUR VALLEY (President John F. Kennedy spoke at Amherst College on Saturday, Oct. 26, 1963. This report on the crowd’s anticipation was published in the Springfield Republican on Sunday, Nov. 3, 1963, in the “Visits in Our Valley” column.) By Jack Chevalier AMHERST – This was poet’s day at Amherst College, and Carl Sandburg’s famous product, fog, appropriately clung to the campus greenery as the multitude began to assemble. This was neither a soft cat’s-feet fog nor a thick pea-soup fog. It was kind of a warm, damp fog, moving steadily toward an unknown destination like teakettle steam, and you felt that any moment the glorious October sun would smash through. People scurried around in all directions on this busy morning, each one heading for a better vantage point from which to view the events to come. On this day, the Robert Frost Library was to be officially dedicated and the first spadeful of earth turned at the central quadrangle where old Walker Hall had defied the calendar for so many semesters. Coming to Amherst College for this happy occasion were Archibald MacLeish, three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, and President John F. Kennedy, an artistic and creative gentleman whose most diplomatic speeches often contain the most poetic expressions. Visits to the Pioneer Valley by Presidents of the United States are so rare that spectators arrived early on this foggy Saturday, crowding the campus which was already bulging with Amherst graduates back for Alumni Weekend. * * * Down on Route 116, which winds quietly through the campus, southward to the Notch, the kids had been hoping for fog. You could see it in their smiles as you peered out of the car, trying to follow the white line in the center of the two-lane road. They loved it. The children of South Amherst knew, of course, that fog would prevent President Kennedy from flying by helicopter from Westover Air Force Base to Amherst College, as scheduled. They knew he’d be cruising by them in a big, black Cadillac in a few minutes – and they were ready. A chubby little guy in a ski sweater, dungarees and sneakers – but no shoelaces – squatted on the curb in front of his white frame house and waited with sparkling eyes. A brown-haired angel, who could have been a third-grader, leaned on a mailbox and stared down the road. A white parka, with its drawn hood framing her little face, protected her from the cold. Closer to the Amherst campus, two enterprising boys set up their lemonade stand, although cocoa would have been more welcome, while another prepared for a big parking business at 50 cents a car. The crowd got thicker near Amherst Golf Club. Children everywhere, while babies who couldn’t stand just wiggled in the arms of their parents. Sad to say, the vigil in South Amherst had an empty ending. The presidential jet from Washington, delayed one hour by fog, didn’t arrive at Westover until conditions had cleared enough to make the helicopter flight possible. JFK didn’t see old Route 116, and I’ll bet he doesn’t even know where it is. * * * The president’s tardy arrival allowed the stragglers to become early-birds. They swarmed toward campus from all sides. It was an academic crowd, but that’s to be expected in Amherst, where the closest thing to a “factory” is Ham Newell’s expanding print shop. Professors in tweed jackets with elbow patches tripped along behind their excited wives. Smith College girls, wearing Bermuda shorts covered by those fake skirts, wheeled in by bicycle. University of Massachusetts students brought notebooks. Townspeople occupied by their usual Saturday activities were definitely in the minority. A few mothers were pushing baskets around Louis’ Food Store, and some children were lined up for catechism class at St. Brigid’s. Near the UMass college pond, a loggers’ jamboree was underway, and he-men in checkered jackets chopped away as if President Kennedy were no closer than the Canadian north woods. At times it resembled a policemen’s convention. State troopers held back spectators on the lawn in front of Alumni Gymnasium and the Amherst Cage. Local cops directed traffic, and it looked as if the regulars had been supplemented by auxiliaries, emergency men, trainees and retired officers for this occasion. Band music blared from inside the Cage, where the people who were lucky enough to have tickets awaited the start of the convocation. Well-organized demonstrators, carrying signs supporting President Kennedy’s civil rights legislation, paced back and forth in a roped-off area in front of the gymnasium. I walked around them, looking for a strategic place to stand when the chief executive came by. “There’s only one way he can come,” said a grizzly old gent in work clothes and dirty black shoes. He sounded like a veteran of presidential appearances, so I listened further. “No matter where the whirlybird lands, he’s gotta walk by here.” So I joined the four-deep crowd and waited. * * * In a few moments, a man who could have been a physics professor jogged over, carrying a brown-based transistor radio with a long antenna. “He just left Westover,” the man informed his wife, off to my left, “and he should be here in three minutes.” In exactly three minutes, the hum of an engine in the sky brought shouts of “There he is!” from the assembly. Just then, a big silver plane with four propellers zoomed out of a cloud, heading east toward Boston. “False alarm,” laughed one of the parents in front of me. Others booed. “Maybe he’ll parachute out,” suggested a little boy. “That would win him a few votes in Orange, but not here,” replied his father. [Area parachutists trained in Orange, Mass.] There was more jockeying for position in the crowd as anticipation heightened. A pushy student elbowed past me and stood on tiptoes, blocking my view of the path tightly guarded by state police. He shoved a blue textbook between his knees and took a black camera out of its case to test the focus. I moved. Two motorcycles roared down South Pleasant Street, followed by a long, two-tone automobile with the top up. “That ain’t him,” said a young boy, wisely. “He wouldn’t come in a ’59 Dodge convertible.” “No, the car will have to be all black,” said his mother. * * * When the unmistakable skipping noise of the helicopter engine finally sounded overhead, a woman fainted on the gymnasium steps. Would you believe it? Just like Hollywood. “Goldman! Goldman!” shouted a state trooper from the roof. He was in position to see everything and spotted the swooning lady immediately. Goldman was the policeman in front of me, and he rushed to the poor woman’s assistance. Goldman never got to see the president. JFK was whisked to the front door of the Cage in a cream-colored, not black, 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible with top down. He hopped out and walked briskly behind the Secret Service men, nodding and smiling to folks on both sides of the path. He shook no hands. His face was tanned, his hair wavy. * * * When you get a close-up view of this man’s magnetic personality, and recognize the appeal of his handsome face, and see the purpose in his stride, you wonder why Republicans will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to oppose him one year from now. Shouldn’t they save all that money and perhaps win in 1968, you ask yourself. Mr. Kennedy disappeared into the Cage then, and his heterogeneous crowd, which had shared something in common for that brief hour on an autumn morning in our Valley, dispersed quickly from the emerald lawn. ###
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 12:09:32 +0000
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