Most of the people I knew spent the next several days after President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 glued to their black-and-white televisions watching the drama surrounding his death play out.
It is hard for me to hear anyone talk about how bad it is to live in Anniston, and/or how less than ideal it is to live in Alabama. Alabama is a state more or less like the other states. We have our moments when we can be very proud, and like most other areas of the country, we have our less-proud moments. A mustache drawn on President Kennedy’s picture by some random 14-year-old should not change a person’s mind about a town or a state.
Perhaps the teacher and Speak Out writer should have considered the source and gone on to make a point about respect for the office, if not for the man. Of course, the letter was a veiled attempt to make a political statement, with a mustache-drawing adolescent from the past cast in the role of an evil Republican.
Jim Phillips
League City, Texas
