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I know RFK isn’t for everyone, but he’s iconic to me, truly believing he would have been elected President, and one of our greatest if he had had the chance.
A friend of mine called him a spoiled, rich punk…another a carpetbagger.
I call him a bighearted man with the soul of an apostle. ![]()
He cared more than most, even within his own family who all did their part, but Bobby…he broke the skin aching for the poor, feeling their suffering, especially the children.
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When he visited The Mississippi Delta coming upon a black child on a dirty mattress on the floor, his little stomach extended from lack of nutrition with sores all over him, he picked him up hugging him, with tears running down his cheeks. An African American woman traveling with him said, she never would have been able to pick up that baby.
In 1968, visiting a home for disturbed and mentally retarded kids, piled 9 of them into his car to treat them for ice cream. When they returned he said…
“You know, when those kids tell their parents that Bobby Kennedy took them for a ride and bought them ice cream, they’ll never get out of this place.”
He had, despite deep melancholia, ingrained Irish humor.
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He loved his brother Jack with a fierceness hard to understand, for Jack was the ruthless one, Bobby the romantic taking the fall each time as though it were a privilege. ![]()
Jack was his hero, ![]()
and heroes win no matter what, the way their father taught them.
Kennedys don’t come in second and third, they’re always first.
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He was 25 when he married Ethel Skakel in 1950 having eleven children by her.
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Their first, Kathleen, born on July 4, 1951 named for his sister Kathleen, known as Kick, ![]()
dying in a plane crash at the age of 28, in 1948. His last daughter, Rory, was born 6 months after his death in 1968. ![]()
He was the 7th child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. He repeated the third grade, and played football at Harvard even though he wasn’t built for it, determination making up for natural talent.
He was a committed Catholic and at one time thought of becoming a priest.
He was 5’9.
He collected stamps, liked steak and lamb chops, clam chowder and strawberries and whipped cream.
He could recite the St Crispin’s Day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V Act IV by heart…
But we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers…![]()
He loved animals, especially dogs, Freckles, his Cocker Spaniel rarely leaving his side. ![]()
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He was never the same after his brother died, blaming himself for going after the mob feeling in his heart, they were behind it. He always said, if they were going to get one of them, it would be him, but that wasn’t the case.
Some say ![]()
as he laid on that kitchen floor after being shot 3 times, fatally in the head, his last words were, please don’t lift me.
Others insist it was, is everyone else okay?
When Sirhan Sirhan, his assassin, was facing the possible death penalty in California, Ted Kennedy representing the family, asked for the charge to be lessened saying…
my brother would never want another life taken, even if it was the one who took his own.
Sirhan Sirhan is serving a life sentence at the Richard J.Donovan Correctional Center in San Diego, California since 1969. ![]()
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The man he killed, the hero that was, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery on a grassy hill near his beloved brother, still keeping watch.
Robert Francis Kennedy died 53 years ago today.
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(1925-1968)
He was 42 years-old. ![]()
SB
Recommended reading.
Robert Kennedy; A Memoir, Jack Newfield…1969
The Last Campaign; Robert F. Kennedy; and the 82 Days That Inspired America, Thurston Clarke…2008
Bobby Kennedy; A Raging Spirit, Chris Matthews…2017