I noticed that national radio and network television news are noting the anniversary of World War II’s D-Day Invasion today. As it should. Last night, Turner Classic Movies aired Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan for the first time to honor the anniversary.
I remember this day in another year of our American history. The year was 1968. I was a shy, polite student at an all-boys Catholic high school in the Watts section of South Central Los Angeles. I loved my English Lit. classes and any Theology class taught by Father Daniel Balzereit. If he’d been an actor in the 1930s, he’d have been in Warner Bros. gangster movies. Although he was no more than five feet, four inches, he had strong, dark features with thick eyebrows and eyes that looked as black as the coal dug up from the Pennsylvania community that, we students learned, was his hometown. Nobody messed with Fr. Balzereit. The hairy forearms that showed from under the short sleeves of his priest attire looked like Popeye’s after he chomped spinach. He had power. He also loved teaching. When a student not only got what he was teaching but had a lightbulb moment of inspiration that took the lesson up a notch, Father Balzereit’s face would light up like he’d won a new car on a game show. Essentially, he was one of us. A guy from an economically deprived and depressed community who wanted to distinguish himself in the world. I think the same could be said of most of the priests who taught us — Father Hoeffler, who was from Germany…Father Henry, the burly priest with a crewcut who hailed from Brooklyn…Father Shigo, who looked like Karl Malden in On The Waterfront…our black Hispanic Father Lewis and our African-American (as we’d call him today) principal, Father Robinson.
Except for algebra, my grades were good. About me? I was a bookworm who wore school clothing purchased by his divorced working mother in the “Husky Boys” section of department stores. I was proud to win the English Lit awards but hated talking that walk up to the front of the assembly when I’d been announced as winner of the “Most Courteous” award. That, in combination with me being president of the library staff, felt like scholastic ways of declaring “This kid won’t be getting laid for years.”
Although I was a geek, I still managed to get an A- in gym. The tough and somewhat militaristic Coach McQuarn called me into his office and said, “Rivers, you’re not exactly an athlete but I’m giving you an A minus. Why? Because you never came up with a lame excuse. You always suited up, hit the field and tried to play the game.” Secretly, I was proudest of that grade than any other in my four years at Verbum Dei High School. Also, contrary to what you see today in teen comedies, I was not really the bullied geek. There was the typical high school friction with one or two jerk jocks but I was more included than excluded. I’m sure it was because we were all of the same economic class. All of us. The Black Americans, the Mexican-Americans and the one white guy on the entire campus. All our families scuffled to keep our parochial school tuition paid. We all hoped we could make better lives for ourselves. We were all concerned about the war we saw on the evening news when we got home from classes. The Vietnam War drafted mostly young men from working class/low income families it seemed. Especially young men of color. We needed hope. Watts needed hope. Other neighborhoods in our South Central L.A. needed hope.
There was a young, vital, passionate and compassionate politician who was giving us hope. Robert F. Kennedy was a presidential candidate. Born to the purple — that is, born into a rich family — he went into the scarred gray areas of America to spend time with and listen to the disenfranchised. During his campaign swing to Southern California, it was announced that he’d be coming to speak one weekday afternoon at a park in Watts. The park was just a few short blocks away from our high school. All of us guys, wearing neckties as was the school policy, were as keyed up as little kids on Christmas Eve the day he was scheduled to appear. According to the local news, he be speaking at the same time we’d be getting out of our last class.
All the teachers (priests and non) totally understood why the student body didn’t have its collective mind on Shakespeare, fractions, the Tennis Court Oath, or St. Thomas Aquinas that day. The news of the Kennedy appearance was like telling a high school today that BeyoncĂ©, Justin Timberlake and Jonas Brothers would be posing for photos and handing our free CDs in the school auditorium. Our entire school had that level of excitement…for a politician. Father Robinson interrupted our second to last class with announcements on the intercom. When his friendly drone began with “…as you gentlemen…uh… are very excited about the…uh…. community visit we’ll be getting from…Senator Kennedy….classes will be missed early today..” Cheers erupted from every single classroom as if our home team had won the World Series. Minority high school makes, plus the one white dude, dashed off campus where crowds were awaiting Kennedy’s arrival. He would pay attention to our plight. He would hear us. He would make things better. He would get us out of VietNam. Then…he appeared! Sitting up in a convertible, looking tanned and fit and alert. Ethel, his wife, by his side. His charisma was so intense that I gasped. They connected with the joyful crowd. A bunch of us spontaneously started running behind the car, waving at him. When I got home, I felt like I was radiating. I was so full of hope from having been that close to Senator Kennedy that I felt magnetic.
Two days later, I awoke for school. Usually, my mother had KFI radio station on because of its constant time and traffic announcements. I didn’t hear music. I didn’t hear the familiar voice of the morning DJ. I didn’t hear her Mom’s distinctive, business-like walk and she prepared for another day of public health nurse work and getting us ready for schoo. There was talking and commotion coming from the radio. I looked at my sister and brother and slowly walked into the kitchen. Mom, still in her robe, was sitting at the kitchen table looking at the radio. She was stone-faced, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“He’s gone,” she said. “He’s gone.”
I prayed my hunch was wrong, but I had a dark, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that another Kennedy had been shot. A live radio reporter confirmed my hunch. Within a few days, I was a high school student who had gone from exalted feelings of hope for his future and the future of his country to being so afraid, so very afraid at something ill on the loose within it. I felt lost and scared.
The movie Bobby, with its all-star cast in 2006, did not do well at the box office. However, I thought it had some fine work in it. Actor Emilio Estevez directed a very heartfelt film about Los Angelenos whose lives were affected the night of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination at the Ambassador Hotel. I saw the movie in a small screening room so I could review it on the national morning radio show Whoopi Goldberg hosted here in New York City. There was one moment that brought nostalgic tears to my eyes. Nick Cannon played an idealistic young Kennedy supporter who talks movingly about the folks in his L.A. neighborhood running after Kennedy’s motorcade to greet him and shout their love. I was one of those people his character mentioned.
Robert F. Kennedy died on this day in 1968 from his mortal wounds. During his brief time, he worked hard to make this country a better place. I’ve never forgotten that. By the way, I would not see young people again so thrilled to be up close to a politician, so full of hope and so interested in the politics around them until Mr. Barack Obama was a candidate on his way to becoming our current president of the United States.