Vintage Illustration from Boys Life Magazine 1963 – History of Scouting Firsts

2013-Another Boy Scout first- ending their long-standing ban on Gay Scouts!

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Boy Scouts Morally Straight and Gay  http://www.envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/boy-scouts-morally-straightand-gay/

In Your Dreams

Next to Rock Hudson, Liberace was Sue Ellen Wolinski’s absolute dream date. Liberace was just so fabulously different from any other fellows she had ever met. A wonderful pianist, yes. But, OH! so much more.

Come Wednesday night in the 1950s, wild horses couldn’t pull this perky miss away from her Philco when the master entertainer’s hit TV show was on. Along with 30 million other viewers, Sue Ellen sat transfixed, convinced the heart-throb was gayly winking just to her.

With that infectious smile and wavy hair he was just dreamy. Well dream on Sue Ellen, because only in your dreams would Liberace be available to you.

In the 2013 HBO biopic “Behind the Candelabra” the story of Liberace in the 1970s starring Michael Douglas,  focuses on his 6 year relationship with the much younger Scott Thorson.

But in the 1950’s Lee Liberace was the heart-throb of millions of housewives and teenage girls, Receiving 10,000 fan letters per week, he was deep in the closet, albeit one lit by the glow of a candelabra.

No matter what nasty rumors hinted at Liberace’s sexual orientation, one important fact stands out like a sore thumb, or should I say, like a dazzling candelabra: the ladies loved and adored their pianist. To even hint to the girls that “My Liberace” was given to anything but heterosexual hunkiness would be an invitation to have your head handed to you- and not on a silver platter.

Liberace performs  Bumble Boogie

Girl Loves Boy. Boy Loves Boy…Boy, Oh Boy

When Liberace closed his TV show crooning his signature song,“I’ll Be Seeing You,” Sue Ellen took him at his word.

And in fact in the fall of 1954, it came to pass.

That September, Sue Ellen was in seventh heaven when she came face to face with the dreamboat himself. Making an appearance in her hometown of  Miami for the opening ceremonies of a new branch of the First Federal Savings and Loan Association, Liberace was nearly crushed to death by a tidal wave of ten thousand eager women who crowded the bank for a glimpse of there idol.“The women acted like wild animals,” one policeman reported after he had helped fight them off from nine in the morning till 6 at night.

In the midst of the crowd, Sue Ellen locked eyes with Liberace.

The lucky lady, was certain he was  staring intently at her, winking his famous wink …attracted, she was sure, by the shimmering beauty  revealed in her freshly shampooed hair. Closing her eyes she imagined the two of them in the Miami moonlight the handsome hunk, reveling in the fragrant silken softness of her Luster Creme tresses, tenderly touching her smooth glistening locks as he murmured: “Dream Girl, where have you been all my life?”  In her revere she never even noticed  the handsome young man with the long lovely  lashes standing right behind her for whom the wink was surely intended.

Sweet Dreams

Gals like Sue Ellen were helped along by the publicity machine furiously churning out puff pieces on the flamboyant star,  fanning the flames of romantic possibility with the light-in-the-loafers-lothario.

In December 1954 a cover story In TV World Magazine announced- Liberace Tells: What I want in a Woman!”

Mid-Century Housewives, career girls and teenagers alike  pored through the magazine article that like all the other hundreds of fluff pieces fueled their hopes and dreams while fueling Liberace’s career.

What I Want in a Woman

“Its quite obvious how women feel about him,” the article in the magazine begins.”The big question, is how does he feel about them?”

One and only one person could supply the answer: the maestro himself. And so a journalist named Peer Oppenheim paid him a visit at the television studio on Wilshire Boulevard where his television series was filmed.

Liberace, we learn, has been engaged 3 times and out of approximately 2,000 fan letters he gets each week, about a dozen come from hopefuls of all ages who propose to become Mrs Liberace as soon as possible.

“What do I think of women? I think they’re pretty wonderful,” said Liberace, and almost in the same breath confessed how important it is to have them on his side.

“In most instanced directly or indirectly, they have the last word- in politics, in business and particularly as far as music and entertainment is concerned. I have studied the lives of famous composers and musicians pretty thoroughly and found that in each case women have played a prominent part in their success. Did you know that Liszt turned his piano sideways so women could see his profile?”

Still, in the days of Liszt and Chopin women showed their affection a little more subtly than by tearing off buttons, ripping jackets snitching ties as souvenirs or trying to break into the houses of their heroes all hours of the day and night.

“Doesn’t that sort of demonstrativeness ever bother you?”Liberace is asked.

“Oh no. They usually don’t get out of hand too much. I seem to have…well, a restraining influence over them. No matter how wildly they behave before I get to the scene, they usually calm down when I arrive.” he answers coyly.

There are some qualities in women Liberace likes better than others, and a few he can’t stand at all- artificiality, for instance.

“I have nothing against lipstick and powder. But I don’t like false eyelashes and that sort of thing.”

(Clearly he had no problem with a dash of lip stick and rosy rouge applied to his own countenance either)

The reader learns that he got his first disillusioning shock through a girl to whom he was once engaged. She was a performer, and for stage effect, had to use strong make up and bright eye-catching clothes.

For professional purposes Liberace has no objections.

But apparently away from her work, Mr Showmanship thought she should dress in a simpler more conservative, less attention-getting manner.(obviously not to compete with his own sequined spangled outfits)

“When we walked along the street together, people used to stare at her. But they were just gawking at her gaudiness, and there was no admiration in their eyes.”

He tried to change her, and when he didn’t succeed, broke the engagement.

Home and Hearth

He believed women should be domestically inclined, yet not the “hausfrau-type” who feel obliged to slave over a hot stove all day.

“When I get married, if I can afford it, I want my wife to have servants. But at the same time, I want her to take a personal interest in anything that concerns the house, and supervise all domestic activities,” he declared firmly.

(During the 1950s through the 1970s he was the highest paid entertainer in the so we can assume he could well afford a servant …especially a houseboy or two.)

According to Liberace, the biggest trouble with women was “that if they are not married at an early age, they get frantic, for fear of becoming ‘old maids. Most women seem to think that once they turn 30, they start losing their looks and their charm. I feel that they have so much more to offer then,” he says convincingly. “As a matter of fact I think most women are much more attractive in their thirties.”

 (He may prefer mature women but clearly liked his boys young)

Thirty three himself, he claims he wants to marry a woman in her thirties because “She is more mature than a younger girl, has more to talk about, and is more on an equal basis with me.”

He has no sympathy for women who let themselves go once they are married, who no longer care about their appearances or the impression they make.

As a final thought: “I don’t care for glamorizing either.”

(Said the flamboyant Mr. Showmanship known for his excesses to the max)

“Looks are of secondary importance to me. It’s the understanding a woman can show, her kindness, her thoughtfulness. ( Especially understanding when you step out with a man) “Not every woman can be beautiful, but everyone can make herself desirable.”

That’s what Liberace wants, Gals!

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

• Reynolds: We Knew Liberace Was Gay (abcnews.go.com)

Bidding Bobby Goodbye

I never met Robert Kennedy but I was always grateful I was able to bid Bobby a final goodbye.

On a sweltering Friday in June of 1968, I joined the hundreds of thousands who lined up outside St Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC to pay their final respects to their fallen hero.

Americans were in a state of disbelief.

It could not happen again-yet there it was. With terrible symmetry an assassin had struck down Robert Kennedy early in the morning of June 5^th and once again a nation was left to watch and grieve and wonder.

The awful drama that had played out on TV the past few days had left us all, young and old, feeling lost and helpless. The Kennedy family had flown his body from California to NY where he would lay in state at St Patrick’s Cathedral giving the public an opportunity to pay their respects on Friday.

Like millions of others engulfed by the drama of those past few days, I needed to touch the event myself, to establish even the smallest piece of it as having taken place in my presence, to see it and believer it and lock it in personal recollection. As a 13-year-old who had volunteered my afternoons working on Kennedy’s Campaign for President it seemed essential.

A half hour train ride to Manhattan from my suburban home was all that was necessary.

Friday-A Day Of Mourning

Long before my mother and I boarded the Long Island Railroad that Friday morning, the lines of mourners had already begun forming. By early morning when the St Patrick’s Cathedral doors swung open, the line of mourners was already swelling to well over a hundred thousand waiting in the early morning humidity.

Simmering in the June heat, the crowded city streets were bustling with commerce as Mom and I made our way uptown to St Patrick’s from Penn Station.

 I loved Manhattan with the noise and grime and glitz and especially the kaleidoscope of people.

 Swinging down crowded Madison Avenue lined with skyscrapers and smart shops, girls rushed to their glitzy secretarial job to fetch coffee and type 60 words a minute on their IBM electric typewriters.

Liberated career girls on-the-go in-the-know-letting their now young looks show, with frosted pink lips and frosted hair, dressed in Bobbie Brooks groovy go togethers they were taking dictation by day, yeah yeah yeah, making the scene by night frugging the night away at their favorite discotheque.

Madison Avenue mod fashionistas glided like gazelles sporting their -Vidal Sasoon’s hard-edged geometry hairdos on their way to Conde Nast.

The Real Mad Men of Madison Avenue fresh off the 7:37 from Greenwich were sprinting from Grand Central in giant strides to make their 9:00 meetings.Wrinkle free and fresh in their summer weight Dacron suits,nothing announced to the world that you were a man of discerning taste the way a garment of 100% Acrilan did.

By the time Mom and I arrived at St Patricks, the lines were strung out over 6 and 8 and 10 abreast over 25 blocks of mid-town Manhattan forming a vast chain of sadness. The crush of people was overwhelming.

The vibrance of the crowd belied the sorrow that loomed over us all It was a crazy crush of color happy Celanese separates, vibrant in sun coral, refreshing in turquoise and electric in jubilee orange.

The sun was baking down and the crowds were wilting from the 90 degree heat but their no wilt, wrinkle-free clothes looked as  fresh as the zingy floral prints, popping polka dots and pastel paisleys that decorated them..

A wave of humanity in a sea of synthetics. It was a veritable sea of drip dry, and wrinkle free, a wash n’ wear tribute to Postwar man’s progress over Nature, a cornucopia of the space age convenience of miracle man-made fabrics.

Making the Scene

(L) In the heat, some of the 150,000 mourners were offered water while waiting their turn to view RFK’s casket at St Patrick’s Photo: LIfe Magazine Special Edition The Kennedy’s 1968 (R) Robert Kennedy Memorial Issue M.F. Enterprise 1968

Out of some deep sorrowing patience they stood all day in a wilting sun and through a stifling night- an amalgam of populace from all walks of life.

Heartbroken housewives from Bayridge Brooklyn, a gaggle of amber waves of trouble-free Toni home permanents that had not unfurled in the humidity stood side by side with Park Avenue doyens fresh from their standing Friday hair appointment at Kenneth’s, that flawlessly tailored pet of the set who flocked  to his posh paisley swathed town house at 19 East 54^th Street.

Ladies who lunched,  their red-rimmed sorrowful  eyes hidden behind their Foster Grants who stopped by after a quick run through at Saks Fifth Avenue, shared space with teens with ravaged faces splotched with skin colored clearasil, teens with angry sunburns gotten the weekend before on Memorial Day, teens,who like me had taken the day off from school.

Nuns, shrouded in black in their austere habits, their normally stern moral certitude shattered, mindlessly fingered rosary beads, lined up next to weeping girls in mini skirts and Dynel wigs their Maybelline mascara running copiously down their cheeks.

Middle aged Men in sporty natty Lido telescope straw hats with fancy woven bands rubbed elbows with beefy construction workers in hard hats who stood solemnly next to peace kids in tied dye shirt and beads,  hippies in  pieced together outfits from second-hand stores, attic trunks and funky shops,

Grief stricken ex-GI’s and their blue cheer whiter than white families living the second generation of American subdivision dream, stood shoulder to shoulder with Blacks from Bedford Stuyvesant, that God forsaken urban blight of burned out houses, forgotten by all except Robert Kennedy.

Hundreds of them came from Bed Sty, leaving  the sour stench that permeated the Myrtle Willoughby IND subway station for the rarefied air of Fifth Avenue. To honor the man who had worked so hard for them.

Some were activists and community leaders  from that beleaguered community second generation victims of urban poverty, now mournfully reminiscing for anyone within earshot, of their brief encounters with Kennedy.

Some  had been there that cold day in February 1966 accompanying RFK in his historic walking tour of Bedford Stuyvesant . Kennedy had seen it all, unvarnished, the  burned out buildings, the brownstones in abject decay, plaster falling from walls,,vacant lots teeming with garbage, the  stripped cars rusting on the streets.

One woman standing next to us, resplendent in her Sunday best,  wept openly as she recalled to Mom and me  how only last June Senator Kennedy had been in Bed Sty, and she along with several hundred people had crowded into the courtyard of an abandoned milk bottling plant to listen to among others, Senator Kennedy speak.

The purpose of the gathering was the announcement of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, the nations first community development corporation that would try to regenerate Bed Sty. She would never forget that day or the warm handshake  and sense of hope she received from Senator Kennedy. It was the first bit of hope for Bed Sty in decades.

“It’s hard keeping faith when everything’s gong so bad,” she wailed repeatedly.

No, he had not forgotten them. They would never forget him.

(R) Mourners passing the casket of RFK at St Patrick’s Cathedral June 1968
Photos: Life Magazine Special Edition The Kennedy’s 1969

For 6 hours we all stood and waited for a seconds glimpse of the coffin with the white wreath at the feet, the spray of roses at the head, the US Flag and the rosary on the burnished lid.

Some snapped cameras Some touched the wood and crossed themselves.

Scores came out weeping.

Four hundred fainted. A stout black woman collapsed before the coffin sobbing. “Our friend is gone, oh Jesus he is gone, Jesus, Jesus.”

Members of the family appeared only briefly during the day- Ethel in black kneeling at the coffin and touching the flag, her eldest sons Joseph 15 and Robert Jr 14 taking their turns in the honor guard, Teddy pale alone into a fortieth row pew

It was mostly a day for the Bobby people- the young the poor the black, the disenfranchised. It was the day the family gave Robert Kennedy to the public for the last time.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Related articles

• Robert Kennedy Remembered (envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com)

The Great Society Comic Book was produced by writer DJ Arneson and artist Tony Tallarico, published by Parallax Comic Books in 1966

The Comic Tragedy of The Great Society

Holy Satire, Batman, Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird… it’s a plane….its SuperLBJ!

1966 was a year when comic strip superheroes POP! came to life and real life heroes SOCK! appeared in the comics. While that caped crusader Batman got his own hit TV show and the Man of Steel Superman starred in his own Broadway musical, The President of the United States Lyndon Baines Johnson got his own comic book.

The Great Society Comic Book published in 1966 was a political satire of the Johnson administration and his Great Society programs.Lampooning political figures cast as superheroes, it followed the adventures of SuperLBJ.

Comic books, a place where bright colors forever defeat darkness and good forever triumphed over evil was the  perfect metaphor for the noble venture of  LBJ’s Great Society .

A Great Society

Lyndon Johnson wanted to build a great society for all Americans.

His Great Society was a set of ambitious domestic programs aimed at eliminating poverty and social injustice. LBJ’s vision dovetailed thoroughly with the American Dream of a more perfect society, representing the hope and idealism of liberal mid-century America.

With powers and abilities and ego far beyond those of mortal men,LBJ  would pass more bills for his Great Society than any other president in history. In sweep and scope he rivaled FDR’s New Deal, improving the lives of millions of Americans.

In today’s environment of legislative stalemate it is awe-inspiring.

Yet he is best remembered for the tragic debacle of  Vietnam.

History

Hold it Reader! We know the question spinning through your mind How did this turn of events come about? For the answer let’s go back in time.

Like Superman, LBJ was a product of the Depression of 1930s.

(R) Cover illustration of Lyndon Johnson as Minority Leader of the senate Time Magazine June 1953 (L) Superman as Clark Kent goes to college

Unlike Superman, who disguised as timid Clark Kent  was mocked as a freshman in college,  freshman Lyndon Johnson rode into Congress  like the wild bronco from Texas that he was, commanding respect.

A New Deal democrat he was in awe of Roosevelt’s progressive programs that included public works projects that moved mountains, changed the flow of mighty rivers and raised buildings that touched the clouds. In many ways it seemed as if anything was possible of Americans.

A true political operator, Johnson rose to power eventually  becoming House Majority leader. The Texas size  6 ft 3″ 204 pound hunk of perpetual motion was renowned for his domineering personality and the “Johnson Treatment” -he was not shy in his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance his legislation.

Powerful as Senate Majority leader he would be  sapped of his power as Vice President  and presided in the shadow of President Kennedy after JFK’s assassination. Though the hold of the Kennedy legend on the American imagination was still powerful, after November 1964 he was elected to the presidency in his  own right.

JFK had been mythologized into a hero of mythic proportions, but LBJ would be no ordinary hero- he would be a superhero fighting the never-ending battle of truth, justice and the American way.

President SuperLBJ

Art imitates life when (R)Jimmy Olsen imagines Superman as President of the United States in this vintage comic and (L) life imitates art when Lyndon Johnson appears as SuperLBJ in The Great Society Comic Book 1966

Taking office as president with his unlimited super powers and unwavering commitment to truth, justice and the American way, LBJ vowed, like Superman, to spend his days fighting crime, injustice and helping those in need.

Danger and challenge were nothing new to SuperLBJ who warded off all threats with his quick thinking, resourcefulness and his superb legislative skills. But now faced with  menaces so formidable that ordinary powers were not enough, the caped crusader would become superlegislator.

Confronted with urban decay, poverty, crime and civil injustice, SuperLBJ  would protect and serve the powerless and innocent becoming the champion of the oppressed.

With supersonic speed he passed more legislation than thought humanly possible with cunning and determination far beyond that of mortal lawmakers, as a blizzard of Great Society legislation swept through Congress.

Zap! He would eliminate racial discrimination with historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965  and Pow! Poverty and urban decay would be eradicated with his War on Poverty! Bam! Medicare !Wham! Medicaid! Zow! Education, immigration, environment, the arts!

For a year the world  watched in awe as SuperLBJ   used his amazing array of superpowers.

Vietnam

While LBJ dreamed of a Great Society his presidency was haunted by the specter of Vietnam. As SuperLBJ he believed he could support both guns and butter, but soon much of the funding he had hoped to spend on social reforms went towards war in South East Asia.

The escalation of bombing in Vietnam was not working. Even Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in his administration was losing confidence in the ability of the massive bombing to bring the enemy to its knees.

Superman’s biggest battle with the Super Gorilla from Krypton who appears invulnerable to all of Superman’s attacks

Just as Superman  met his challenge with a super beast who seemed immune to his strength and powers, Vietnam would be the Monkeys on LBJ’s back.

By fall of 1966, the conservative Congress goaded LBJ on passing huge military appropriations bills encouraging him to sink ever deeper in the Vietnam mire.

When Superman was president, he solves the National Budget crisis

Behind a veil of secrecy the war escalated and the cost of the war skyrocketed.  The press had sensed a credibility gap between what LBJ was saying in press conferences and what was happening in Vietnam. But LBJ was passing huge amounts of social legislation through Congress. If the true cost of the war were known, LBJ  feared that the Great Society would come to a shuddering stop.

Unlike the comics, there was no hidden buried treasure; even Superman couldn’t pull off guns and butter

Vietnam would be LBJ’s kryptonite sapping him of power, money and dreams

By the end of 1966, Vietnam would turn out to be LBJ’s kryptonite sapping him of his strength, funding and dreams of a Great Society.

Just as Batman’s final episode would be in 1968, so LBJ bowed out of politics by announcing on March 1968 national television that he would not run for a second term as president. His decision was in large part a consequence of declining public support, a credibility gap for his policies in Vietnam.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

The author and her friend Karen campaign for Bobby Kennedy in 1968

In the tumultuous spring of 1968 Bobby Kennedy beckoned the youth of America to join him in his presidential campaign fight.

 “These are not ordinary times and this is not an ordinary election I need your hand and your help.”

He spoke to the youth of America and explained why their help was vital. “Young Americans made this years election a test of faith. They have taken the deepest beliefs of our country at face value: individual freedom commitment to social justice willingness to examine old ideas and choose new ones. This faith and the energy behind it has turned this election into a confrontation of issues and ideas. Robert Kennedy shares that faith and that energy,”

Mobilized and energized with the earnestness and enthusiasm of a 13-year-old, I responded.

It was about the hope.

He had a sense of outrage and he spoke from his gut. He seemed to care about the outsider traveling to the Mississippi Delta where Blacks were literally going hungry, to Eastern Kentucky where people had been without jobs for years and to the migrant labor camps of California.

He would heal a divided nation.

Campaign Volunteer

Every day after school, my best friend Karen and I rode our Schwinn bicycles to the local Robert Kennedy for President Headquarters where we volunteered. Located in an abandoned suburban storefront, I would spend my afternoons and weekends stuffing envelopes, making phone calls and doing whatever grunt work was needed to help ensure that ensure Bobby would be  the 1968 Democratic presidential candidate.

“How Bobby Plans to Win” June 1, 1968 Saturday Evening Post Cover
“If we come roaring out of California, nothing will stop us in Chicago”

I Wanna Be Bobby’s Girl

Like a star, no last name was needed, even one as magical as Kennedy -he was simply Bobby.

While most 13-year-old girls in 1968 were going gag ga over John, Paul or George, I only had eyes for Bobby, as much a rock star in my mind as any Beatle.

Sequestered in their bedrooms other girls my age were busy clipping photos of the Monkees from Tiger Beat Magazine. I on the other hand, had my nose buried in the NY Times and The Long Island Press scouring the newspapers  in search of anything Bobby Kennedy related.

Stuck On You

Wielding the bell-shaped bottle of mucilage glue in one hand, ( just squeeze and spread) and pointy steel school scissors in the other, I carefully cut and pasted the newsprint clippings into a chipboard scrapbook.

After June 4^th   when Robert Kennedy was assassinated-when all the hopes and dreams ended on the floor of a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles- the scrapbook turned into a memorial.

Still reeling from the horror of the King assassination only 2 months earlier, few will ever forget the shock of that night in June and what it would mean. He was a man who spoke to so many in so many different ways. For 4 full days until his body was lowered to its grave on the green slopes of Arlington near his brother John, the television screens glowed through almost every waking hour, not unlike those 4 days in November 1963.

45 years later my childhood scrapbook remains as a testament to the time.  Though the yellowing pages are brittle now memories are still sharp the loss still painful.

Robert Kennedy- A Teen Remembers

The introduction to the scrapbook -” The following pages of this book will be a memorial to Robert F Kennedy. It is the written account taken from newspapers. It will go day by day from June 5 to June8. Robert Kennedy was to me a great man. The reason for the writing of this is because I loved him very much and I want to pay tribute to my “Uncle Bobby”. So now I will proceed to recount the 4 days of the week of June 5th.”

Death came to Robert Kennedy, 42 years old, just as he was celebrating  the latest victory of his run for Presidency-

With sickening familiarity there was the same fell scene all over again- the crack of the gun the crumpling body, the screams, the kaleidoscope pandemonium, a voice that cried Get a doctor! Get a doctor! and another that wailed in anguish Jesus Christ, Oh Jesus Christ and then trailed off into sobs.

Seriously injured Bobby ay on the floor as his wife Ethel pleaded with bystanders to stand back seconds after her husband was shot down in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Thus in 1968 Bobby Kennedy cut down by a bullet in the brain, became the third great US leader to die at an assassin’s hand in less than 5 years.

A Nation Mourns Again

It was déjà vu all over again

Once again the flags slid down to half-staff. Once again a star lit and star-crossed family came together to mourn its fallen. Once again Air Force One streaked homeward across a continent, its cargo the body of a vital young man of unfilled promise and uncompleted destiny.

Once again the crowds wound past the coffin and once again Washington paused in sadness for a state funeral procession wending towards Arlington.

With a terrible symmetry a lone assassin struck down Robert Kennedy and once again a nation was left to watch and grieve and wonder.

When violence shook the world five years earlier in 1963- a secret service agent jumps on the back of the car seconds after President Kennedy was shot in Dallas as a stunned Mrs. Kennedy is seen  crawling on back of car. In 1968 another stunned Mrs Kennedy, Ethel, looks down at her husband as he lies critically injured.

The 2 accused Killers of the Kennedy Brothers (L) Lee Harvey Oswald (R) Sirhan Sirhan

  Grieving Kennedy Widows by their husband’s brothers side. In 1963, Robert Kennedy comforts Mrs John F. Kennedy as she receives the American flag that draped her husbands coffin at Arlington National Cemetery. In 1968 Edward Kennedy escorts Mrs. Robert Kennedy into St Patricks for her husbands funeral.

On the following pages is the account of Robert Kennedy’s death

 Tuesday June 4th -Wednesday  June 5, 1968 -A Night of Triumphs, A Dawn of Tragedy

When Senator Kennedy arrived at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles late on the evening of June 4, 1968 he expected the evening would be a fateful one. Of course he had no idea of the tragedy that was about to strike-instead he anticipated that on that  evening he would score an overwhelming victory in the California Democratic primary making him the leading contender for the nomination.

Jubilantly he thanked his campaign supporters gathered in the ballroom celebrating his California triumph. At 12:13 am Kennedy concluded an acknowledgement speech by saying “So my thanks to all of you and its on to Chicago and lets win there.”

The Senator waved a final time and made a victory sign to the crowd.

Robert Kennedy Assassination

Leaving the platform in the ballroom at the Ambassador hotel where he had just thanked a jubilant crowd Kennedy  entered the kitchen passageway taking that route as a shortcut.

A series of shots were heard.

There were flashes of gunfire.

Seriously injured, Kennedy fell to the floor, blood pooling from a head wound and puddling on the brim of a Styrofoam Kennedy campaign skimmer. There lay Bobby Kennedy, 42 years old flat on his back his eyes shut, then open, and then starring, his collar loosened a rosary pressed into his hand.

Rushed to Hospital of the Good Samaritan where surgery on his critical head wounds lasted 3 hours. As the long day of waiting passed without word of encouragement anxious crowds outside the hospital awaited news of the condition of the wounded candidate .

At home anxious Americans were glued to their radios for any updates until finally word of Kennedy’s death came hours later by press secretary Frank Mankiewicz.

Los Angeles Rams tackle, Rosie Greer helped subdue the accused assassin within minutes of the shooting .The suspect, a man identified as  a Jordanian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan was apprehended quickly. He reportedly had vowed to assassinate Kennedy before the June 5^th anniversary of the Israeli Arab War.

A somber President Lyndon Johnson went on national television and declared Sunday to be a national day of mourning for Robert F. Kennedy.

A few hours after the shooting while Kennedy still fought for his life in Los Angeles Good Samaritan Hospital, President Johnson ordered Secret service protection for all presidential candidates.

The body was flown to NYC on Air Force One, where a requiem mass would be held at St Patricks Cathedral

Wife and Family at side casket unloaded from presidential jet as his sons carry fathers coffin into St Patricks Cathedral

A Grieving Nation Mourns

The nation was stunned and bewildered

There was the grief-stricken response of the poor and the humble who wept unashamedly in the streets at the news, who flocked to his bier by the scores of thousands and who saw in his death the loss of their own most compelling and authentic single voice.

At St Patricks Cathedral in NY the line of sorrowful mourners stretched for more than a mile, strung out over 6 and 8 and 10 abreast, as some 150,000 citizens filed past the mahogany coffin on the catafalque. .

 As somber mourners filed through St Patricks, the funeral was brought into our living rooms by live TV coverage of the pomp and pageantry.

 It was an incredible assemblage that brought together the President and 4 candidates, princes of the church, the Chief justice, Cabinet secretaries the cream of Congress, civil rights leaders, old New Frontiersmen, movie stars and poets.

Pallbearers: Robert McNamara Rafer Johnson Arthur Goldberg, Stewart Udall, Sidney Poitier, Arthur Schlesinger JR.

Saturday Funeral

 It was a high requiem Mass presided over by 2 Cardinals and an Archbishop, with Leonard Bernstein conducting a string ensemble and Andy Williams singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in slow funereal measure.

Yet nothing in the service was so painfully affecting as the moment Ted Kennedy looking suddenly so alone and vulnerable left his place at Ethel’s side and stood before the flag draped coffin to speak for the family.

 His voice caught once early on as he called the roll of Kennedy dead. But he steeled himself through a reading of Bobby’s own words.

Then his voice turned thick and tremulous. “My brother,” he said “need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”

As he said so many times…”Some men see things as they are and say why, I dream things that never were and say why not?

The  Final Train Ride

The hearse left St Patricks making its way down Fifth Avenue past tens of thousands of waving and weeping mourners, some flinging roses in their path, as the cortege crawled downtown to Penn Station to the train that would carry him to Washington.

Uncounted thousands of mourners came out to stand along the route of the funeral train as it wound its way along the 227 miles of track between NY and Washington’s Union Station, the greatest such demonstration the nation had seen since Franklin Roosevelt’s body was borne from Warm Springs, Georgia to Washington 23 years ago.

Mourners by the thousands stood in the baking sun for hours at every station as the 21 car train carrying RFK traveled jostling for a glimpse of Ethel and Jackie and the flag draped coffin as they passed in the observation car the great throngs slowed the journey, crowd singing the “Battle Hymn”  and “We Shall Overcome” and night had fallen once it reached Washington DC.

On its way to Arlington Cemetery, the caravan rode past places Kennedy had graced The Senate Office Building, the Dept. of Justice and it circled and stopped at the Lincoln Memorial while a choir sang the “Battle Hymn” for Bobby one last time.

Laid to rest near JFK where he had been buried 4 and half years ago.

One Grieves a husband one a son- Widow Mrs Robert Kennedy seen on TV during Mass, his mother on television screen.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

As a young child in the late 1950′s, I shadowed my mother everywhere she went.

 I was her Baba Looey to her Quick Draw McGraw, Boo Boo to her Yogi Bear, Tonto to her Lone Ranger.Within her sphere of influence I was a contented little satellite, spinning in her orbit wherever she went.

 Whether shopping or schlepping, picking up or dropping off, I would follow in her footsteps in the seemingly endless tasks of doing for others. The errand I enjoyed tagging along with the most was her weekly appointment at the Girls-Only-Glam-A-Rama Beauty Parlor, the one thing she did all week just for her.

 Glam-A- Rama-Beauty Parlor

A unique universe unlike any place else, where unfamiliar, strange-looking equipment was being used by familiar neighborhood women looking strange, all dressed alike, their ordinary clothes replaced by identical leopard print smocks.

 A universe with its own uniform. A universe where gossip was as hot and swift as the air blowing through the missile shaped hairdryers, where I was privy to carefully guarded grown up secrets.

 Strange intimacies grew between women who organized carpools and now found themselves sitting, captive under pink hair dryers. It was over the roar of the dryers in the afternoons while casseroles simmered in automatic ovens back home that these women gave full voice to secret whispering fears. Somehow dread words could be spoken and reassurances offered. In the shadow of the hairdryers, as nails were polished, calluses scraped and hair teased, dread words could be safely spoken.

Does She or Doesn’t She?

(L) Vintage Ad Miss Clairol 1962 (R) Vintage Ad 1958 Pin It Home Permanent illustration by Jon Whitcomb

 Despite the fact that the sight of women in pink plastic curlers was becoming more and more common a sight in public and not discounting the legion of devotees of Miss Clairol and Toni Home permanents, beauty parlors were busier than ever.

 This was due in part to the popularity of the most asked for hair ‘do of the year- the bouffant. The perfect ‘do for the world of tomorrow, one in which man is ever striving for new, ever higher horizons. Despite its French origins, it was a concoction that showed Americas might with its height, and was protected by inpenetrateable layers of lacquer.

A Beehive of Activity

 Entering the Beauty Parlor, the Saturday before Mothers Day, you could feel the excitement in the air. A beehive of activity, a festive feeling had been added to the usual rhythmic pulse, as women pampered themselves for their big day.

 Decorated to reflect the miracle of spring time, the room was showered with an assortment of plastic flower arrangements gracing walls and counters. These Forever-Flowers imported all the way from exotic Hong Kong and purchased from the nearby Fancy Goods department at Woolworths would be given to each lucky lady as a final parting gift for Mothers Day.

 The air bristling with Mothers Day plans, was heavy with the cloying sweetness of perfume diluted by the acrid smell of singed hair, nose burning acetone, ammonia, and other chemical combustibles.

A Haze Of Hairspray

1950′s Vintage Ads for Helene Curtis Hair Spray (R) Now even little girls could benefit from the wonders of hair spray in seen in this 1956 ad from Helene Curtis

 Thick with cigarette smoke, the haze of hairspray alone was enough to create its own hole in the ozone layer. Hairspray was a modern-day wonder. Articles marveled at its might: “Not since the invention of the permanent wave had any hair product done so much for so many as todays near miracle-working hairsprays.”

 The sound of “What a Difference a Day Makes” playing on the radio was nearly  drowned out by the constant hum of hairdryers and the constant chattering among the ladies. Even Dinah Washington’s fervent voice was no match for these yentas.

 It was under those missile shaped dryers that sizzling party recipes were hotly debated and exchanged; fondues were scrutinized, zippy dips and dunks dissected, chex party mix gone over with a fine tooth comb and potato chips pondered-with or without ridges. Heavy trading went on, swapping a cherished Kraft TV Theatre clam dip recipe, for a new twist on Rumaki.

 Musical Chairs

Like a game of musical chairs, the rows of turquoise hydraulic styling chairs filled  with chain-smoking Moms, remained stationary with the gals themselves moving slowly from chair to chair progressing from one stage of metamorphosis to the next.

A seamless transition that would have pleased Henry Ford.

One row of post-shampoo ladies, looked like a pack of wet poodles, puffing on their Parliaments, having their nails done as they patiently bided their time for the next step of transformation .

Vintage Ads (L) Du Barry Push Button Hair Color 1963 (R) Miss Clairol Champagne Blonde Hair Color 1957

 Further down the assembly line, another group of adventurous gals- gals who wouldn’t take dull for an answer-sported freshly shorn locks slathered with gobs of goo and eye burning glop, that would turn them into glamorous if-I’ve-only-one- life- to- lead- let –me- live- it –as- a -Blonde.

 Just the thing for the upcoming summer scene, Clairol had popped the cork on new Champagne blondes, vintage 1960. In between, eyebrows were plucked, and lips waxed, until finally scalps were tortured with clips, and curlers, and subjected to searing blasts of heat while seated under hair dryers.

Was it really true Blondes had more fun?

 Sinking into a padded swivel styling chair, I sat next to Mom carefully watching as Miss Blanche, combed and teased, bombarding Mom with hairspray. This was truly a space age hair do with its propulsion accomplished by strenuous backcombing. The ‘do was composed of three major assemblies, the set with curlers, the thrust, or tease, and the fusing device of heavy hair spray. “There isn’t a head of hair that can’t profit in prettiness and manageability from spray,” Miss Blanche was fond of saying.

 Mom would have a party hair do all week-long. It was a hair do with a future

 “Going to the moon, or just getting back?” Dad would smile at Moms hair, the shape of a space helmet.

 The petite, bespeckled, hairdresser wobbled precariously on spindly Lucite spiked heels, her own massively teased confection of taffy colored hair towered over us all, tempting fate and physics that its enormity wouldn’t tip her over.

 It was truly aero dynamic.

 A true artiste‘, Miss Blanche would always try for the exact balance so the coiffure would frame the clients face just right.

 Stepping back from her work like Picasso, she squinted thoughtfully through her iridescent, greenish gold cat- eyes frame glasses, at Moms face in the mirror, as if she were following the progress of a painting. Of course my own myopic Mom stripped of her own blue and silver specs, would squint right back at her.

With the skillful use of fluorescent lighting, the unqualified, belief in hairspray, this world of tomorrow was a world of beauty.

 Holding her hands in front of her, drying on her nails was a fresh coat of frantic red. Because it was Mothers Day Mom treated herself to a professional manicure unlike her normal dash of polish 20 minutes before party guests came.

 Patting her lush brown bouffant coif floating like a gentle cloud above her head, Mom left happy, with a new recipe for cheese Fondue clutched in her hands, a sure-fire ( probably highly flammable) solution for removing stains, and clutching her Mothers Day bouquet of forever your pink plastic flowers, bendable and moveable to arrange just as you like.

Vintage Mothers Day Card to Betty Edelstein

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

My sweet Grandmother had a sweet tooth.

Whether Bartons, Barricini, or Lofts, chocolate was the common currency of celebration.

But Mothers Day meant only one thing- a Whitman’s Sampler.

Through the years, that gift of chocolate has become more closely associated with America’s Mothers Day than any other.

Remembering  Whitman’s

Every year at the precise moment the azaleas burst open in a blaze of color, my extended family gathered in our suburban backyard to celebrate Mothers Day. Along with a corsage, my grandmother, Nana Sadie, always received a Whitman’s Sampler in honor of the holiday.

Between bites of rich chocolate nougat, Nana Sadie delighted in rhapsodizing about her life long love of chocolate in general and Whitman’s Sampler in particular. It was the same story year after year, relishing the telling as much as the chocolate.

In 1912 when Nana was 12 years old,  Whitman’s launched its famous Sampler.  Nana would explain how she would eye the pretty yellow box in the window display of Gussmans Pharmacy the fanciest Drug Store on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. The yellow cross stitched designed box had an aged yet timeless look, as though it had been around for decades.  Imagining the luscious treats that lay hidden in the box, had made her mouth water.

Two year would pass, Nana would continue, when one day in May of 1914 President Wilson declared the first Mothers Day as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war. “Sadly,” Nana would shake her head commenting, “in just a few years who knew how many thousands of mothers would lose their own sons to The Great War.”

A Woman Never Forgets The Man Who Remembers

It wasn’t long before a marriage of merchandising and holiday heaven was born.

The following May 1915, Nana’s up-to-date father came home with a genuine Whitman’s Sampler box  tucked under his arm and proudly gave it to Sadie’s mother. Squinting at the unfamiliar box, my Great Grandmother’s search for the familiar seal of approval was futile. No union of Rabbis had sanctioned these chocolate nuggets as kosher, so my very observant Jewish Great Grandmother, rolled her eyes and politely offered the box and its  scrumptious contents to her welcoming children. Contrary to Whitman’s popular slogan, in future years my embarrassed  Great Grandfather would remember to forget Whitman’s for his wife.

Sitting on the front steps of their wrap around porch Nana and her 7 brothers and sisters eyed the candy box in wonder.

Such a selection! Piped chocolate whorls, flakes of coconut, round shapes filled with mysterious  somethings,  rectangles shapes hiding everything from nuts to pralines to assorted fillings.

A 15-year-old Sadie was in chocolate heaven. Her mother might  forget the candy but Nana would long remember.

Life is Like a A Box of Chocolates

Decades  later, the sharing of Mothers Day melt-in-your-mouth chocolates became a family ritual as my grandmother would offer sweets to her eager grandchildren gathered around her.

Part of the ritual was the opening of the box itself.

Getting to the goodies themselves was a treasure hunt, leaving us salivating with anticipation until the first perfect square was lifted from the brimming box. Nana would carefully remove the outer cellophane wrapper- the first cellophane ever used in candy packaging she would remind us.

Opening the lid revealed what is known as the “Pillow Puff” liner made out of embossed paper protecting  the chocolates below.

Treasure Hunt

On the bottom of the lid was the  “treasure map” of the contents of the box, that would direct you to your chocolate dream.  Donning her reading glasses, Nana would read aloud to us from the placement chart that would lead you through the maze of 14 varieties of perfect pleasure with names such as toffee chip, cashew cluster, almond nougat, pecan cluster, coconut, chocolate truffle, and cherry cordial

Nana’s first choice was always the Molasses Chew, the most distinctive piece in the box and worthy of the guest of honor. Covered in smooth dark chocolate with fancy white zigzag stripes, it was filled with nougat.

 While cousins fought over chewy caramel squares and the chocolate covered nuts shining with confectioners glaze got scooped up by my brother, I zeroed in on the cherry cordial, its plump maraschino cherry swimming in sugary syrup, encased in milk chocolate.

An incurable pack rat, Nana Sadie loved Whitman’s as much for the iconic yellow box as for the chocolate goodies inside. The candies long gone, the empty box would be saved for all kinds of flotsam and jetsam, objects evocative and sentimental,  mementos never mentioned in a will or bequest, that eventually found their way to her grandchildren.

Among the treasures were the bundles of saved Mothers Day Cards she had saved over decades and never had the heart to throw out.A most appropriate resting place.

Yes there was Brooklyn’s own Bartons for Passover but Mothers Day meant Whitman’s.

A Sampling of Whitman’s Ads

In 1939 Whitman’s launched Samplers most famous advertising campaign “A Woman Never Forgets The Man Who Remembers” the campaign remained popular for 2 decades.

“There’s no hurt like forgetting and no joy like being remembered”. Vintage Mothers Day Whitman’s Candy advertisement 1940

Between 1942 and 1945 Whitman’s sent 6 million pounds of chocolates to overseas servicemen in Land, Sea and Air tins. Women on Whitman’s production lines slipped  notes into boxes to comfort fighting men. Many of these letters resulted in long-term friendships and even some post-war marriages, resulting in future Mother day celebrations.

“Her Day, Her Family, Her Chocolates” Vintage Whitman’s Advertisement  for Mothers Day 1946

“Remember Mothers Day With Whitman’s” Vintage Whitman’s advertisement 1951

Vintage Whitman’s Ad 1947

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Want a more youthful vibrant expression?

Chew on this!

Forget expensive cosmetic wrinkle fillers and injectables like Botox. For a true non surgical age reversing technique-good ol’ American chewing gum not only doubles your pleasure, but makes you doubly delightful to look at too!

And this advise comes straight from one of retro Hollywood’s loveliest stars Miss Claudette Colbert!

That is according to Wrigleys, in this 1938 advertisement for Double Mint Gum

“Masculine hearts skip a beat when a lovely woman flashes an enchanting smile,” exclaims Wrigleys in their ad. “And refreshing Double Mint gum does wonders for your smile. Women of discrimination choose this popular double-lasting, delicious-tasting gum.”

Beauty On A Budget

Now here’s the science behind the beauty enhancing wonders of Wrigleys

“The daily chewing helps beautify by waking up sleepy face muscles, stimulating beneficial circulation in your gums and brightening your teeth natures way. So your face and smile gain a lovely new radiance everyone admires.”

Looking renewed and refreshed, admiring friends will wonder whether it was a new hair-do or a relaxing cruise that contributed to your radiant countenance. Who would ever guess it was a mere stick of gum.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

The ad doubles the sales pitch as well by hawking Claudette Colbert’s next big movie and a Hollywood fashion designer.

“What you wear and how you wear it also enters the picture as exemplified by Hollywood’s beautiful and fascinating star Claudette Colbert and proven again in her next big Paramount screen success “Midnight.”

“The becoming suit dress Miss Colbert models so smartly for you,” the reader is informed, “ is by Hollywood’s great fashion creator Travis Banton- designed by Double Mint gum’s request since smart clothes as well as an attractive face means charm. Mr Banton’s fashions are noted for curves concealed just enough and for that expensive slim hipped look always associated with Claudette Colbert.” And since healthful delicious double mint gum is a satisfying non fattening sweet, it keeps you slim hipped too

“You yourself can make this flattering suit dress in any color or material most becoming to you by purchasing Simplicity pattern 2902 at nearly all good department, dry goods or variety stores.”

“All women want smart clothes and know they set off smile and loveliness of face. Millions already know delicious Double Mint gum helps bring extra attractiveness to your smile, making your whole face doubly lovely. Begin today.”

What Shall I Be?

By the time I was 11 years old, I  had bid my EZ bake oven goodbye   and tucked my Tiny Tears doll into her rock-bye crib for the last time. Like most other pre pubescent  girls in the mid 1960′s I was  ready to target more weighty matters- like what  I wanted to  be when I grew up.

We were, our Weekly Readers told us, a new generation of girls, fueled first by the New Frontier challenges of JFK, now primed and ready to join LBJ’s Great Society.

To assist us on our journey was a brand new board game  called “What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls.” Debuting in 1966 it was made by Selchow & Righter Company makers of the popular game of Parcheesi.

What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls 1966 Board Game. Players learn what it takes to become a teacher, ballerina, nurse, model, actress and airline stewardess. For girls 8 to 13

Along with “Miss Popularity” and “Mystery Date”, “What Shall I Be?”  formed the  holy grail   of board games designed to  prepare  a young girl with the essential skills needed for  the exciting game of life of which she apparently hadn’t a clue.

The object of the game was to be the first player to become a Career Girl, achieved by collecting school, subject and personality cards for specific careers. With the roll of the dice the thrilling world of career options awaited me.

But the cards were stacked against the girls of the 1960s..

Mad Men’s Peggy Olsen may have scored a corner office in a big Madison Avenue office , but the options presented to a real life girl in 1966 were less than thrilling.

The 6 exciting career options offered in this game just for girls included  nursing school to become a nurse, drama school to become an actress, college to become a teacher, ballet school to become a ballet dancer, airline training school to become an airline stewardess or everyone’s favorite, sashaying off to charm school to become a model.

Charm school would clearly serve you well in securing a job in all the other fields which also seemed to  require the oh-so important arts of visual poise, grace and charm, voice and diction, grooming essentials, figure control make up and hair styling and other social skills that would help you attain your goals more quickly and readily.

In the dog eat dog game world of high stake careers, girls competed by being the first to collect school, personality, and subject cards for specific careers.

Subject Cards For What Shall I Be? Board Game . Other cards included, You don’t speak clearly, you have poor posture, Hair styling is good, Good fashion

The games consisted of 30 School Cards, 16 round subject cards and 16 heart-shaped personality cards

Personality cards for the came What Shall I Be? Cards were collected when you landed on a spot “Take heart card” Other cards included “You are Pretty,” “You are Clumsy”, “You are not Considerate,” and “You Have Patience”

The game ended when one lucky player had collected 4 school cards of one profession and 2 subject cards and two personality cards that were good for that profession.  After that, the sky’s the limit!

There was a version of what Shall I be  for boys the exciting career game for boys. Options for boys included going to law school to become a statesman, graduate school to become a scientist,medical school to become a doctor, college to become an athlete, technical school to become an engineer or flight school to become an astronaut.

Exciting Careers

The board game merely reflected what we viewed in the media at large. Flipping through Seventeen Magazine were the real life ads for exciting careers.

In a few short years girls would rebel against the cards we were dealt. The woman’s movement would be the wild card in the future.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Vintage cartoon Playboy Magazine 1967

The battle for civil rights went to the heart of what the American Dream was about and who could share in it.

By the late 1960s, race relations crept front and center into the news and public discourse, a fact reflected in the recent episodes of Mad Men.

Flipping through an issue of Playboy Magazine while getting his hair cut, Don Draper might very well have had his consciousness raised a bit.

During that time period, Playboy Magazine became explicitly political, maintaining a liberal stance on the various issues of the decade including Civil rights.

Vintage cartoon addressing the growing conflict on segregation and housing Playboy Magazine 1967 by Buck Brown

In 1966 , two neighborhoods in Chicago were the sites of racially motivated violence as white mobs attacked civil rights demonstrators protesting against segregation in housing. Many blacks from the inner city could afford to live in these neighborhoods but the locals made it very clear they were not wanted.

The conflict was essentially a fight over and for the American Dream, one group trying to preserve theirs while the other tried to achieve it.

Over the next couple of years blacks would themselves use violence in cities across America to protest their exclusion from the American Dream, a source of confusion for many whites  “The major outbreak of Negro violence is such a profoundly disturbing event because it calls into question so many optimistic assumptions about American society” said William V. Shannon of the NY Times in 1967, the experience and outlook of most white people typically a world apart from the perspective of blacks.

In April of 1968, Martin Luther King was killed ensuring that the summer of 1968 would not be  a reprisal of the previous years “summer of love” in some of the nations cities. “I see the promised land” King preached in Memphis the night before this death sure that his people would realize the American Dream even if he himself did not live to see it.

The Great Society was off to a decidedly un-great start.