(previously posted on Facebook)
-The semi, semi-final segment of the apparently unlimited series on my trip to President Kennedy's funeral is here. Thought I could finish it now, but Barbara has chores for us. Promise I'll finish this before the end of the next century! Here's the next part.-
My older brother Johnny, and Chuck Higbee, a nephew - only boy in the Izzy and Dallas Higbee family - located the end of a long, long line of mourners wanting to say farewell to this young, groundbreaking Catholic President, killed by an assassin during a Presidential motorcade in Dallas.
Young Chuck and I drove from Charleston, where I had gone from school in Morgantown once the Governor had cancelled all classes for, first a week, then extended by another by Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had assumed the Presidency once Kennedy's death was confirmed. We arrived in Summersville that evening to get brother Johnny, slept a few hours at my family's home, then left at I dawn, the morning of November 24, 1963.
As we arrived in Washington after a long drive through the Alleghenies, and eased down the GW Parkway onto the highway that passed by Arlington Cemetery, moving toward National Airport (not Reagan" National, as it was later ... ridiculously... named by the minions of a President who had suffered a minor flesh-wound during a shooting during his time in office) we noticed the first minor sign of what was up: the highways leading from the airport to the Shirley Highway bridge into the district was an unending line of black limousines bearing the fender flags of foreign leaders. The Governor of our state had a nice, sedate, sterling silver West Virginia seal on the rear doors of his car ... these guys wanted attention!
So, as we spent the entire night before the President's funeral, in a line of what was - all together, a reported 400,000 souls, mostly from the eastern seaboard but as we discovered in the give and take of a thoroughly somber-but-cold crowd, charming, and who loved to hear our stories about Kennedy in the Mountain State (because he died so soon after his election everybody knew about that WV Primary!). Often during the night bladders weakened, needs had to be met. Along the not-quite-dark, heavily-guarded streets were rows of lovely old, ungodly expensive townhouses that were popular when FDR and IKE were in office, but indescribably expensive now.
We had all held our "stuff" as long as we could. Chuck, way too young to do any drinking other than a swallow of water being passed out by Red Cross folks, could squeeze it up, I had more issues, but some tolerance. Johnny had very little. So, we each pealed off the line periodically- as needed. Johnny more often. Noticeably on one occasion, he headed back behind a small mansion for a badly-needed whiz. Just as he disappeared behind the corner of the house, a seemingly-kennel of barking preceded his retreat-gripping his crotch. Big $@&€%# dogs yapping at his heels!
This long night was going to have even further complications.
-Sorry, have to run, no time for edits now, return again tomorrow,-
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