PDD remembers Nov. 22, 1963

‘Anybody here, see my old friend John …’

It is the most solemn day of the Kennedy Liturgical year. A Sacred-Bleeding-Heart-of-Jesus, calendar-square etched in black Magic Marker. It is Good Friday, Yom Kipper and Ramadan all rolled up into one big mess of a sorry sad day. Today marks the 42nd anniversary when Lee Harvey Oswald, Momo Giancanna, H.R. Haldeman or whoever the hell it was hiding behind the grassy knoll in Dealy Plaza, blasted Jack Kennedy off the planet.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, the assassination of President Kennedy was the most shocking event that Americans experienced. There was no swelling of patriotic pride such as that after 9/11. Most Americans felt ashamed and embarrassed in November 1963, to live in a country that would murder its own president in cold blood like some rouge nation.

I can still remember my own mother proclaiming: “The whole world is going think we’re a bunch of nuts.”

For those of use who were around on Nov. 22, 1963, now middle-aged baby-boomers and senior citizens, this PDD is dedicated to you. Oh, and Caroline, too.

So rev up “Camelot” on the old Victrola and read on with “vigah.”

“They put two graves in Arlington …”

According to ‘Dear Abby,’ if you were at least four years old in November of 1963, you never forgot where you were when you first heard the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. If you were as young as poor John-John, who turned three the day of his father’s funeral and said he had no memory of his tender salute to his father’s passing coffin, let alone of his father, you probably don’t remember a damn thing.

Besides J.D. Tippet, the Dallas police officer who was gunned down by the patsy Lee Harvey Oswald as he fled the Texas School Book Depository, there was another victim on the day that Kennedy was shot: a fast-rising comedian who plunged into automatic celebrity hasbeendom the moment the third (or fourth) bullet hammered through the president’s skull.

Vaughn Meader was a fledgling standup comic on the Greenwich Village coffee house scene when he threw out a punch line in JFK’s voice in 1961. The audience loved it, and soon Meader added some JFK-press conference schtick to his act. His star began to soar, with regular gigs on Ed Sullivan and a cover story in Newsweek. His first comedy LP, a musical spoof entitled “The First Family,” became an overnight sensation. One of the album’s cuts featured the president teaching 5-year-old Caroline the proper pronunciation of the word “vigah,” while other actors and actresses portrayed various members of the First Family.

These were heady times for young Mr. Meader, who had grown up in children’s homes in Maine. When the press asked the president what he thought of his “Myna bird,” JFK quipped that Meader “sounds more like Teddy than myself.” Jackie was less subtle, ordering JFK’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, to pen a nasty note to the comic asking him to cease and desist in mocking Caroline and baby John. (Meader claims he never received Jackie’s poison-pen letter.)

On Nov. 22, 1963, Meader had hailed a taxi in downtown Milwaukee when the cabbie asked if he “heard about Kennedy in Dallas.” Thinking it was a joke, Meader replied, “No, how does it go?” It was no joke. Meader bought a bottle of Scotch and headed back to his hotel room, his career in tatters. Meader was quickly out of work. Though he tried to revive his career in the years following Kennedy’s death, the public could not forget the comic’s old act that made fun of the martyred president, and rejected Meader’s new material. Meader dabbled in coke and smack until 1968, when he somehow pulled himself together and returned to Maine, where he became a modestly successful songwriter.

The evening after Kennedy was laid to rest on Nov. 25, 1963, Lenny Bruce told an audience, “they put two graves in Arlington Cemetery, one for John Kennedy and the other for Vaughn Meader.”

One of the most cosmic cases of bad show-biz timing ever.

The wit and wisdom of JFK

While he didn’t live long enough to write his presidential memoirs, Jack Kennedy left behind enough knee-slapping, one-liners from press conferences and rubber chicken dinners to fill a book, “The Wit and Wisdom of John F. Kennedy.”

On the Green Bay Packers – “Ladies and gentlemen, I was warned to be out here in plenty of time to permit those who are going to the Green Bay Packers game to leave,” Kennedy told a carnivorous crowd at 1960 campaign appearance in Green Bay, Wis. “I don’t mind running against Mr. Nixon, but I have the good sense not to run against the Green Bay Packers.”

On chimps in space – When announcing to assembled reporters that the United States had successfully sent a chimp into space on Nov. 29, 1961, JFK said, “This chimpanzee who is flying in space took off at 10:08. He reports that everything is going perfectly and working well.”

On children – After trying to elicit a kiss from the shy 4-year-old daughter of a friend who resisted his charms, Kennedy said: “I don’t think she quite caught that strong quality of love of children that is so much a part of the candidate’s make-up which has made him dear to the hearts of all mothers.”

No doubt had Joe Kennedy Jr. survived World War II, Jack would have been a hit in the Catskills.

Strange but true similarities between 11/22 and 9/11

Add eleven and twenty-two and you get thirty-three, divided by three which equals eleven. Add one plus nine plus six plus three, which equals nineteen. One plus nine equals ten. Now, add two plus zero plus zero plus one equaling three. Add to nine equaling twelve minus one equaling eleven. Nine plus eleven equals twenty subtracted by two, making eighteen. Add one plus eight to get nine. Twenty-two divided by two is eleven, which makes 9/11. 9/11. 11/22.

The ‘zero factor’

To this day my mother claims the only reason she voted for Nixon was because her father once told her that every U.S. president elected during a year ending in zero died in office. But does a death curse really threaten those U.S. presidents elected to office in years evenly divisible by twenty?

With the exception of Ronald Reagan, who came literally within an inch of losing his life after Jodie Foster-stalker John Hinckley’s 1980 assassination attempt, all U.S. presidents elected in years ending in zero since 1840, have either died violently or of natural causes while in office.

According to legend, Tecumseh, a famed Indian chief, put a curse on the Great White Fathers after suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Harrison, who went on to become president in 1840, died of pneumonia shortly after delivering his inauguration address coatless in sub-zero weather.

The only other president to have died in office not elected in a zero year was Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 but died in 1850 of a stomach ailment. While no Indian curse has ever been documented, the coincidence of presidential fatalities is as creepy as an episode of John Edwards' "Crossing Over."

While some claim Ronald Reagan broke the chain of zero-year voodoo, others say the curse is only sleeping, which we can only hope if you catch my drift. Following is a list of the U.S. presidents who all died under the curse:

1840 – William Henry Harrison (pneumonia)
1860 – Abraham Lincoln (shot in head)
1880 – James A. Garfield (shot in back)
1900 – William McKinley (shot while shaking hands with well-wishers after making speech)
1920 – Warren G. Harding (stroke – may also have been poisoned by wife)
1940 – Franklin D. Roosevelt (massive cerebral hemorrhage in fourth term while on vacation with mistress)
1960 – John F. Kennedy (shot in head)

Conspiracy or lone gunman – you decide

Take the kids on a virtual tour back to Nov. 22, 1963, including live Web cam views of Dealy Plaza from the sniper’s perch on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository, the infamous grassy knoll, and video clips of local Dallas TV newsman Jay Watson chain-smoking through an interview with reluctant amateur filmmaker, Abraham Zapruder, on the Dallas News Web site.

Don’t forget to send a postcard!

By the way, OSWALD ACTED ALONE !!!