I've had a few opportunities in my life to do what I call "walking inside my television." That's where I'll be at home, watching an event that's nationally televised, and then a few minutes or a couple hours later, I'm then in the scene that's being covered. The first one came during a White House press briefing in 2002 the day I covered the Maryland's men's basketball team visit to the White House. I started the day watching the briefing on TV at home in Arlington, Va., then a few minutes later, was inside the same briefing room while it continued. Quite a surreal feeling.
I felt that again yesterday. But it wasn't when I filed past the dozen or more satellite trucks or the equal number of stilted, made up anchors under bright lights doing live shots in front of the John F. Kennedy Library. It was the kids. In particular, the children of Bobby Kennedy Jr. who accompanied their parents and were shaking hands of hundreds of strangers, including mine. Just three or four hours earlier, I couldn't help but focus on them as they were televised with their parents watching Ted Kennedy's casket being loaded into a hearse by a military honor guard.
was first burned into our national conscience by John Jr.'s salute and continued yesterday.
But this time it was not a traumatic, gut-wrenching image, as we were there to give thanks to a Kennedy for all they *did* in their life instead of providing a collective hug while thinking of all that could have been.
During much of the wall-to-wall coverage since "Uncle Teddy's" death, there's been much talk about where he "got it from". Stories were told about the lessons he learned as a child. Kennedys do not need for money in the way nearly all of those thousands of people in line do. They don't have days where they're up early in the morning simply because once they wake up, a million thoughts of financial anxiety around mortgages and retirement and health insurance and other things blockade them from getting back to sleep.
And yet, they so often are able to do so much more than just pay lip service to the needs of the common man. Many factors go into something like this. But as I shook hands with these very tanned, black-clad children who were being introduced to some of the millions of people their forefathers made deep, lasting impressions upon, I couldn't help but feel optimistic that the impression would lead to at least a couple of them picking up the proverbial torch and carrying it to help future generations benefit from the power of the Kennedy mystique.
