I readily admit that I am a child of the Kennedy’s! By that
I mean that I was drawn by John Kennedy’s challenge to do more when I joined
the Peace Corps in 1976 and was hooked on politics with the campaign of Robert
Kennedy in 1968. Remind me one day to
share with you all my memorabilia from that time period. This being said, how could I not pick up a
book about that sad day in June when the funeral train left New York and
travelled to Washington? The fact that it is written by an area (Silver Spring,
MD) author only added to its draw.
The Train of Small Mercies tells the story of one day in the
lives of multiple people from all walks of life. Each person was going to watch the train as
it passed them and while waiting, divulged a bit of their own story along the
way. Black, white, male, female, rich,
poor, young and old—everyone had a story and felt within themselves a bit of
the pain the nation was feeling when RFK was killed. From the Irish immigrant who was in DC to
apply as a nanny for the Kennedy family awaiting the birth of their eleventh
child to the wounded Viet Nam veteran struggling to find a place in the
returned society, to the black Pullman worker on the first day on the job, to
the young child recovering from a parental kidnapping, the stories grab your
attention because they are very real.
Any one of those stories could have been one of ours.
I watched this story progress and remembered watching the
train’s progression myself. I was not near any of its stops so my viewing was
from a TV inside my home in West Virginia.
I had been glued to media from the time RFK was shot in LA. I was
actually listening to the returns via transistor radio at the time. I should
have been asleep and in those days the TV actually signed off at midnight. I listened all night long and sunk into a
deep despair when his death was announced.
Like many I imagine, I wondered if we would survive as a nation with all
that was happening.
I am not going into greater detail regarding the individual
stories included in Mr. Rowell’s book as I look forward to hearing which ones
spoke to you during our discussions.
