Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.

I just finished watching a History Channel special called "The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After". I've always been intrigued by the assassination of JFK. Growing up as a bleeding heart liberal with a hippie mama, I was always moved by Kennedy. It's hard to tell now that I'm grown and have formulated my own thoughts, feelings and opinions, if he was as great as I always imagined him to be or if it was one of those childhood things. Nonetheless, perhaps because of my Mama's interest in him, I always held him in high esteem and was always interested in everything surrounding him and his death.

I've watched a lot of documentaries about the assassination and all the surrounding conspiracy theories. The most recent one I'd seen prior to this was with a group who Mythbuster-ed it (though it wasn't actually the Mythbusters) that concluded *IF* there was a second-shooter like the conspiracy theorists believe, he missed. This special I watched today was about the 24 hours surrounding the death of President Kennedy. It was *very* thorough and *very* detailed. One of the grisly pieces of information that sticks out in my mind is that Jackie was wearing white gloves and an expensive, fancy bracelet. Because of how she reacted to him being shot, there were pieces of his brain tissue stuck in that bracelet. It's grisly and a horrible image to imagine to but it's what stuck out in my mind.

It seems to me that it's one of those defining moments in history. You know, like how 9/11 will have shaped my generation. 9/11 is a moment in my lifetime that has changed so much for me. It changed my views on politics, religion and just about everything I thought I believed in.

I will always hold a soft spot and I suppose a morbid curiosity in my heart for JFK and RFK. Obviously, I've made no secret of how I feel about Senator Kennedy and the Mary Jo incident, etc, but the Kennedy family is practically American royalty. And I imagine I may always hold a romanticized version of the 60's in my mind. Life is never as simple as "make love, not war" and "free love" and "drop acid, not bombs", but it's nice to think in my head that maybe, just maybe there was a time when it was.

I think back, often, to my teen years and how much I just longed to belong to something important. My mom told me stories about protesting Vietnam and all the things that she believed so strongly in. I think that desire drove a lot of what I *thought* I believed in. It wasn't so much that I believed it so strongly, I just wanted to. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's funny now that I'm older and have very deep-seated convictions that I don't feel the need to be as "in your face" about it as I was a teen.

It was a very interesting and thought-provoking special. If you see it on the tv, I highly recommend watching it.