I was about 19, a sophomore in college, and playing squash all alone one day - banging the tiny ball against the wall time after time. I heard a loud rap on the door and that now-familiar booming deep voice said “John, John, mind if I join you?” It was, of course, Ted Kennedy. I knew him, indeed his older brother, then Senator, had addressed us after dinner just a while back. But how the deuce did he know me? Sure, we lived in the same house at school but he travelled in a very different crowd than I, albeit neither bunch could be characterized as mainstream.
It was only a bit later when I was visiting a classmate’s family in Hyannis that I expressed my puzzlement at Kennedy’s feat. “Oh, one of them said, they’re all like that, they (the Kennedys) never forget a face or name.”
While he and I played squash together a few times afterwards and I saw him from time to time walking to classes, etc., we certainly were not close.
So, again, it was somewhat of a surprise when I was skiing with friends in typically bitter January weather at Stowe a few years later, to have a big but graceful figure on skis, who was as shrouded as I, pull up and say “Hey, John, how are you, what are you up to these days?” Again, I was incredulous. We chatted, parted and that was that. I thought.
Much, much later when I was a spokesman first for Viet Nam Vets Against the War and then the American Psychiatric Association, I found myself testifying before Congress on various bills for various lost causes and unfailingly, just before the session would be called to order, Ted would step into the room, quickly cross over to the panelists’ table as if he were simply another citizen and shake my hand, saying how much he was looking forward to my testimony.
How did he know I’d be there?, why did he care, since I couldn’t vote for him (except for President)?, and what friendly/political/gentlemanly calculus brought about such faithful greetings? I have no idea, but I was always flattered, impressed and left DC with a warmer feeling about our government than I came in with. If we had representatives who were so respectful of all our citizens as he was, how could our government not command respect?
Brain cancer was a cruel punishment imposed on a man whose brain housed a memory for names and faces unparalleled by others.
Bye-bye Ted, I have no recollection who was better at squash or skiing but I surely know who was better at friendship.
It was only a bit later when I was visiting a classmate’s family in Hyannis that I expressed my puzzlement at Kennedy’s feat. “Oh, one of them said, they’re all like that, they (the Kennedys) never forget a face or name.”
While he and I played squash together a few times afterwards and I saw him from time to time walking to classes, etc., we certainly were not close.
So, again, it was somewhat of a surprise when I was skiing with friends in typically bitter January weather at Stowe a few years later, to have a big but graceful figure on skis, who was as shrouded as I, pull up and say “Hey, John, how are you, what are you up to these days?” Again, I was incredulous. We chatted, parted and that was that. I thought.
Much, much later when I was a spokesman first for Viet Nam Vets Against the War and then the American Psychiatric Association, I found myself testifying before Congress on various bills for various lost causes and unfailingly, just before the session would be called to order, Ted would step into the room, quickly cross over to the panelists’ table as if he were simply another citizen and shake my hand, saying how much he was looking forward to my testimony.
How did he know I’d be there?, why did he care, since I couldn’t vote for him (except for President)?, and what friendly/political/gentlemanly calculus brought about such faithful greetings? I have no idea, but I was always flattered, impressed and left DC with a warmer feeling about our government than I came in with. If we had representatives who were so respectful of all our citizens as he was, how could our government not command respect?
Brain cancer was a cruel punishment imposed on a man whose brain housed a memory for names and faces unparalleled by others.
Bye-bye Ted, I have no recollection who was better at squash or skiing but I surely know who was better at friendship.
I had a similar but less intimate experience with the late Studs Terkel, who had the same infallibly photographic memory for names and faces. My father was also thus gifted, but to a lesser degree and with the aid of a gimmick: he told me that, when meeting someone new, he would address him by name at least three times in the course of the conversation while looking him intently in the face.
Posted by: John Whiting | August 27, 2009 at 04:20 PM
My best oft-told story was of the then President of Cornell who had a cocktail for about 15 Ithaca-based faculty couples who granted he should have known and 15 NYC-ones whom he'd never met; I quit watching him when he reached about the 36th person without missing one (Later in the living room I discovered why: he was a geologist and had hundreds of rocks in numbered display boxes.)
Posted by: John Talbott | August 27, 2009 at 05:06 PM