I swear we didn’t plan it this way. Two days ago, we visited the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, which talked pretty extensively about Elvis’s death and the Day the Music Died. Yesterday, it was 4 hours at Graceland which has the actual dead Elvis. Today? We spent 4 hours absorbed in the assassination of JFK.
Greetings from the Grassy Knoll.
Earl was way too excited about today’s planned Big D Fun Tour and visit to the Sixth Floor Museum when we talked about it over breakfast this morning.
The excitement fueled about 2 hours of Mommy-Daughter Sing-A-Longs in the car on the way to Dallas. Garth, of course. With a dash of “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It’s Flavor?” thrown in for, well, flavor. There may or may not be video which may or may not ever see the light of day.
We arrived in Dallas just in time to perhaps make the 1:30 trolley tour (we had reservations at 3, but were told they could take us early if our schedule allowed), but I went to the wrong place and we ended up going to the museum first. It was going to be perfect. All the literature said to allow 90 minutes to explore the whole museum. Excellent!
Except I looked at my watch when we were about halfway through and it was 2:50, which meant we had to high tail it out of the Texas-Book-Depository-Turned-JFK-Museum without getting into the nitty gritty of the investigation and conspiracies.
We met the trolley across the street and hopped on board. Our tour guide, Mike, was jovial and helpful, directing us to the coolest seats and quizzing Earl about her interest in history. Then it was on to the main event – a drive through Dallas and that fateful day in 1963.
We began by following the path of Kennedy’s motorcade down Main St, turning onto Houston, then that turn onto Elm and into Dealey Plaza. With great aplomb, Mike recounted the chaos of the second following the shots, then, as the trolley sped off under the Triple Overpass, he switched tracks from JFK’s path to Oswald’s.
We retraced the route of Oswald’s short bus ride, then the cab ride that took him back to the boarding house where he’d been staying.
From there, it was the best-guess path to the spot where Officer J.D. Tippit was killed.
We then went past the Texas Movie Theatre where Oswald was arrested, and the story shifted once more, to Jack Ruby.
I’ve read a lot about the Kennedy assassination. I’ve watched a lot of hours of TV about it. But being there, on the streets, following those paths, seeing all the landmarks I’ve seen in photos and screen my whole life brought it into a stark reality. And Mike told every bit of it with the contagious enthusiasm of the best history teacher you’ve ever had.
After the trolley, Earl and I decided to head back to the museum to finish our exploration there. I decided it was good enough that I’d even pay admission again since our original tickets were clearly marked “No Reentry.” At the counter, I mentioned that we’d had to leave mid-museum for a tour. The woman thought for a moment, asked if I had our tickets and receipt from earlier. I did, and showed her. “Sugar, y’all just go on ahead and pick up where you had to leave off. No need paying for the whole thing again.”
Sweet!
An hour and a trip through the gift shop later, we were back in the car, Earl in her new lipstache sun specs.
Thwarted by Dallas rush hour traffic (“Why do they call it rush hour when there is no rushing?” she kept shouting at the stopped cars around us), we detoured to a Whataburger for our first taste there.
Despite the look, it was a hit. She wants to go back again tomorrow.
But no, my child, tomorrow we haul it across West Texas toward our next time zone.
And our first (hopefully) death-less day.
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