Tag: tribute

My Little Town 20120307. More Correspondance from a Previous Post

Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

Writing this series is a continuous learning experience.  Last time I posted some email traffic that I had had with descendents of Ben Boggs, and they took me to task, properly, for not portraying him as they knew him.  Amongst other things, he held the Purple Heart.  I honor him for serving our Nation in time of war.

This weekend I received a long email from his daughter, Jenny, whom I knew well with even more information.  Here is what she sent me, her words exactly copied and pasted in blockquote, and my responses to her words in plain text.

Ben taught his children manners.  There is no doubt about it.  I could not have come up with a better topic for tonight than to give the side of the story that I never realized.

Remembering Senator Ted Kennedy

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

An Incomparable Record of Achievement



Senator Ted Kennedy – 1932-2009 by R.J. Matson, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Buy this cartoon

“Kennedys Never Complain”

No observation by Joseph Kennedy Sr. had as much lasting influence as a similar dictum: “There’ll be no crying in this house.”

The “House” he had in mind, I am certain, was the House of Kennedy.  He repeated this admonition to all of us, and he pronounced it with the force of moral law, and all of us absorbed its import and molded our behavior to honor it… To understand the profound authority of this charge to us is to understand much about my family.

— Edward M. Kennedy, True Compass, p. 41