When I was a junior at Clifford J. Scott High School in East Orange, New Jersey, Ronald Reagan was President and I was selected to participate in a program called Presidential Classroom (www.presidentialclassroom.org) in the summer of 1985. It was an opportunity for about 100 high school students from around the U.S and other countries to spend a week in Washington, D.C. to learn about the American government at work. It was exciting to receive this honor and to see Washington from this unique vantage point. We stayed at the Omni Shoreham Hotel and spent our days on Capitol Hill visiting our state representatives and getting a front row view of democracy in action. I met Senators Bill Bradley and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. I thought it was pretty neat to drop into their world for a day and see what we sent them to Washington to do. We also visited the Senate chambers and other historical sites in D.C.
This was at a very politically charged time as the Soviet Union was still considered one country and “the Wall” had yet to fall. Also, at the time, the debate over Apartheid in South Africa was at its apex and protests were taking place on college campuses from coast to coast.
One day, I was walking out of one of the Senate buildings and ran into Senator Ted Kennedy who was on his way into the building. I asked if I could take a picture with him. But to my dismay, the camera would not work at that precise moment, so there went my piece of history. Nonetheless, Senator Kennedy spontaneously invited me and the other students I was with, to accompany him inside so that we could listen to a hearing on Apartheid and as a result witness history in the making. Our re-entry to the building was marked by the kind of access reserved for celebrity, or better yet, “The Lion of the Senate”.
My encounter with him was no more than five minutes but the memory and impact has lasted a lifetime. I was particularly impressed that he was willing to include us in an activity of his day. He did not have to do it and could have gone on about his business without any further extension of himself. But he took the time, and that made a difference to me.
As I listened to all the news reports and video recounts of his funeral service yesterday, the thought of that day I met him flooded back to me and swelled my eyes with large tears. This may seem unusual to some, but he did not feel like a remote distant figure only familiar from TV screens and newspaper headlines. I felt that I was able to connect to what was being said by all these people in the news, how he made people feel special and made an effort to empathize and share him self with those he met. I experienced it firsthand.
The passing of Senator Edward Kennedy has brought nostalgic feelings into focus and caused me to reflect on the benefits that I have derived from his years as a public servant. One of them is the ability to have my own company, Casauri, which is a direct result of the battles fought and won by people like him before I was even born.
My perspective is a purely human one, not that of any particular political affiliation or desire for canonization of the Senator, but simply as someone who felt a direct connection with history in a personal way on that special day.