I made it a point to explore the JFK presidential motorcade route on the 60th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It seemed an obvious enough thing to do for this project.
The plan was to get to the X at the exact time of day the assassination occurred, but I was running a little late. I decided to shave a bit of distance from the initial route starting at Love Field. This would both save some time and avoid having to pay for parking. I drove to the Inwood/Love Field DART station and parked there. Close enough.
I quickly made my way to Lemmon Ave from the DART station to get myself onto the official route. It was there that I first noticed the signs Dallas had put up to acknowledge the 60th anniversary of his death. "JFK was here" attached to street lamp poles every few blocks.
Lemmon Ave today is an interesting place. Or well, no, it's really not all that interesting at all. It's a busy road, stressful to walk along – the stress of which I didn't quite realize until I noticed my body relaxing as soon as I turned onto the much calmer, safer, Turtle Creek Blvd.
Lemmon Ave is all about cars. So much that every direction you look there is a car dealership or some car-related business. I noticed a Ford dealership first, right across the street from residential homes off of Inwood. That must be an awesome view from your living room window. Neighborhood design in Dallas is truly something.
Around the corner along Lemmon are Bentley/Maserati dealerships, along with Volvo, Volkswagen, Acura, and a bunch of businesses to support cars such as car washes, collission repair shops, and gas stations. Just up the road between Mockingbird and Inwood are more – Lexus, MINI, BMW, Porsche, Tesla.
Basically if you are in the need of a car, you can easily walk from dealership to dealership in this area until you find the car of your dreams. Love Field is also right down the street to complete the planes, trains, and automobiles trifecta. Or something.
Looking at historical aerial maps, the area looked a lot calmer around 1963 when the presidential motorcade rode through. By sometime in the 70s, what looks to have been apartment buildings were turned into the same buildings where the Ford dealership stands today. I wouldn't be surprised if it's been a Ford dealership this entire time.
I felt rushed through most of this adventure and wasn't able to slow down and look for the photo opportunities I'm usually after. 12:30pm in Dealey Plaza was my goal, the time 60 years ago when JFK was assassinated while riding in the back of his limousine with his wife, Jackie, along with Governor Connally and his wife, Nellie.
Speaking of Nellie. Did you know that she went to the University of Texas and was named "Sweetheart of the University" in 1938? I didn't. And I previously had no reason why I would have known that until writing this rambling post. Apparently she had aspirations of becoming an actress and gave it up after meeting her future husband in 1937 there at U.T.
But the real reason I'm mentioning Nellie is because she was the last one to speak to the president before he was shot – "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you" to which the president responded with his last words – "No, you certainly can't."
Ugh. As for conspiracy theories, Nellie herself wrote a diary of her time on that very day and those immediately after and turned it into a book. She believed that her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy. No single magical bullet theory for her. But that theory has many theories itself – and if you are trying as a government to blame a single man and not tie anything to Russia to save the world from another great war, well, then that theory was pretty important in convincing the public to move on, yeah?
Turning onto Turtle Creek from Lemmon Ave was a relief. Much calmer. Less traffic. And the way the sidewalks were constructed was, for the most part, a much safer place to walk than on Lemmon.
There were many areas where trees were planted between the street and sidewalk, making a barricade border between cars and pedestrians while also shading the area for pedestrians. This lining the street with trees is something that would certainly be helpful in many more areas in the city – especially those designated as pedestrian routes. Street trees everywhere, please.
The weirdest section was on Harwood between San Jacinto St and Pacific Ave. It's kinda-sorta on the outskirts of downtown and is this weird dead zone where life feels almost nonexistent. Sure, there were a few people in the area, but they might as well have been zombies. The area was dark (heavily shaded at that time of day due to the buildings on each side of the street), windy and cold. Luckily it was a short stretch.
I knew once I turned on Main with maybe 10 minutes to go before 12:30 that there was no way I was going to make it to Dealey Plaza to meet my goal time. Maybe I could have made it if I ran. But, nah.
The route I did in the summer, the Allen Brooks lynching/hanging occurred on this route. There was a woman yelling a bunch of nonsense near the memorial sign as I kept walking towards the Old Red Courthouse in the distance.
I finally made it into Dealey Plaza, took my right onto Houston St, and then a left onto Elm into the craziness. It's not always weird in Dealey Plaza ... well, yes it kind of is.
I took my family to the Sixth Floor Museum a few months ago. The section of the museum that outlines the moments where JFK was shot and Jackie Kennedy jumped on the back of the limousine to grab fragments of her husband's skull was enough to bring me to tears in a room full of people.
On this day, in the middle of Dealey Plaza, it was a bit of a shit show. I arrived a few minutes after 12:30pm to a crowd of people. On the Elm side, there was an event going on where they were bringing people up on stage who were present on that day 60 years ago. Along the sidewalk, there were several people desperate for attention, dressed in garish patriotic garb and holding Trump signs for reasons that I'm guessing only make sense to them. I think they are a part of the group that is waiting for JFK Jr.'s return.
The other side of the street on the grassy knoll featured a man yelling at these attention-seeking people for being disrespectful of the former president's grave site. Another man on the other side and up the hill was yelling back, telling him to "shut the fuck up." Humanity, I guess.
I walked through the area as fast as possible, stopping my watch near the site of the final bullet impact.
I thought about life and how fragile it truly is – how important it is to be truly living – because our lives could end at any moment.
