The Importance of Being Charles

In 1959, Robert Kennedy, his wife Louise and children Connie, Robbie and me, 1-year-old John, moved from Centerville Ohio to a small house in McLean Virginia, then a relatively new working-class suburb of Washington, DC. Another Robert Kennedy, his wife Ethel and their six (of what would be 11) children also lived in McLean – but in a decidedly more notable home. Their large 1865 brick house sat on 6 or so acres and was called Hickory Hill. Bobby Kennedy had bought the property from his brother John in 1956 after John entered the US Senate. John F. Kennedy became President on January 20^th of 1961, and his brother Robert became the Attorney General. Understandably the Kennedy name gained instant cachet – especially around the DC area.

According to corroborated family lore, my dad, Robert J. Kennedy, would occasionally receive mail addressed to the new Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Conversely Robert F. sometimes got Robert J’s mail. Errors were usually easy to spot. Correspondence from the newly formed Republic of Chad, the Department of Justice or the like – were obviously for Robert F.  Other mistakes were less obvious. It took two weeks, for example, for my mother to discover that the Sear’s Christmas Wish Book catalogue Connie and Rob had been fighting over was actually addressed to the other Kennedys. My brother Robbie [Robert J. Kennedy Jr.], 11 at the time, would ride his bike the two miles to the Hickory Hill compound (locally referred to as the ‘farm’) to make the mail exchange.

Both Kennedy families attended St. John the Beloved Catholic Church. My mother Louise met Ethel Kennedy on more than one occasion probably during some church functions. She liked Ethel. She said Ethel was very friendly and talkative and further that all the Kennedy children were always very well behaved and well-scrubbed. High praise from mama Louise. Both families apparently intermingled with each other en masse on at least one occasion as I distinctly remember my mother saying there was a nice photo somewhere of both families together at a picnic. Fifteen years after that picnic I scoured the front (junk) closet and basement storage room searching for that photo so I could bring it to high school government class for extra credit. No luck.

My feelings about the other Kennedys changed over the years, especially my feelings about President John. It all started in the fall of 1962 when I appeared on the local Bozo the Clown show which was televised live from Washington.[1]  Bozo would always ask a few of the preschoolers their names as they marched around his set. When he got to me and I told him my name he exclaimed 'John Kennedy –well open the doors!', and followed the show stopping proclamation with a few toots of his horn and rings of a bell.  I had JFK to thank for all that attention.

Other times sharing a famous name was decidedly less welcome. In the spring of 1963 we moved back to Kettering Ohio. In September of that year I was enrolled in the half-day afternoon kindergarten class at George L. Ernst Elementary School.[2] My teacher was Mrs. Childress.[3] On one particularly fateful Friday afternoon in late November Mrs. Childress received a note from the office – read it and headed out into the hallway joining other teachers that had gathered. We had not been in the classroom long. The 12:55 bell had rung a few minutes earlier and we had already been given connect-the-dots papers to do.

I could hear the principal, Mr. Douglas talking softly to the group in the hall. His deep voice was unmistakable. Although we didn’t know it – he was telling them that the President of the United States was dead from an assassin’s bullet. One of the first-grade teachers walked by our door crying.  Mrs. Childress came in with reddened eyes and told us all to get our jackets and go directly home.  The entire school was being sent home.

Ernst was only a half-mile from our house and most kids (even the kindergarteners) walked to school either by themselves or in groups. It was a different time. The bells of St. Charles church were tolling in the distance my entire trip home. At home my mother sat sobbing with her head in her hands. The TV’s Special Report on the Kennedy shooting had interrupted her favorite soap; The Edge of Night. I didn’t understand what was happening and burst into tears.

The following weeks were upsetting for me, a five-year old named John Kennedy. The death of a president, especially this young vibrant president, traumatized the country and a good portion of the world. John Kennedy was shot. John Kennedy was assassinated. There is Kennedy’s coffin going down Pennsylvania avenue. Every TV broadcast, every magazine cover, every conversation was about the death of John Kennedy.  It was overwhelming.

''Hey Kennedy, I thought you were dead?"

Unfortunately, kids at school were quick to cue in when they saw me on the playground. “I’m John Charles not John F.”, was the best I could counter. It didn’t seem to deflect the barb much, but it was better than saying nothing. I soon began signing my school papers with John C instead of John K.  I even asked Mrs. Childress to call me John Charles during morning attendance. She must have understood my dilemma. She was so thorough over the following weeks at inserting John Charles into her every utterance involving me that the rest of the class eventually called me John Charles as well. I few kids actually thought that Charles was my last name. The taunting lessoned considerable as years passed. As time went by I forgot about all my efforts to distance myself from dead president.

Forty years later I came across my elementary yearbook while packing for a house move. The thin fold-over booklet had an embossed blue-gray card stock cover with pressed metallic lettering saying School Days 1963-1964 George L. Ernst School. Inside were black and whites of the school building, a smiling Mr. Douglas[4], his office staff, janitors (wearing ties) and the matronly hair-netted kitchen ladies dutifully at their stations in the serving lines. There were pages of various clubs, the basketball team and school events like the annual Maypole dance. 

I slowly surveyed each of the class pages that followed looking for recognizable names and then scrutinizing the accompanying pre-pubescent faces to jog my memory. Each teacher had their own page with their photo followed by rows of postage stamp pictures of their students, trailing like ducklings. Every little picture with a first and last name neatly below it. Lots of Marys and Susans and Sams and Michaels to go with last names like Williams or Johnson, Jones or Smith. The kids looked as similar as their names, all the boys with burr or buzz cuts and the girls in sweaters and plaid dresses. All of them freckled and missing teeth to various degrees.

The last page book featured the two kindergarten classes (AM and PM) sharing a single page and making the student photos even smaller. Like the upper grades each child's first and last name was printed in very small font on one line beneath except for one nondescript 5-year-old in Mrs. Childress’ PM kindergarten class whose name was displayed on two lines in order to make it fit;

John Charles

Kennedy

[1] Although I couldn't find the church picnic photo of the two Kennedy families together there is a photo mom took of me parading around the BOZO set.

[2] I initially started in the AM class but was switched to the PM class after my first day. Apparently, I was held after school on my very first day for some heinous atrocity only a ‘almost’ five year old could perpetrate. When my mother arrived and saw the situation she snapped, dressed down the teacher and shuttled me out of the room and home. I was in the PM class the next day.

[3] Mrs. Childress was a young teacher that my mother knew somehow. She would visit at our house occasionally much to my confusion. I remember her being an exceptionally nice and gentle teacher.

[4] I had an almost business-like relationship with the principal, Mr. Douglas. We had a routine; – I would (allegedly) do bad things in class or recess; be sent to his office; walk-in and tell his secretary my infraction and she'd escorted me into his office. Once there he’d ask me what I did (without even looking up); I’d tell him; and he’d either give me a moderate swat with a wooden paddle or tell me to go sit in his outer office for awhile and think about what I did. There was never any anger in him – just a slight annoyance and even a twinge of sympathy. In the 3^rd grade he once brought me back to class without punishment and instructed the teacher (in the hallway) that whatever I apparently did - was really not worthy of punishment. I did not dislike him at all. He would great me by name in the hallways which was kind of special treatment.