Probably the single thing that Texas is most known for from the sixties is as the location of the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
That location being more precisely Dallas, Texas. And even more precisely, Dealey Plaza.
We visited Dallas at the beginning of the month. This was a guitar inspired visit being as the Dallas International Guitar Festival was being held over the two days. This was an opportunity to indulge in a large quantity and variety of guitar porn, for addicts like Maurice.
I didn’t go. I explored Dallas on my own and was happy to walk and browse in the compact town centre which includes Dealey Plaza, the site of JFK’s shooting. I was surprised at how familiar the area was. Every newsreel footage, every image of the assassination was captured right here in surroundings that are still almost precisely as they were on that fateful day. The grassy knoll, the book depository, all there, still, with additions. The grassy knoll sports a few staunch conspiracy theorists, plying their books and talking to anyone who cares to listen. Expositions of the assassination and the theories abound. It is fascinating.
It does seem a tad unlikely when you think of the political environment of the time that a lone gunman such as Oswald acted so randomly. One of the guys talking to tourists was a man who claimed to have actually been there. He pointed to his image – a young boy at the time – in the photographs in the book he was selling. He told his tale and we listened respectfully. Some asked questions. Another man promoted another book further along the ‘sidewalk’.
Hmmm – there may also be the theory that some people are just making a quick buck out of the public’s fascination with the whole event.
The 6th floor museum is excellent though and can be heartily recommended to visitors. It is, as the name suggests, actually on the 6th floor of the building that was the book depository and among all the exhibits, you can also look down on the road at the point where Kennedy was shot from the window that the shot was fired from – or at least – from one floor above. The main 6th floor window lies beyond a glass fronted ‘exhibit’ of the exact corner, reconstructed to look precisely as it did on 22 November 1963.
You know where the point is as a white X is painted in the middle of the road.
This road is very much still used, it is a main road too so cars whizz along and come and go with the rhythm of the traffic lights. So it is a bit hazardous for the many people who want to get their picture taken on the X. Literally standing in the middle of the road with large grins on their faces, signalling where the legendary landmark lies. Kind of bizarre.
I liked the centre of Dallas. It was compact enough to walk around and had a good collection of restaurants and bars, hotels and things to do. It is another massive city, so we barely scratched the surface in our visit.
While on the hop-on-hop off tram tour – which I have to say was a little uncomfortable on the posterior due to lack of padding on the seats, no suspension in the ‘tram’ and bumpy roads, we saw this sign.
We had no idea what it meant, being as it was a relatively tiny sign on an otherwise non-descript warehouse. But apparently this is a Dallas based Arts Group – find out more if you dare – warning the home page has loud scary music.
We did think about visiting the prison museum on the way back, but we’ve left that for another time. There is a maximum security, death row facility en route between Houston and Dallas and we were interested to note the signage at the sides of the road nearby.
No chance!
Back to the sixties and I was watching a documentary on CNN last week while the husband was away (living dangerously I know!) all about the 60s. Of course this documentary was from the US perspective which was interesting as it had a whole episode devoted to the ‘British Invasion’.
This was kicked off by the Beatles of course.
In December 1963 the Beatles first aired in the USA with ‘I wanna hold your hand’ on a local radio station. The rapid rise in their popularity which ensued was amazing if you think that there was no social media back then through which to ‘go viral’ – shows the power of radio back then. And TV of course.
They first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show after arriving in the US in February 1964, as every schoolboy or girl of the time should know, and they were watched by over 73 million people.
Another group that made it across the pond in the 60s were the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards looked so young and fresh – at the time we thought them the bad boys of rock, the Beatles being the good boys.
Mick Jagger was interviewed on US TV and answering Dean Martin’s question on how long he thought they would last said:
“I think we’re pretty well set up for at least another year.”
That was on 14 June 1964 – and we’re going to see them (for the first time!) on 27 June 2015 – 51 years later.
Don’t think Mick quite expected them to last this long and certainly none of us expected Keith Richards to still be here…
Whole Other Country 