True Compass

Some thoughts:

1. The Kennedy women really got the shaft. They worked like dogs and accomplished so much and still got very little recognition. All their pain and sorrow and loss was out on display for the whole world but their men mostly ignored them. Rose was just incredible. He talks about when their father took the assignment as ambassador to the UK and she moved 7 of their 9 children (Teddy was only 6 years old or so) to London, with only a few weeks to get Kick and Rosemary ready to come out as debs in the royal court in a foreign country, and heads of state and aristocracy to entertain in the drawing room as a world war was breaking out around them. Teddy says Mother was quite busy. Really? I'd be quite busy chasing shots of scotch with Pepto Bismol. (Which brings me to: Poor, poor Joan Kennedy. I feel for her, I really do.)

2. Ted tells this weirdo story about getting in a fist fight with an African-American guy in the army. He says he hadn't really had much contact with black people prior to this and then tells about finding this guys who was supposed to be working with him playing dice in the barracks and then getting in a fight with him. I can't for the life of me figure out what the point of mentioning that the guy was black or even of telling this story was. That he could win a fight with a black guy? That black people play dice? That he didn't know any black people? I don't get it.

3. As competitive as they were with one another, the Kennedy kids were also like a gang. They made their life decisions as a family, not as individuals really, and once they decided to do something they acted as a pack. All the rest threw their weight and energy behind whomever was sailing in a race, going to law school, playing football, starting a business, running for office, etc. How can you lose with an army of Kennedys behind you??