Yes, that is true. Our need to judge tempers , and we become open to a broader sense of acceptance.
My late husband was the Edgartown Harbormaster at the time of the Chappaquiddick incident.
It was his usual nightly ritual, before retiring for the evening, to make one last sweep of the harbor.
From the bottom of the harbor near Katama Bay, to the outer harbor just past the lighthouse , he made his last patrol checking for anything out of the usual; a person in need, a dragged mooring, a capsized vessel, a person in the water.
That particular night, the good fortune of a babysitter allowed me to make the run with him.
At approximately the same time that Ted Kennedy would have been making his swim, we crossed past the Chappy ferry slip several times with nothing unusual to report.
Also, having been a seaman for most of his life, my husband was very aware of the time and tide.
We have always had our own opinions as to what happened that tragic night
Yes I know of your husband. I wish I had known him. Thank you so much for your comment. I was hoping for just this, from someone who was there. Maybe you could share this with your other friends from Edgartown? I would love to hear what they have to say.
He was for sure intoxicated. So at best that's negligence. Who knows. Even now looking back on the post I see that it could have gone in other directions.
Surely it was cowardice, and selfishness. You say he failed to be a hero like his brother. This didn’t require heroism; it just required a (very) little bit of courage (dive under those dark but shallow waters) and some moral clarity (that it was his duty as the driver, as the one person present even if he’d been a mere bystander) to try to save her. Instead, he fled. And then lied about it. Trumpist.
There is no need to disparage MJK. It matters not what Kennedy's intentions or plans were. What matters is that he drove off a bridge and left a woman to die who quite certainly could have and would have been saved had he merely gone for help.
I didn't. You misunderstood. I did not intend to accuse you of this. My point is the same as yours. That whether she intended to have a fling with him or not has no relevance to his guilt. So for the people who are condemning Kennedy, there is no need to add the fact that he was intending to commit adultury. It's not relevant.
Understood. And agreed. One theory advanced by the new clip--that Kennedy might not have known that she was in the car--is not new, and in the past was not believable, but after seeing the clip it is more believable and I think even likely. I had been to Dike Bridge at night back then, and it was dark. It would have been darker in the water.
Enjoyable well written post. I've only been to Martha's Vineyard 3X in my life, in the late 1970s, after I got out of college and was leading summer bicyling trips for teenagers run by American Youth Hostels. The trips were three weeks in length and involved a bus ride to Woods Hole, MA, where we boarded the ferry to Martha's Vineyard along with our bicycles and cycled around Martha's Vineyard for 2 weeks, then took a ferry from Martha's Vineyard to Nantucket, a smaller more remote island, where we cycled for one week before returning to Woods Hole by ferry, then by bus back to NYC. We stayed at the Youth Hostels on each island. I led a group of ten teenagers, boys and girls, and it was much fun. The islands were easy to cycle, the beaches fantastic, the people friendly, and no worries about cycling huge mountains riding slim shoulders in the rain on country roads, as I did for a few summers on phantom rides I led for AYH from NYC to Montreal. Good times!
How late in the 70's? If you were there the summer of 76 more likely than not I was the traffic cop meeting the ferry. I would have told you: "keep to the right."
From the moment I started this, the whole time I'm thinking Ted was not John, until you finally said it. But isn't this story the crucible of every man's life; the moment you have to face your fears and put everything on the line, just so you can look yourself in the mirror again not thinking you were a coward? I don't think anything Ted did for the rest of his life (and he did many good things afterward) could wash away the shame of that moment. As if it were not already a burden to live in the shadow of a brother who wrote a book called "Profiles in Courage" from a position of authority. I was thinking about JFK recently only as a foil to the truly vicious, vulgar antisemitism coming out of Ireland now. Ironically, he was one of two most passionate, eloquent non-Jewish defenders of Israel when I was growing up. The other being Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Everyone should read their speeches and writing on the subject. But what was the fork in the road of Irish history that produced these two giants versus the current crop of crass bigots leading Ireland? I doubt it could be attributed solely to a shortage of potatoes.
“ Lion of the Senate. He served the public for the rest of his life” You cannot be serious. He lived out the rest of his life as he responded to this car crash. How can I use women and what will advance my career
That is not true. For about twenty five years he was one of the most powerful men in the USA. He had tremendous influence over countless pieces of legislation. In the end, he wielded much more power and for far longer than he would have as president. Easily verifiable.
He was a friend to Israel, great, well done. I understand why an Israeli might be sympathetic to him. But he was an awful man - there are countless stories of his drunken loutishness throughout his life, actions that would certainly get him “cancelled” today and border on the outright criminal.
He learned nothing by cynically letting an innocent, naive girl die to preserve himself and his “power” was enabled by those like yourself with similarly cynical motives.
Here’s what I don’t get: how do we end up with a car in the water, Mary Jo inside, and Ted outside? Was Mary Jo alone in the car when it went into the water, or did Ted somehow escape without providing an escape path for Mary Jo?
The world changed. Israel went from underdog to overdog. The underdog gets an occasional pass. The overdog is subject to endless scrutiny and judgment by those who haven't walked an inch in its shoes. If you're referring to Ireland, it indulges in nostalgia over its own independence struggle a century ago and projects it onto the Palestinians. Israel is an obsession to distract them from their otherwise bourgeois existence and excite their passions.. It's like bull-fighting in Spain.
Israel became the ‘oppressor’. In the World of Woke, everything is about social justice, or rather the lack thereof. You can happily ‘identify’ as non-binary, but for everything else, there is absolutely no nuance. There is only binary. The Oppressors and The Oppressed , ‘People of Color’ are the noble oppressed. Whites (who apparently are colorless) are the Oppressors. Successful means Oppressor. Downtrodden means Oppressed. Contradictions to this simplistic nonsense abound but that doesn’t count, no matter how clear, no matter how stark. And the tentacles of this absurd belief system are already deeply embedded in Western society. It’s a great time to be old!
Except for the arthritis, I agree. As the Oppressor in this dichotomic world view, Israel gets everything it deserves. Victim blaming has been elevated to a rare art form. I also think as traditional family and communal bonds break down in Western societies, it's useful to have a common, preferably external object to hate on.. Israel fits the bill perfectly.
Couldn’t agree more. I love irony and that’s getting me through this time when I feel so isolated and frustrated. The Jews are in the spotlight now but we know it will end up being about the West as a whole, not just the Jews. The oh so caring woke progressives will one day in the not so distant future have their moment of realization when the oppressed turn on them.
And I know what you mean about the arthritis. Getting old is inevitable but the deterioration sucks! I’ve been watching the world become 1984 and then downhill from that. And my personal challenge is that no one around me gets it. I’m more than grateful to be able to hear voices of sanity online. My favorite is Dan Burmawi.
I was born in 1966, so no first hand memory of Chappy incident; however, I lived in West Palm Beach when William Kennedy Smith was accused of rape. His acquittal also launched many conspiracy theories. I have never believed in Camelot constructed by human hands. But that we wish for it, is in my opinion, a tribute to the human heart that wants to go beyond the Pillars of Hercules believing there is something great waiting for us there.
I enjoyed picturing you at the table of a Catholic family with Jesus and JFK juxtaposed! Worth my time, as always.
So well written.
So we’ll expressed.
Agreed
Thank you. This was not how I saw it through the years. We age and see differently.
Yes, that is true. Our need to judge tempers , and we become open to a broader sense of acceptance.
My late husband was the Edgartown Harbormaster at the time of the Chappaquiddick incident.
It was his usual nightly ritual, before retiring for the evening, to make one last sweep of the harbor.
From the bottom of the harbor near Katama Bay, to the outer harbor just past the lighthouse , he made his last patrol checking for anything out of the usual; a person in need, a dragged mooring, a capsized vessel, a person in the water.
That particular night, the good fortune of a babysitter allowed me to make the run with him.
At approximately the same time that Ted Kennedy would have been making his swim, we crossed past the Chappy ferry slip several times with nothing unusual to report.
Also, having been a seaman for most of his life, my husband was very aware of the time and tide.
We have always had our own opinions as to what happened that tragic night
Yes I know of your husband. I wish I had known him. Thank you so much for your comment. I was hoping for just this, from someone who was there. Maybe you could share this with your other friends from Edgartown? I would love to hear what they have to say.
“Res ipsa loquitur” was my sad conclusion as a teenager on the shore at the time, and a life lesson.
He was for sure intoxicated. So at best that's negligence. Who knows. Even now looking back on the post I see that it could have gone in other directions.
Surely it was cowardice, and selfishness. You say he failed to be a hero like his brother. This didn’t require heroism; it just required a (very) little bit of courage (dive under those dark but shallow waters) and some moral clarity (that it was his duty as the driver, as the one person present even if he’d been a mere bystander) to try to save her. Instead, he fled. And then lied about it. Trumpist.
Here is the video that awakened the dead: https://youtu.be/St6AP3kQDgk?si=ZcGp_f9ZWuXp-w_I
Is the story about the pilot credible? (“Oh yeah sure, I flew him to Hyannis and back again…”)
I think I know who it is.
I'm surprised this piece of the story essentially vanished.
I appreciate your writing. Your essays (chapters?) are well-written and full of life's lessons. Always a pleasure to read.
Thanks Rebekah Lee.
There is no need to disparage MJK. It matters not what Kennedy's intentions or plans were. What matters is that he drove off a bridge and left a woman to die who quite certainly could have and would have been saved had he merely gone for help.
MJK? Anyway, you should watch the clip. I believed as you for many years.
Mary Jo Kopechne obviously.
Of course. Where do you see disparagement of her in my piece? I intended the exact opposite.
I didn't. You misunderstood. I did not intend to accuse you of this. My point is the same as yours. That whether she intended to have a fling with him or not has no relevance to his guilt. So for the people who are condemning Kennedy, there is no need to add the fact that he was intending to commit adultury. It's not relevant.
Understood. And agreed. One theory advanced by the new clip--that Kennedy might not have known that she was in the car--is not new, and in the past was not believable, but after seeing the clip it is more believable and I think even likely. I had been to Dike Bridge at night back then, and it was dark. It would have been darker in the water.
Where did he think she was? Even true his failure to immediately call for help doomed her.
I find that hard to believe. But even if true, He still should have called the police immediately as he ran his car off a bridge.
You are right. But if you were drunk, you might want to sober up before calling them.
I understand why he would do it. I also understand why it's a crime.
Enjoyable well written post. I've only been to Martha's Vineyard 3X in my life, in the late 1970s, after I got out of college and was leading summer bicyling trips for teenagers run by American Youth Hostels. The trips were three weeks in length and involved a bus ride to Woods Hole, MA, where we boarded the ferry to Martha's Vineyard along with our bicycles and cycled around Martha's Vineyard for 2 weeks, then took a ferry from Martha's Vineyard to Nantucket, a smaller more remote island, where we cycled for one week before returning to Woods Hole by ferry, then by bus back to NYC. We stayed at the Youth Hostels on each island. I led a group of ten teenagers, boys and girls, and it was much fun. The islands were easy to cycle, the beaches fantastic, the people friendly, and no worries about cycling huge mountains riding slim shoulders in the rain on country roads, as I did for a few summers on phantom rides I led for AYH from NYC to Montreal. Good times!
How late in the 70's? If you were there the summer of 76 more likely than not I was the traffic cop meeting the ferry. I would have told you: "keep to the right."
From the moment I started this, the whole time I'm thinking Ted was not John, until you finally said it. But isn't this story the crucible of every man's life; the moment you have to face your fears and put everything on the line, just so you can look yourself in the mirror again not thinking you were a coward? I don't think anything Ted did for the rest of his life (and he did many good things afterward) could wash away the shame of that moment. As if it were not already a burden to live in the shadow of a brother who wrote a book called "Profiles in Courage" from a position of authority. I was thinking about JFK recently only as a foil to the truly vicious, vulgar antisemitism coming out of Ireland now. Ironically, he was one of two most passionate, eloquent non-Jewish defenders of Israel when I was growing up. The other being Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Everyone should read their speeches and writing on the subject. But what was the fork in the road of Irish history that produced these two giants versus the current crop of crass bigots leading Ireland? I doubt it could be attributed solely to a shortage of potatoes.
"I doubt it could be attributed solely to a shortage of potatoes." :)
Perhaps Israel changed?
“ Lion of the Senate. He served the public for the rest of his life” You cannot be serious. He lived out the rest of his life as he responded to this car crash. How can I use women and what will advance my career
That is not true. For about twenty five years he was one of the most powerful men in the USA. He had tremendous influence over countless pieces of legislation. In the end, he wielded much more power and for far longer than he would have as president. Easily verifiable.
And most of that legislation was harmful.
He was a friend to Israel, great, well done. I understand why an Israeli might be sympathetic to him. But he was an awful man - there are countless stories of his drunken loutishness throughout his life, actions that would certainly get him “cancelled” today and border on the outright criminal.
He learned nothing by cynically letting an innocent, naive girl die to preserve himself and his “power” was enabled by those like yourself with similarly cynical motives.
There is no lasting value in supporting Israel unless you belive genocide is a good thing.
https://substack.com/@baronessorczy/note/c-120928977?r=8t6pg
Love that you responded to this with Rivka’s note. Touché.
Here’s what I don’t get: how do we end up with a car in the water, Mary Jo inside, and Ted outside? Was Mary Jo alone in the car when it went into the water, or did Ted somehow escape without providing an escape path for Mary Jo?
It just doesn’t add up.
Join the club. But in general, he was comfortable in water, didn't panic, and was able to orient himself and get out. She did not succeed.
He didn't have to save her himself; he could have gone for help. But he just left her there. That is unforgivable.
If that is the way it happened, you are correct.
The world changed. Israel went from underdog to overdog. The underdog gets an occasional pass. The overdog is subject to endless scrutiny and judgment by those who haven't walked an inch in its shoes. If you're referring to Ireland, it indulges in nostalgia over its own independence struggle a century ago and projects it onto the Palestinians. Israel is an obsession to distract them from their otherwise bourgeois existence and excite their passions.. It's like bull-fighting in Spain.
Israel became the ‘oppressor’. In the World of Woke, everything is about social justice, or rather the lack thereof. You can happily ‘identify’ as non-binary, but for everything else, there is absolutely no nuance. There is only binary. The Oppressors and The Oppressed , ‘People of Color’ are the noble oppressed. Whites (who apparently are colorless) are the Oppressors. Successful means Oppressor. Downtrodden means Oppressed. Contradictions to this simplistic nonsense abound but that doesn’t count, no matter how clear, no matter how stark. And the tentacles of this absurd belief system are already deeply embedded in Western society. It’s a great time to be old!
Except for the arthritis, I agree. As the Oppressor in this dichotomic world view, Israel gets everything it deserves. Victim blaming has been elevated to a rare art form. I also think as traditional family and communal bonds break down in Western societies, it's useful to have a common, preferably external object to hate on.. Israel fits the bill perfectly.
Couldn’t agree more. I love irony and that’s getting me through this time when I feel so isolated and frustrated. The Jews are in the spotlight now but we know it will end up being about the West as a whole, not just the Jews. The oh so caring woke progressives will one day in the not so distant future have their moment of realization when the oppressed turn on them.
And I know what you mean about the arthritis. Getting old is inevitable but the deterioration sucks! I’ve been watching the world become 1984 and then downhill from that. And my personal challenge is that no one around me gets it. I’m more than grateful to be able to hear voices of sanity online. My favorite is Dan Burmawi.
I was born in 1966, so no first hand memory of Chappy incident; however, I lived in West Palm Beach when William Kennedy Smith was accused of rape. His acquittal also launched many conspiracy theories. I have never believed in Camelot constructed by human hands. But that we wish for it, is in my opinion, a tribute to the human heart that wants to go beyond the Pillars of Hercules believing there is something great waiting for us there.
I enjoyed picturing you at the table of a Catholic family with Jesus and JFK juxtaposed! Worth my time, as always.