And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

... that sometimes the ironies and coincidences in life are hard to believe.
The day that President Obama announced his plans to ease relations with Cuba, I tried to remember the details about why those restrictions existed. Of course, the Cuban Missile Crisis came to mind, but I confess I was hazy about the details of that story from half a century ago, early 1960s. Well, not to worry, I figured, because the news outlets will no doubt be talking about it in days to come.
An aside. I frequently find myself reading two books at a time. No, Harry, not at once. I often go back and forth between a novel I am reading for pleasure, and non-fiction book I am reading for education.
And so it came to pass (a little Christmas hangover there!) that I picked up Ken Follett’s book Edge of Eternity, which I had started a few days earlier. It is the third book of his Century Trilogy, and I am enjoying it, although apparently the critics have not, since it never got very high on the best seller lists. It is different from the first two.
And lo and behold (Christmas, again?) the next chapter dealt at great length with the mood and actions of President Kennedy and his staff at the time of the missile crisis. I learned a great deal.
When a day later I got back into the second book I was reading, Nick Bryant’s The Bystander, there were more references to it. Subtitle of this book is John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality, certainly timely for today as background.
And therein lies the irony.
Bryant writes about how Kennedy and his brother, Bobby, used Lyndon B. Johnson to work with his fellow southern Democrats to help forestall a growing unrest among the (I can’t use the word he uses) so Kennedy would not have to make an immediate push for a civil rights bill. The Cuban Missile Crisis pushed that other crisis off the front pages and network TV shows.
Fast forward to this year, when there has also been a lot of racial unrest. The possible change in relations with Cuba was the front page story next day and the lead topic of the Sunday TV panel shows.
The conspiracy theorists out there are free to draw their own conclusions.
The idea stated above, about one thing for education and one for pleasure, came to me at university. I found that after studying at the library and returning to study at the apartment, it helped to stop in at The Airliner or Kenny’s or Joe’s Place, about halfway between, for a couple tap beers.
Today’s students at that same university, published reports say, can receive “free breakfast, a massage and counseling” to ease stress.
Wusses!