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| The Texas School Book Depository |
The sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository is now a museum on John F. Kennedy's life and the assassination. We had to wait in line for a good 40 minutes to get tickets to go in. We got our tickets around 2:00 and they were for 3:00. So we got Chipotle while we waited. When we went back around 3:00, we had to wait for another 20 minutes or so. When we finally got up to the sixth floor, it was packed, but it was manageable. You get headphones to listen to stuff as you go. It was a really good museum. They reconstructed the corner of the floor where Oswald fired the shots to what it would have looked like when he assassinated Kennedy. That's partitioned off and you can look through the glass. You can look down through the other windows. That was the first weird feeling I had. It was weird having almost the same view that a presidential assassin had. The next weird feeling I had was when we left. We drove down Elm street, which is where Kennedy was shot.
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| I took this picture as we turned onto Elm Street. |
A few thoughts on John F. Kennedy: He has to be one of the most overrated presidents in US history. I'm not anti-Kennedy. I'm opposed to people over-romanticizing his presidency. There are people who talk about him like he's Washington or Lincoln. He wasn't president long enough to be a great president. If I was grading all the presidents, I'd give Kennedy an incomplete. (Lincoln, on the other hand, was able to accomplish the greatest thing a president ever accomplished despite the fact that his presidency was also cut short). Kennedy is less historically significant than his successor. Judge Lyndon Johnson however you want, but his civil rights achievements and Vietnam make him more important as a president than Kennedy. Although I'm not much of a Kennedy fan, I do love "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." I find it ironic that the people who love Kennedy also seem to be the people who think that the government should do everything for everybody. Pete and I discussed that quote at his wedding. Although Pete and I don't see eye to eye politically, he also appreciated the irony. Then there's Cuba. Kennedy gets too much credit for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Give him credit for avoiding war, but the Soviets got something that they wanted out of it (getting American missiles out of Italy and Turkey). Kennedy didn't lose, but he didn't win either. The other thing with Cuba is the Bay of Pigs invasion. I wish it had been successful, but it was a total failure. I said to my brother at the museum, "If this happened today, the media would go nuts." Then I thought for a little bit and said, "Actually, if George Bush did this, the media would go nuts. If Barack Obama did this, they'd be cheerleading for him the whole time." Finally, you have all the conspiracy theories about Kennedy's death. Just like pretty much every conspiracy theory, the people who believe these theories are nuts. All the evidence shows that it was Lee Harvey Oswald that acted alone.
After Dealey Plaza, we drove to Jerry World. We met up with Wilhelm. Before this year, it had been more than five years since I saw Wilhelm. I saw him four times this year (National Championship, Oklahama game, Shamrock Series, and Navy game). We had a beer with him outside the stadium. I wish I had seen him after the game. When I saw him the weekend of the Navy game, he told me a great story about how on the way home from the game, he drunkenly got really mad at his father for murdering a skunk (and it wasn't even his father who killed the skunk) and then had no memory of this the next day.
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| Me and Wilhelm before the game. |
The game was entertaining. I had very low expectations, but we played one of our best games of the season. T.J. Jones, Prince Shembo, Jaylon Smith, and Stephon Tuitt all had excellent games. We went into the fourth quarter with a 24-13 lead. Tommy Rees had an interception returned for a touchdown early in the quarter. Arizona State tied the game with 8:18 left and it felt like it was falling apart for Notre Dame. We retook the lead on a field goal with 3:03 left. Dan Fox's interception return for a touchdown with 1:08 left seemed to seal it for us, but we still had to recover an onside kick because of some horrendous defense that led to an easy touchdown to make the game look closer than it should have been.
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| I wasn't a fan of the cup, but it was good beer. |
Dallas was a great site for the Shamrock Series. I didn't like our uniforms, but I liked them more than what we wore the last two years (what we wore for the Maryland game in 2011 wasn't bad except for the helmet, but if we're going to slap tradition in the face, don't try to look somewhat traditional while doing it). Jerry World was great. My brother and I had corner endzone seats down low. Unlike in Notre Dame Stadium, we could buy beer. I don't remember what I had, but it was good. I have two issues with Jerry world. We could only walk around the endzone area on our level. The middle of the field was the club level or something and we weren't allowed on that part of the concourse. The other issue is the giant screens. They were helpful because you could get good looks at replays. They didn't bother me because we were down low. But I feel like if you're up high, they'd be in your field of vision no matter what. I've heard people say they just end up watching the game on the screen. I didn't watch any live plays on the screen, but I could see that being a problem if you're up high. But still, I liked Jerry World more than most NFL stadiums I've been to. Dallas was fun. I'll have to get back soon for the Bush Library and a Ranger game.
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| I knew this was coming. Hopefully we'll see it again on January 12, 2015. |
