Nov 2023
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON
It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.
A Monday.
It was the 278th day
of the year...only
87 days remaining
until the end of the year.
I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.
Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.
Huge clouds
menaced the horizon
impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.
Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.
The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.
In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.
In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car
like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.
I kept a close eye on
the secret service
all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones
of one another
talking into their sleeves.
My gaze searches and settles
upon him
like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.
Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe
after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots
bolstering the Irish-American vote.
And now here he was
the man himself
in person
the 37th President.
Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage
in the square
of Kildare.
He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin
a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.
Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.
My mind flashes back to
1729
when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.
Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here
in the middle of
The Vietnam War
and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."
Yeah yeah...sure sure!
Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity
the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.
Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.
"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.
And one man protesting
the price of a pint
up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.
What's the world
coming to?
School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )
American flags
on little plastic sticks.
I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice
shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:
'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"
Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.
Character assassination.
Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"
curses me
in Irish.
After all he is
my Irish teacher.
D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")
"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."
I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.
McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.
Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer
there.
The hurled words
disappear into the air.
Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.
The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.
Mr. McCann
hoovers near.
I cover both
my ears.
But he only tousles
my hair.
"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")
"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")
He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.
I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.
"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."
Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.
My political life
had only just begun.
*
The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.
The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.
"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."
President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.
Don't know what happened to him then!
"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.
"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."
Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.
RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON
It was...
Oct 5th - 1970.
A Monday.
It was the 278th day
of the year...only
87 days remaining
until the end of the year.
I knew I had to act now.
It was now...or never.
Time? I forget the time.
Time was standing still.
Huge clouds
menaced the horizon
impersonating an Armada
of Spanish Galleons.
Full sail ahead then.
I took a step into my future.
The smiling President drawing
nearer and nearer.
In Nass
the drenched crowed cheered.
In Newbridge now
flocks of children chase the car
like he was some
kinda Piper from Hamelin.
I kept a close eye on
the secret service
all dressed in the same suit
looking like clones
of one another
talking into their sleeves.
My gaze searches and settles
upon him
like the cross-hairs
of a ******'s rifle.
Sure he had called his setter
King Timahoe
after where his folks came from
another American looking for his roots
bolstering the Irish-American vote.
And now here he was
the man himself
in person
the 37th President.
Irish colleens dancing
upon a make-shift stage
in the square
of Kildare.
He's here oh so near
I can see the pores of his skin
a bead of sweat trickles into
that infamous Nixon grin.
Dare I do it now?
My hair falling into my eyes.
My mind flashes back to
1729
when his Quaker ancestors
fled the Emerald Isle.
Three centuries pass by in a second and
we're here
in the middle of
The Vietnam War
and he speaks of
"a passion for peace...preventing war...building peace."
Yeah yeah...sure sure!
Carpet bombing Cambodia
the famous Nixon duplicity
the "credibility gap" opening
between what he says and what he does.
Oh there are protests
he has 5 eggs hurlers.
"Splatsplatsplatsplat and splat!"
Only one near hit.
And one man protesting
the price of a pint
up'd( for the occasion )to
one shilling and jaysus seven pence.
What's the world
coming to?
School kids waving
their plastic( in slow mo )
American flags
on little plastic sticks.
I raise my flag.
I raise my...voice
shooting my mouth off
with a great shout:
'TRICKY DICKY! TRICKY DICKY!
WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN!"
Several secret service scowl.
My words hit him...Nixon frowns.
Character assassination.
Mr. McCann
aka "The Bicycle Man!"
curses me
in Irish.
After all he is
my Irish teacher.
D'anam leis an diabhal...Ó Diomasaigh!"
("Your soul to the devil...Dempsey!")
"THE TIME HAS COME TO CALL
A ***** A ****** SHOVEL..."
I yell as
I get a clip around the ear.
McCann holds his hand
over my mouth.
Then suddenly Nixon
is no longer
there.
The hurled words
disappear into the air.
Us school boys
***** damply back to double Maths.
The De La Salle
Academy looming up before us.
Mr. McCann
hoovers near.
I cover both
my ears.
But he only tousles
my hair.
"Ahhh mo amadán beag cróga!"
( "Ahhh my brave little fool!")
"Maith an bhuachaill...maith an bhuachaill!"
( "Good boy...good boy!")
He grins.
Slips me a sixpence.
I sing the new Led Zep
only released that day.
"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."
Being only 12
I had done what had to be done.
My political life
had only just begun.
*
The long forgotten "never-to-be-forgotten" visit made to Hodgestown near Timahoe in the county of Kildare back in the day as we leave the Sixties sadly behind us for the austerity of the '70's and the "Yes we can" of the Sixties begins to loose its lustre.
The Timahoeans are not exactly proud of giving the world Mr. Nixon and stay quite quiet about it. The Kennedy visit was the golden one and Clinton and Reagan had theirs but Tricky Dicky's one has faded into the fog of history.
"Jessamyn West, who has written so eloquently about the background of our family, has said, the Quakers have a passion for peace. My mother was a pacifist. My grandmother was a pacifist. Jessamyn's mother was, her grandmother, her grandfather, going back as far as we know."
President Nixon in the Timahoe graveyard.
Don't know what happened to him then!
"The time has come to call a ***** a ****** shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston.
"So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
for peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing."
Led Zeppelin 111 - Immigrant Song.
