Bodyguards around JFK always had to be on the lookout for screamers and jumpers - mainly women - who would literally launch themselves out of the crowd in an attempt to touch JFK. JFK was like a rock-star wherever he went - causing as much hysteria as a Beatle sighting would inspire (they came to America just months after JFK's death and I saw them LIVE in Toronto). Getting back to the crowd surrounding JFK at the beach, I'm old enough (thirteen when JFK died) to remember when JFK was alive and can totally relate to the thrill it would have been for those who got that close - he had that kind of affect on people. The photo above, of the two of them in the pool of the Palm Beach, Florida family home, was taken in April 1963, seven months before JFK died. JFK Junior, affectionately nicknamed "John John" was born a couple weeks after JFK was elected president and the White House was his first home. The finished work of art replicated a seaside scene at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. When JFK became President, his father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, commissioned an artist to paint a mural on the walls of the White House swimming pool. He swam in the ocean, about a hundred yards offshore, for ten minutes while a crowd of almost a thousand people gathered on the beach. " Please, God, don't let him drown!" Another woman, fully dressed, followed him into the surf before she turned back. One woman dropped to her knees and prayed. The President plunged into the heavy surf and swam out beyond it while a crowd gathered, shouting and staring at his bobbing head. He heard one sunbather saying, "He looks like President Kennedy, but President Kennedy isn't that big and powerful looking." Dave jumped up and hurried after him, wondering if he should summon the Secret Service guards from the front of the Lawford house for protection. Dave was silently hoping that the President would be able to resist the urge to plunge into the surf, because the beach was open to the public and crowded with Sunday visitors who would rush upon Kennedy if they spied him heading toward the water.īut after an hour or so the dark glasses came off, the book was put down, and he was walking across the public beach toward the waves. "Dave, look at that surf out there," he said to Powers, who was stretched out beside him. One Sunday on a trip to California, he spent the afternoon at the beach home of Pat and Peter Lawford at Santa Monica, sitting in his swimming trunks beside the pool, reading a book, but glancing from time to time at the ocean surf. When we spent a night on a Navy ship, he would pace the deck in the darkness saying, " I want to feel the salt on my face". He loved the ocean and enjoyed swimming in it and sailing on it. Weighing around 172 pounds, with muscular shoulders and arms and solid legs, he had the build of a light-heavyweight boxer and seemed much bigger and more powerful than he looked when dressed in one of his well-tailored suits. His appearance in swimming trunks was surprising. He could throw a long and accurate pass with a football and he could hit a softball sharply to the opposite field. The President loved sports, football especially, and enjoyed meeting star athletes.
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