T. Kennedy

I always felt especially close to Senator Teddy Kennedy. One reason was that he had the same nickname as the cousin who is the closest thing that I have had to a brother. Another reason is that the Senator and I were both unapologetic, "bleeding heart" liberals of the worst kind. He always kept that flame of decency that is so characteristic of being a liberal reared high and burning bright, despite his having been the favorite whipping boy of all the Nasties on the Right. He "kept the faith, Baby," to borrow the words of the long departed Representative from NY, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who likewise did a good job of keeping conservative red noses bent permantely out of shape.

At some point in his life Teddy Kennedy should've been the U.S. President. But the incident at Chappaquiddick, in which his female companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, died in the car, sank any Presidential ambitions he might later have had like a 1,000-pound chunk of lead, though it didn't keep his Massachusetts neighbors from pretty much setting aside one of their U.S. Senate seats for his lifetime tenure, starting in 1964.

For him to leave just at this moment is a big tragedy not only for him, his family, and his many admirers but also for the country as a whole, including his army of badly misguided detractors, because it comes just when the latest attempt to reform health care in the U.S., led with great difficulty by President Obama, is approaching its climax. Teddy Kennedy would have had a lot of important and influential things to say and do on that issue.

The third reason for the affinity I feel toward him is that we were in the same age bracket, and that always made me feel as if my date of birth had placed me in a special little club, though, being lucky enough not to have a brain tumor as yet (my feet troubles are beginning to make it look as if I'm fated instead to be chopped off at the ankles), last month I managed to reach age 78, while T. Kennedy would have reached that point only duringl this coming February, in the same month as the third member of our trio of notables, Elizabeth Taylor, the fabled movie actress and professional celebrity. However, not much is being heard and especially seen of her these days, I guess because so much of her great renown was based on her physical appearance, which was exceptional, even though in that respect I always thought that she fell just a little behind the Ingrid Bergmann of "Gaslight," as well as several of the Italian actresses, mainly G. Lollabrigida, S. Loren, and S. Mangano. But acting-wise, no one ever surpassed and few even got close to Elizabeth Taylor in her portrayal of straight-ahead, supreme bitchiness in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?"