November 22, 2013
Unlike the scene 50 years ago, when it was bright and brisk and shiny, the scene was dark, windy and cold, with flashes of lightening threatening to spill buckets of water. For 50 years, Dallas and the world have cried rivers of tears over those fateful seconds when a deranged soul let his rage boil over onto Elm Street.
Here in Dallas we have been going over it countless times. What kind of city are we? What kind of people are we? What kind of country are we? For 50 years. One probably doesn’t feel it as intensely as we do here at the epicenter. Our lives changed forever. His life ended.
In 1978, fifteen years after that fateful day, I had my fateful day, the one which took me to Dallas. I was starting a new life, an uncertain life, but a move forward. I was 27 and a young father with a two year old. I had no job, no money and really no clue what I was going to do. And I was moving to a town the rest of the country hated, or so it seemed.
I had family here. Unemployment was low. An eastern spiritual person told me Dallas was one of the chakras for planet earth. She told me there was good energy flowing from the town. How could that be, I thought to myself. How could the town that killed JFK be a spiritual center for terra madre?
The reality, like now, is that he was killed by the hatred of one person, not thousands. His killer was angry, sick, bitter and deluded. He didn’t know about the chakras. He only knew one thing, and that was rage. But he was also killed and so Dallas became the scapegoat.
Dallas has lived for half a century with the shadow. Meanwhile the world has moved on. It’s time for Dallas to do so as well.
In a few hours several thousand of us will convene by the site for a commemoration of that fateful day. It will be cold and windy with a 70% chance of showers. There will be no sun shining on this day.
Nor will there be any shadows. Just the road forward.
written and photographed (at Dealey Plaza) by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
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