This just feels wrong.

Most Americans were not alive when JFK was assassinated. One can argue that’s when the sixties began. That’s when the generations split. The fifties were somnambulant, even the hipsters had crew cuts. By time the sixties arrived, there were pockets of experimentation, the roots of new musical acts that would triumph after the Beatles, and there were always bohemians, still labeled beatniks, soon to be labeled hippies, however many wives did not work outside the home, GM was the wonder of the world and the U.S. was an international monolith that wasn’t questioned by its citizens, never mind those from outside the country.

JFK barely won. Victory wasn’t declared until the morning after the election. But JFK ushered in a new era of hope, a break from the past, you see he was younger than the old farts, the country was now looking forward, not back.

He asked what you could do for your country instead of yourself.

He didn’t wear a hat at the inauguration and that business died overnight.

And he vowed to put a man on the moon before 1970. And manned spacecraft were launched.

Now protest was burbling. Civil rights were being fought for down south. It was a point of transition that Johnson ultimately certified into law, forcing the nation to treat everybody equally. And there was a folk music scene to support the underprivileged and abused, the U.S. was not mindlessly partying, then again, most people were not hip to the inequality and issues of our nation until later in the decade, after JFK was gone.

And then came the Cuban Missile Crisis. There hasn’t been anything like it since. You really felt like the end was possible. We were still afraid of nuclear war, we hid under our desks to protect ourselves, and we saw the pictures of the missiles going to Cuba… And JFK stood up to Russia and the crisis was averted.

But some people didn’t want progress. They wanted the country to be rooted in the past. With whites triumphant and illegality pushed under the rug…never forget that the original RFK was attorney general, and he was rooting out malfeasance…

And then JFK was murdered. Every boomer knows where they were when they heard the news. It was incomprehensible. Our parents had the TV on 24/7, Jack Ruby killed Oswald and then there was the day of mourning and…

They immediately started renaming things to honor JFK’s memory. Idlewild airport became JFK. It seemed a bit overdone at the time, and a bit of it was pulled back, then again, the president was killed in cold blood.

And then the sixties ensued. The Vietnam War blew up, with America pouring gasoline on the conflagration. The younger generation separated from their elders. Not only did they have their own music, everything was in question, everything was up for grabs, the motto was “question authority.” To be smart, educated and informed was a badge of honor, it was these people who were lifting the populace out of ignorance.

Then there was Jackie. Young with designer clothing. Who led tours of the White House on TV. We heard that she spoke seven languages. And she put the arts front and center. So it was not a big stretch when she started fundraising for a national cultural center, nor was it surprising when it was named the Kennedy Center, a living memorial to JFK.

Now every day I turn on my phone and it’s looney-tunes, I can’t believe what I read. I’m also aware that many people feel differently from me, they want to jet back to a past that they’re looking at through rose-colored glasses. Progress has been good. Change still needs to be made. But the world always goes forward. JFK led the charge into the future. That is why he was both revered and hated.

Ironically, those with the anti-JFK viewpoint are triumphant today. Trump is in power. Unlike some of my lefty brethren, I feel he won fair and square.

And I can quote the litany of his efforts that stick in my craw. From throwing the baby out with the bathwater with DOGE, pardoning the January 6th rioters, wobbling on support of Ukraine in its war with Russia… These are all substantive issues, which deserve a debate.

As for the less important… There’s the gilding of the White House like some Eastern European dictator. The plaques. The ballroom.

But renaming the Kennedy Center is just too much.

Because this is the arts. Something Jackie Kennedy not only supported, but did her best to spread across America.

And this is JFK. Set in stone.

Build some memorials to Trump after his term. He’ll get a library, probably some statues, and I won’t be happy with the lionization of the man and his memory, but I’ll shrug and accept it.

But renaming the Kennedy Center? Why?

Trump has never been a champion of the arts. If anything, he’s doubled-down on the commercialization of America, where the dollar is now king and the best and the brightest don’t go into the Peace Corps or politics and try and improve the world, but go into finance to enrich themselves, to line their pockets.

Ain’t that America.

But do you have to touch the arts?

That’s the one thing we have left. Art foments change. But Trump is putting the kibosh on that. He’s sending a message, that he is in control. It’s all right to be an artist and sell out to corporations, make a ton of bread, but if you question authority, look out.

Then again, I am a child of the sixties. Sure, musical acts made good money, but the money was secondary to the music, the message, the exploration, the pushing of the envelope. We had rapid development and innovation not only in music, but movies…all the arts. We went from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “Sgt. Pepper” to Woodstock and “Hello Dolly” to “The Graduate” and “Bonnie and Clyde.” This was the sixties, which started with JFK, an era many old white men have denigrated and tried to make disappear for decades.

But we still had our cathedrals, where the arts were displayed untouched. Carnegie Hall. The Metropolitan Opera House.

The Kennedy Center.

Art was up front and center in these edifices. They were bastions of creativity, of exploration, of soul-fulfillment.

But no more.

I could delineate all the negative moves Trump has made at the Kennedy Center this year, and the concomitant drop in revenues, but the building still stands as tribute to JFK.

But no longer. Now Trump’s name comes first. It’s a stick in the eye not only to Democrats, but to artists all over the country, all over the world. The message is not only that everything is up for grabs for Trump, but that the past that is revered by him and his cronies is being eviscerated, and a message is being sent that no one is safe, no one is untouchable. Artists better watch out. You think late night hosts are not safe…

Is nothing sacred?

I guess not.

Live long enough and the past you remember…seemingly no one else remembers it, or not how it really played out.

The brief tenure of JFK was about hope and freedom, righting wrongs.

But homey don’t play that anymore. As a matter of fact, minorities got too big for their britches, they had to be taught a lesson, constrained. And on one level the renaming of the Kennedy Center is just another stake in the heart.

But it’s so much more. It’s an erasing of American values.

It’s an erasing of JFK’s memory.

It’s an erasing of my personal past.

It’s an erasing of the America I knew.

It’s a bridge too far.

Is it the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Is this when the public will say no mas? I have no idea.

But this one hurts.