By Bill O’Donnell

Photo by Susan Walsh, Associated Press (May 2008)I was not a Kennedy insider, never on the Hyannisport compound guest list but we were contemporaries and as adults with only a couple of years separating us, Ted Kennedy, as the President’s brother and a fledgling if well-wired senator, could not be ignored. My first up-close event featuring the youngest Kennedy son was the All-New England Salute to President John F. Kennedy at Boston’s Commonwealth Armory on October 19, 1963.

A close friend had secured two tickets and we had seats directly up front of the head table.
The picture of that stunning early fall night for me remains clear and bright to this day: A tanned President Kennedy with cigar in hand and alongside him, his younger brother, Teddy, fresh from his electoral victory. The handsome duo, exchanging repartee, playfully jabbing each other about political coat tails and the like. Two more happy political warriors could not be imagined. Only a month later President Kennedy was assassinated and in June, 1964, seven months after Dallas, Ted, flying to the Democratic State Convention in western Massachusetts went down over Southampton killing an aide and the pilot and seriously injuring Senator Kennedy.

Ted and a host of young Kennedy nieces and nephews could be found on weekends in the 1960s on the ski slopes in Stowe, Vermont or crowding into the pews of the church we Boston skiers also attended, Blessed Sacrament on the Mountain Road. Those were carefree family fun days and Ted was in the early years of his tenure as good uncle and surrogate father to the expansive and youthful clan of Shrivers, Smiths and Kennedys.

In October of 1979, Ted Kennedy, Jacqueline, Bobby’s Joe and a starry array of former JFK White House aides and President Carter and Lady Bird Johnson gathered to formally open the John Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum at Columbia Point. Myself and friend and colleague Maureen Connelly covered the day’s events for an Irish newspaper, a jubilant reunion of sorts for the veterans of Camelot and a day long anticipated by the faithful.

On November 7, just a brief three weeks after the JFK Library opening, Ted Kennedy, increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of the Carter presidency, announced at Boston’s Faneuil Hall that he would challenge the sitting President, Jimmy Carter, for the Democratic nomination for President. That event, deemed by some as the start of "The Restoration," drew the hopeful Kennedy clan, wife Joan, his children, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and a huge national press corps. I still had my press credentials and, like most political junkies was excited to be at the storied hall covering that political day in the Kennedy life.

There were later to be joyous Irish nights at the Kennedy Library & Museum in the late 1980s and early 1990s hosted by Senator Kennedy --- memorable nights at the Elegant Atrium dining room with amiable, smiling guests greeting the Irish President, Mary McAleese or the Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. My wife loved those type of events, non-political and she was always invited and that pleased me.

The Ted Kennedy moment that comes easily to mind today, just hours after the Senator’s death, is not one that involves watching or listening to the Senator up close, but rather a television image as I sat alone in a Chicago bar on August 12, 1980 hearing Ted concede the nomination to President Carter from the platform at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
His final words that night 29 years ago following a poignant Tennyson verse are ones that reset the tone, passion and commitment for the final third of Ted Kennedy’s journey in public life:

"For me, a few hours ago, the campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Sen. Kennedy Lies “In Repose” at Dorchester’s JFK Library

By Tom Mulvoy, Reporter Interim Managing Editor
Aug. 27, 2009

Motorists are cautioned to expect some traffic delays in Dorchester’s Columbia Point neighborhood in the vicinity of the JFK Library on Thursday and Friday this week, due to the death of Senator Edward Kennedy. Sen. Kennedy will lie in repose at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum beginning, Thursday, August 27, 2009, and the cortege bringing him to Dorchester is expected to arrive today at the JFK sometime at or after 4 p.m.

The Senator will be joined throughout the day and night by a civilian honor guard of family, friends, and current and former staff. He will also be joined by a military honor guard.

Visiting hours for the public will be on Thursday evening from 6:00 p.m.to 11:00 p.m. and on Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Public wishing to sign the condolence books can do so from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Thursday. The Museum will close on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. and re-open on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

Parking and Transportation

The Public is encouraged to use public transportation to the Kennedy Presidential Library. Special shuttle service will be available from the JFK/UMass T Stop on the MBTA Red Line from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Thursday and from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday.

Free Satellite Parking will also be available at the Bayside Expo Center from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Thursday and from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday. Special shuttle service will be available for those parking at the Bayside Expo Center to the Kennedy Presidential Library. There will be no parking available to the public at the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Thursday Motorcade Route to Boston

Senator Kennedy will travel Route 3 North to the Southeast Expressway, Route 93 North into Boston. (Approximately 3:00 p.m.) Senator Kennedy will exit at Government Center, and travel down Hanover Street into the North End, past St. Stephen's Church, where his mother Rose was baptized and her funeral mass celebrated.

Continuing down Hanover and crossing over the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the park Senator Kennedy joined community leaders in creating that gives mothers and their children green space in the heart of the city. The park sits on the same land young Rose Fitzgerald enjoyed as a child.

Senator Kennedy will pass Faneuil Hall where Mayor Menino will ring the bell 47 times.Continuing to Bowdoin Street, Senator Kennedy will pass 122 Bowdoin, where he opened his first office as an Assistant District Attorney and President Kennedy lived while running for Congress in 1946.

The motorcade will pass the JFK Federal Building where Senator Kennedy's Boston office has stood for decades, and then travel to Dorchester Street into South Boston and to the JFK Presidential Library.

People who wish to honor Senator Kennedy are urged to line the motorcade route at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, City Hall Plaza and the Boston Common, in front of the Statehouse on Park Street. The motorcade will arrive at the JFK Library at approximately 4:00 pm. The Library will open to the public for visitation at 6:00 pm on Thursday.

After the Mass, there will be a motorcade to Logan Airport and on to Washington, then to Arlington National Cemetery where, officials told the Globe, plans are underway to lay Kennedy to rest next to his brothers at the military burial ground where some of the nation’s most revered leaders are buried.

Tribute areas to honor the senator have been set up at the JFK Library, the JFK Museum in Hyannis, and at his office in Washington D.C. at No. 317 in the Russell Senate Building.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations be made to educational programming at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. A website has been set up in memory of Kennedy where people can post their memories.

For more information, visit these websites:
www.tedkennedy.org, www.kennedyinstitute.orgU.S. Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, (1932-2009) Photo (May 2008) by Susan Walsh, Associated PressU.S. Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, (1932-2009) Photo (May 2008) by Susan Walsh, Associated Press