I met Senator Kennedy twice. Below the fold are my memories. I am sure others would like to read about yours, even if they are not personal. Maybe you remember the uneven start to his 1980 presidential campaign, before he found his own voice, and Doonesbury had a cartoon of a reporter holding out a microphone saying, "Senator, we need a verb."
Tell us about your memories.
In the fall of 1962 I was a freshman at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and one dark evening a black limo pulled up outside the student union as I was walking by. A very young man got out and started shaking everyone's hands and I asked who this guy was. That's Jack Kennedy's kid brother, I was told. He's running for the Senate. No one knew his first name.
In the summer of 1980, I was Ted Kennedy's statewide co-chairman in Missouri and as such was invited to his home in Hyannis about two weeks before the convention, as were all state chairs, at our own expense. Of course we all went. We spent a wonderful day at his home and at a cookout in the backyard. Almost no political substance, just building morale for the team.
Two weeks later, at Madison Square Garden, I was the chair of Kennedy's Missouri delegation. For some reason I was walking through one of the tunnels about an hour before he gave his concession speech, and came upon a short woman, not too much older than I, who was slumped against the wall, crying and sobbing. I tried to comfort her and she hugged me, saying she had just come from a meeting with Senator Kennedy and he was conceding. That was a shock to us true-believers. I helped the woman regain her balance and she, Barbara Mikulski, went on her way.