In a life that my creditors are rooting isn't nearly over yet, there are milestone events that I've borne witness to. And my kids, although roughly half my age, they have their memories as well. Think Newton, Connecticut school shootings.
After that Sunday's televised live shooting, with Jack Ruby suddenly filling the TV frame and fatally shooting Lee Harvey Oswald in the stomach, America has been awash in conspiracy theories. It's a common organized crime tactic to drop the shooter after the shooter drops the target. Add another layer of camouflage to the events. So, who was Jack Ruby working for when he pulls out his handgun and puts lead in Oswald's belly? I have been to photography shows where that image is on sale for beaucoup bucks.
I remember the interviews of the strippers at his immediately closed nightclub that told of Jack being profoundly upset at the death of JFK. He was besides himself. Since I was a teenager, and still upset over Marilyn Monroe's suicide, I was prevented from seeing what strippers looked like because of my tender age, I was fascinated with the ladies they were interviewing. But believe me, if they were to show up today looking like they looked in the 60s, no one would be making any money at a "gentleman's club." These women would have bent the pole if they twirled on it.
Looks aside, and our black and white TV, you got the overwhelming sense, or at least I did, that Jack was a small time strip joint owner who was upset about someone taking his president out in his city, and he was going to do something about it. He certainly did.
The reason Jack Ruby is brought to mind is the obituary of Gary Cartwright, 82, a Texas Journalist described as "irreverent." One of my favorite words. Aside from my desire to be remembered with affection, I also want to be remembered as being irreverent.
Mr. Cartwright knew Jack Ruby before the instantaneous notoriety. His apartment in Dallas was a late-night hangout for his friend and fellow reporter Bud Shrake, along with Jack Ruby, a stripper Jada, and others. Hey, Gertrude stein had her salon, Mr. Cartwright had his.
I have no idea if Mr. Cartwright was interviewed that weekend about his friendship with Ruby. I probably wouldn't have been interested unless Jada was also there. But consider what he wrote about Ruby and try and reconcile his description with the conspiracies attached to Ruby being a CIA operative who was in on the while thing, a very popular, and still prevailing conspiracy theory.
"If there is a tear left, let it be shed for Jack Ruby. He didn't make history: he only stepped in front of it. When he emerged from obscurity into that inextricable freeze-frame that joins all of our minds to Dallas, Jack Ruby, a baldheaded little man who wanted above all else to make it big, had his back to the camera."
I think his strippers knew him best as well.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
John - I thought it was a Sunday as I was at the NFL Eagles game when it came over the radio. An era to remember. tjs
ReplyDeleteYes, correct of course. A Sunday. I can still remember my father calling me on the phone.
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