Remembering Ted Kennedy

More years ago than I care to think--40 at least--I sat in the back seat of a chauffeured limousine en route to the Missoula, Montana airport. In the front passenger seat was a (then) 38-year old senator from Massachusetts named Ted Kennedy.

As a journalism graduate and reporter on the University of Montana campus daily, I was sent to interview Sen. Kennedy and to capture some of his liberal views against the Vietnam War, which he opposed so vociferously. His was a popular stance on UM campus back then, so I figured the job would be easy.

Not so. The young Massachusetts senator had just made two campus appearances: (1) as inaugural speaker for a new lecture series founded by (then) U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, and (2) as a young attorney and U.S. senator, who spoke from experience about law as a career to UM Law School students.

Thus, by the time I was permitted a jump into the back seat of his airport-bound vehicle, he was tired and not so keen on being interviewed. Clearly he preferred questioning the chauffeur and me about the nearby ski slopes and the magnificent scenery he was observing from the car window.

Nonetheless, he spoke with passion once I asked him about a recent battle in Vietnam that had meant heavy losses among USA troops: Hamburger Hill. It clearly grieved the Senator to speak yet again of untimely death among heroes struck down in their youth. He grew more intense and more serious as he spoke of battles, war, presidents, politics and unwanted heroism.

From that interview, two key impressions stuck with me: first, that Senator Kennedy seemed not at all eager to view himself as presidential material, and two, that he was too young to bear the burdens of history that had been thrust upon him. He clearly was not ready for greatness.

Thus, as I watched the Senator grow over the decades into a powerful force for liberal causes I believe in, then watched and cried through his memorials and funeral last weekend, I was struck by how hugely he embodied an entire era, starting in the 1960's and ending with his death from brain cancer in 2009. I remain grateful to the Senator for his mighty ontributions to me and my fellow Americans. We owe him much, I believe.

Finally, Senator Edward Moore Kennedy was a great man--not the reluctant man I interviewed in his burdened and burdensome youth. To me, his greatest achievement was a powerful and positive self-evolution. Unlike Teddy, however, few of us try and even fewer of us ever get there. I remain grateful for his personal example and my personal memory of the man.