HERE, LET ME SHOW YA!!

low2go
J. Wilborn
Posts: 28
(2/8/01 3:51:42 pm)
Reply HERE, LET ME SHOW YA!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kind of a simple statement--'HERE, LET ME SHOW
YOU A
PICTURE'. Right off the bat, you would mull
over in your
mind the mood, the conversation, the
relationship--oh so
many things, but you accept the picture and
look at it.
Four figures on an aging and somewhat faded
photograph
that was printed in a national magazine from
October
1967. A tiny girl about two--probably dressed
in her
very best clothing for the occasion--a woman
with a
fashionable suit and hair style to match the
time
frame--a silver haired man presenting something
to the
woman--no smiles at all from anyone--all very
somber--the
remaining man who is the most identifiable in
the group
is holding onto the child to keep her from
falling off
the desk. An American flag hangs forelornly
from its
staff in the pictures background. You look
again at the
tiny girl child--at her face--even though the
picture is
so very small, your eyes are drawn to her
eyes--inexoribly drawn to look at the sad, sad,
eyes of
the child. Your breath catchs in your throat
for some
unexplained reason as you again scan the
individual
holding onto the child to keep her from
falling. A sad
'hound-dog'
looking face with deep creases near the
mouth--the nose
--the hairline. You look up at the person who
proffered
you the picture. "What", you exclaim, "what
does it mean--this is a picture of LBJ--in his
office--probably the oval office--what does it
mean",
you repeat you query. You wait for an
explanation--why
does this old photograph mean anything to the
person who
has offered it for you to look at. You have
this leaden
feeling in the pit of your stomach--you want to
know and
again you don't--you look furitivly at the
photo
again--at the beaten down sad look of the
woman--and the
sad eyes of that little child--my God, suddenly
you are
simply perplexed--what can it mean. The silver
haired man
looks suddenly familiar--you recall having seen
him many
times in the news of the day--you've got the
President
pegged--that surely is Lyndon Baines
Johnson--who is that
sad and forlorn child, obviously with it's
mother--my
God, such saddness--that tiny ones eyes--like
the weight
of the world is on those small little
shoulders--being
held onto the desk so tenderly by the most
powerful man
on the planet--a moment in time--thirty five or
more
years ago--I wonder how their lives played
out--the child
now could be a grandmother herself had her life
been
graced with children. I wonder if she ever got
laughter
back into those sad eyes..I'm sure she
did--life has a
way of mending and going on--we all know that
our
President died a broken man--maybe he could
never forget
some of the things the war served up for him.
Wilborn sends.