It’s inevitable that today I remember my elementary school teacher, Mrs. Kennedy, who used to hand out shiny new Kennedy half dollars to her best students. I was not one of her best students and never got one. But before I go call a shrink, let me tell you that I was obsessed with JFK when I was a kid.
I have no recollection of his assassination, but in the basement I would pore over the copies of Life magazine and Newsday that my father stashed away, remembrances of that terrible time in 1963.
But my favorite thing was The First Family. My friend, Chuck Reamer, had a copy of the comedy record his older brother left behind. We’d sit in his room muching on Fritos, listening to Vaughn Meader and company spoof Camelot.
In the same way I learned about classical music from Looney Tunes cartoons, The First Family gave me perspective on the Kennedy years.
Meader’s career skyrocketed on the back of his JFK impersonation. After Dallas, Lenny Bruce quipped, “Man, poor Vaughn Meader.”
You can find the whole album on this person’s YouTube page.