By Terence Smith
So many memories of so many times with Ethel Kennedy, going back so many years:
*Aboard The Caroline, the Kennedy family plane, during Robert F. Kennedy’s whirlwind campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1964 — the only campaign he ever finished. Ethel, fussing over us all, even reporters like me, making her husband change his shirt after every raucous, sweaty rally stop.
* Funny, silly afternoons at Hickory Hill, Ethel the funniest and silliest of us all.
*Skiing at Deer Valley, Utah, tackling the steep slopes, Ethel charging down the hill, falling and getting a hairline fracture of one knee, and blaming it on me!
*A chance encounter in a crowded elevator after a show at The Kennedy Center, with Ethel explaining to her companions: “This is the guy who broke my leg!”
*Another winter in Deer Valley, when Ethel arrived at a friend’s house with 11 suitcases of ski clothes, most of which she never opened.
*Playing “I have never…” around a dinner table; Ethel winning by announcing: “I have never …cooked spaghetti!” Everybody else had.
*Dancing, singing and laughing under a tent at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis for Ethel’s niece Maria Shriver’s wedding to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
*At Arlington National Cemetery, on the 50th anniversary of her husband’s assassination, Ethel holding back the tears. Later that same day, drinking wine in the sun-splashed garden of the residence of the Irish Ambassador and telling old stories.
None of us is going too live forever, of course, but Ethel gave it a try for 96 remarkable years. R.I.P. Ethel.