JFK At Amherst

One of the last public appearances made by President Kennedy was at my college, where he'd come to dedicate the Robert Frost Library. I was a sophomore, and I heard the above speech as he gave it. Parts of it, the ones referring to the value of the artist to society, have been quoted many times. I wrote about the experience here; of hearing him, and of the death mere weeks later. It's nice to hear the words again, still as impressive in my fuddydom as they were as an impressionable youth. Nor is it hard to conjure the sadness that followed.