Senator Edward Kennedy

I am deeply saddened by the passing of Sen. Kennedy yesterday. While it was not unexpected, it is a tragic and sad day for Massachusetts and the US Senate. My thoughts and prayers go to his family.

There has been much written about the senior Senator over the last few days and much more will be written. We will not realize the full impact of the loss nor will we realize the impact to Massachusetts until we start to look at the things Ted used to do that will no longer happen. We have lost the most influential member of Congress and that will hurt. For many of us, we have also lost a friend and someone who cared deeply for the people of this state and for the people in need of a champion all over this country. People who are far more eloquent than I am will detail the accomplishments and career of the Senator over the next few weeks and months. I would just like to relate a few stories of my personal dealings with Ted Kennedy.

First, I have two treasured pictures of Ted Kennedy. The first is a picture of Ted and Vicki with my daughter Stephanie. I was taking the Senator on a tour of MassMoCA a number of years ago and my daughter (much younger then) came along. I wanted her to meet the Senator and told her he was one of the most powerful men in Washington. So I have a picture of them together at the museum. The other is the picture that was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times during the 2000 convention. It is a picture of Ted and Caroline together waving to the crowd. I sent to the Times for a few prints of this and asked Ted to autograph it for me. He wrote, “Dan, I am looking for you, Ted Kennedy.”

The Senator and the family were on vacation in the Berkshires and I received a phone call from Gene Dellea asking me to go to lunch with the Senator and a small group. I was seated across from Ted who was about three seats from his wife Vicki. As many know, Ted Kennedy waged a lifetime battle with weight (I can relate) and he sat there with a salad for lunch. As the meal ended and the waiter asked for dessert preferences, the Senator said he wanted coffee but told the person on his right that the chocolate cake with the chocolate sauce was good. As dessert went on, every time Vicki was looking the other way, Ted would scoop a big spoon of cake and sauce out and eat it. He would grin, so proud that he was sneaking dessert until Vicki turned to him and said, “Ted, you know you have chocolate sauce all over your shirt”! He looked down very dismayed until we all started laughing and he joined in with a loud laugh himself. He took his job seriously, but could laugh at himself, a disappearing trait in politics.

In the mid-nineties, I was on my way to Washington to speak to Congress about heating assistance and the federal transportation bill with a number of people from around the east coast. I asked a number of people, as I always do, whether I could do anything else while I was down there. I was told by a few members of the BRTA that the train in Pittsfield was in danger. Newt Gringrich was Speaker of the House and Dick Armey from Texas was the House Ways and Means Chair. The rumor was that they were closing Amtrak stations all over including Texas. So I called Ted Kennedy’s office and asked to speak to him about this when I was in Washington. I arrived at his office with a bunch of people to talk to him about fuel assistance and we sat around his office in a semi circle. Being the closest on the left of the seats, I was close enough to the Senator to see the 3x5 card in his hand. The only thing typed on it was, “Dan Bosley-Amtrak-Pittsfield”. As our meeting wound down, a staffer reminded the Senator that I had wanted to talk about Amtrak. Ted Kennedy said something to the effect that trains were important and Pittsfield was important and America was getting into training, training the Amtrak way! He then asked if anyone wanted to take a picture and my chance ended with pictures of our group. I remember thinking that this didn’t go as I expected. I was a little disappointed until the next morning. I was in again a large meeting in Washington. This time I was with the CEO for Amtrak looking for an update on the proposed transportation bill. All we got was a half hour lecture of how we should lobby Congress to give Amtrak a penny from the federal gas tax. However, as this meeting ended and we all were leaving, Amtrak CEO Downs asked if I were in the room. He asked me to hang back. We went into his office and he said that I didn’t have to worry about Pittsfield closing. He said he received a personal phone call from Sen. Kennedy at home last evening requesting that they leave the Pittsfield stop open. He said that we shouldn’t worry and that he was very happy to have had the chance to talk to the Senator about Amtrak’s request for more money. He thanked me for getting Ted to call him! He went on to ask if I knew just how influential the Senator was and that he was thrilled to be able to talk to the most powerful man in the Senate as their funding was being discussed. He said that if I needed anything else, just call him. I remember leaving thinking God Bless Kennedy for making the phone call and taking care of us.

The last story is about Ted Kennedy’s appearance at the Commencement ceremony at MCLA in May ’06. I brought a copy of his recent book, “America: Back on Track” so that he could sign it. While we were getting “robed up” for the ceremony, I brought the book over and asked him to sign it. He took the pen and signed the book, but then started to go over the book and mark what he considered to be the important parts. I remember thinking, “hey, he’s writing in my book”, but how cool is it to have a book with the parts that he thought were important pointed out?

I remember where I was when I learned of both Bobby and John Kennedy’s death. The passing of Ted Kennedy is more difficult for me. Perhaps this is because I am older and more aware of our mortality. Perhaps this is because I knew him personally. Either way, we are diminished by his death and have lost a very good friend to the citizens of Massachusetts as well as a good friend to, in Dylan’s words, “the luckless, the abandoned, and forsaked” all over the country. He will be missed.