Sunday, November 24, 2013

JFK, John XXIII and Prints from a Time Long Gone

     Forgive the length of the post.
     When I was a kid, many of my older relatives, as well as the Catholic schools I attended, had framed prints on their walls. It's not something that families do that often these days outside of the African American community, where you'll still see pictures of Martin Luther King or even Barack Obama displayed prominently in places where people will see them. One of my professors at Gettysburg co-authored a book (which we had to buy, of course) on earlier examples of this phenomenon from the Confederate "Lost Cause." There used to be quite the industry devoted to this sort of thing, so I found it fascinating that examples of it could be found in the community in which I grew up.
     The prints I saw when I was young were variations on the same theme: John F Kennedy and John XXIII, presumably together in eternity. Sometimes they'd be joined by Christ; others showed them walking away from the viewer. My high school had one of the latter variety, sowing a field of wheat as they passed.
     1963 was a rough year for Irish American Catholics, and although I didn't show up until a few years later, the shadow of that year still darkened the world in which I grew up. So I've been surprised to see that it is very hard to track down images of the JFK/John XXIII prints online. You can find images of commemorative medals, and even plates, featuring the two, but the prints themselves remain elusive.
     So I'm curious to see if anyone else remembers this. Part of growing up, of course, is realizing that the sense of permanence one ascribes to traditions and institutions is an illusion. Things change, and at a grander scale than we realize. Still, I'd like to see if these prints left an impression on anyone else.