At the suggestion of Stan and Cindy we decided to visit the John F. Kennedy presidential library here in the Boston area. Yvonne and I have never seen it and it has been many years since Stan and Cindy last took their children there. We had enjoyed visiting the Lyndon B. Johnson library in Texas last year and thought we would also enjoy seeing this one as we were big fans of Jack Kennedy and were saddened at losing him in 1963.

His Presidential library is located in Dorchester, MA,  basically a suburb of Boston. I suggested we “Uber” there as Stan and Cindy had never used the service. We are also novices but have used them several times in Seattle. It worked flawlessly. Most regular Uber cars are now small vehicles like a Prius, I decided to try getting the larger Uber XL so the four of us could be more easily accommodated. We ended up with a minivan and a Honda pilot for our two trips which was great.

We arrived at the Presidential library about the same time as a bus load of high schoolers on a field trip-great!  The good news is we joined them for the initial 20 minute movie describing JFK’s life from birth to the run for the presidency. Prior to the viewing the head of the educational component of the library gave a verbal briefing about the library which turned out to be educational for us. We learned that there are now 13 Presidential libraries. The first was established  by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to save important papers generated by the office. Because of its significance Congress later mandated that all Presidents had to relinquish their documents for prosperity and we now have Presidential libraries scattered around the country. Surprisingly while visiting this one Yvonne suggested we should try to see the other 11 libraries-another bucket list for me to complete!  To be honest both of us found visiting them very fulfilling and worthwhile.

The JFK Library focuses on the time period from when he launched his presidential campaign until his death in office. It is very well done with short video clips, documents and memorabilia from the era.  Having lived through his term we felt a closeness to his story. Seeing more of the details of this period of our history gave us a better perspective of the times and the story behind the story, like the race to the moon, the famous Berlin Wall speech, the Cuban missile crisis and the civil rights issues with George Wallace.

It was fascinating to see the actual typed speeches (with scribbled mark-ups), hand scribbled notes (bad penmanship) and secretly recorded tapes during the missile crisis with Russia. I was taken aback by how close we came to a possible nuclear shoot-out during that crisis.

There was also a fair amount dedicated to Jackie, her clothing, efforts to modernize the White House, White House dinners and interaction with foreign dignitaries and the gifts presented to the Kennedys. By the way, her penmanship was really bad; I had great trouble reading it and had to rely on “translations” provided on the placards. There is also a section dedicated to Robert Kennedy, who I thought would had been a good president. I had not realized he was only 35 years old when made the Attorney General by his brother.

Yesterday was JFK’s 100th birthday and they opened a new, special exhibit called JFK100, featuring 100 different artifacts from his life including never before seen baby photos, high school report cards, passport information, military information about PT109, and other meaningful aspects of his life. It was fascinating.  These items will only be displayed for one year.

We spent over three hours at the library and enjoyed every minute of it. It is truly worth seeing it if you are in the area.

After an hour to refresh we then headed to the “North End”, home to the Italian community of Boston for some sightseeing, dinner at one of the many small family owned Italian restaurants and a visit to one of the several famous Italian bakeries for a cannoli and other Italian pastries. We revisited the area around the Old North Church where Paul Revere instructed the sexton to put two lanterns in the belfry to warn people that the British were coming by sea. Nearby was an old store front where we watched a demonstration on chocolate making in the 18th century. There was also a colonial print shop where we saw how printing was done in colonial times and heard the story of how the first Declaration of Independence was printed in Boston, not Philadelphia and that the true day of signing was July 2, 1776 not July 4 which we celebrate.

For dinner we chose a small Italian restaurant called Panza at the recommendation of our hotel and backed up by Yelp and Travel Advisor. It was a great choice and we were extremely happy with our meals.

We purposely avoided ordering dessert as we wanted to stop at one of those awesome Italian bakeries in the area. The one we chose, Bova’s, happens to be open 24 hours a day! We left with a cannoli, a cream puff, an eclair and a pastry called  “sfogliatelle”, a delicate dough filled with ricotta, almond paste and lemon flavoring. It dates back to 17th century Italy. I will report on them tomorrow as they will be our breakfast!

On our way to the bakery we passed a small shop where we discovered William Carlton, owner of classic caps. This young man was sitting at a very old Singer sewing machine making handmade “newsboy caps”. We were intrigued and wandered in to talk to him and ended up buying a couple for gifts. He is self-taught and creates unique monogrammed hats. It was a great fun find.

It turned out to be quite an eventful day filled with both new and old adventures, capped with a delicious Italian dinner. We should sleep well tonight.

We board our ship tomorrow morning and set sail at 1:30 PM.