Yesterday on Fresh Air, Terry Gross was talking to Maxwell Kennedy about the life and assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (Max's father).

Max was describing how RFK was in Indianapolis the night Martin Luther King was assassinated and spoke to a crowd in the inner city. (Max noted that it was called a "ghetto" at the time.)

Problem was, someone forgot to bring RFK's speech, so he had to ad-lib. Fairly easy for a candidate running for president; just re-hash the stump speech...but not so easy when MLK had just been shot.

According to Max, as a part of the speech, RFK recited from memory a verse from RFK's favorite poet, Aeschylus:

"And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."

Haunting words, which froze me last night when I heard them, in part because I actually have those exact same words in my top desk drawer at work...I cut them out of the WSJ several years ago and re-read them occasionally.

RFK had many more words for the crowd that night, about anger, and about Dr. King's legacy of non-violence. Max pointed out that there were riots in something like 186 cities across the US that night, and Indianapolis was not one of them.

Almost exactly two months later, (and 40 years ago as of tomorrow, June 6) RFK would be killed by an assassin at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, the night he won the California primary.

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Small world note--10 years ago, several classmates from business school were buzzing with the rumor that Max Kennedy was going to be in our class. I think he was even in our facebook or some other directory-type thing. But he never showed up...I forget if there was a reason given, but he surely had a better offer.

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Memorization note--it seems that the craft of memorizing poetry or important words is dying. It was very common to do this in the days before TV. How many people under the age of 60 do you know who have memorized any poetry? (Not that you would go around asking people if they had.)

Several years ago, I decided it would be important for me to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution of the United of States of America, since the preamble is the closest thing we have to a national mission statement. I am getting old since (a) I no longer have it memorized and (b) I already mentioned this on my journal a couple years ago. But the preamble is worth re-visiting:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

And now, lunch is over, so I am back to work.