Lucas: A trip down memory lane with JFK, T.S. Eliot, and Ted Williams

Come this time of year, three old but meaningful events come alive again in my memory. All are connected to Boston.

One was the great Boston Red Sox hitter Ted Williams and his last time at bat at Fenway Park on September 28, 1960.

The second was the appearance and reading of the great America/English poet T.S. Eliot in Boston on December 11, 1961.

The third was the overwhelming reception John F. Kennedy received when he ended his 1960 campaign for president in Boston Garden on November 7 of that year.

I happened to be on hand for all three mainly because I was unemployed and had time on my hands.

All three events would have a lasting impact on their professions — baseball, writing and politics. Unknowingly all three had a lasting impact on me as well.

I had a degree in English Literature from Boston University, and I was trying to become a writer. I wanted to be a newspaperman, but I could not get a job.

I know that there are at least one million people who claim to have been at Fenway Park that cold and overcast day when Williams, after a long, successful — and at times turbulent — career hit his last home run at this last time at bat.

In reality there were fewer than 13,000 people at the game. Few knew that, after 19 years, it was his last game because the team still had a series to play with the Yankees in New York. A friend had given me a free ticket.

So, there was no celebration that day. It was just another Ted Williams home run, as towering as it was. He rounded the bases with his head down without playing up to the crowd, which was his way.

He left the playing field with all the dignity, perseverance and poise of the pro that he was, and it was impressive enough that I can still see it in my mind.

To anyone who studied English and American literature, T.S. Eliot, the scion of a Boston Brahmin family and a Harvard graduate, was the Ted Williams of poetry. Like Williams he was the best at what he did, and he had the dignity to match.

He did to English poetry what Ernest Hemingway did to English prose. He revolutionized it.

I still recall my amazement in listening to this bird-like man reading from his great poem “The Wasteland,” and other works. I recall how he captured the words, the depth, the images, the timing and the pace of his subject.

His words were profound and magical. This was what writing was all about.

I was (still unemployed) up in the gallery of the Boston Garden when Jack Kennedy entered as he concluded his historic 1960 campaign for president.

It was like an explosion when Kennedy came in. He was covered with confetti, as though at a wedding. The applause was endless. The crowd chanted “We want Jack,” over and over and the band played “Anchors Away” (Kennedy was a World War II Navy veteran) and “Happy Days are Here Again.”

He was met on the platform with a string of smiling Democrat politicians all running for statewide office — Kevin White, Eddie McCormack, Tip O’Neill, Jack Driscoll, Eddie McLaughlin and Joe Ward.

They were in awe of him, as was the crowd. He was on the verge of becoming the first Roman Catholic to be elected president.

But it was more than that. He electrified them. He electrified the roaring crowd. He electrified the country.

He spoke smoothly and confidently about facing the communist threat from the Soviet Union, and about hope and change for some 20 minutes without notes or any other type of assistance, and the people roared their approval. It was a moving and amazing performance.

Later I thought the Kennedy event was like watching Ted Williams in the batter’s box or like listening to T.S. Eliot read from the stage.

All three were men of grace, confidence, perseverance, poise and accomplishment.

I knew then that I had to persevere, and become a writer and a reporter to someday write about them.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter who has written five books, including The OSS in World War II Albania and the novel Balkan Caesar. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com.