Where Has He Gone?

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin, and John...

The ending verse of Dion's timeless song "Abraham, Martin, and John" is a compelling one. When I was a little boy I used to imagine these four men (I wasn't quite sure who they were) walking on some green pasture towards a sunset. Today I imagine them differently. Today I imagine them walking over a hilly street, on a march for freedom, independence, equality, and human rights.

I watched the movie "Bobby" last night, and I have to say that I was quite impressed. Having grown up in an era more than a decade after the events depicted, I could still relate to the struggles presented. The Latino busboy who has to work a double without a choice, the black cook who continues to "play the game" with his white employer because he sees it as the only way he can play, the two young men who decide to do drugs rather than work because it helps them escape their world full of racial tension and war, all of these images are still particularly relevant for today.

And then there is Bobby. Bobby is to be the character, the voice, the person who will lift these people into a new reality as president. He is to be, as the cook Edward Robinson scribes on the wall kitchen wall in reference to Jose, the "Once and Future King," full of compassion, grace, and humility.

He is to be...

And we are all aware of how the story ends, thrusting the Ambassador Hotel into infamy. The '68 election became just another election where the wars: racial, political, and international, raged on.

Last night I was trying to think of a presidential candidate in today's field that generates as much hope, confidence, as much change as RFK did. No matter which side of the political spectrum you find yourself on, you cannot deny that the man was engaging and full of promise. Today I see a political vacuum where political hope used to be.

"Bobby" is not a movie for everyone; indeed, sometimes it was tedious. But it spoke to me in a way that I didn't expect it to. Give it a try and see if you don't find yourself wanting the hope that the people, waiting for RFK to arrive, held on to.

Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free
Some day soon, it's gonna be one day

One day it will be.

See you in church,
VT...