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20 | May 24, 2018 | The highland park landmark Life & Arts<br />

hplandmark.com<br />

Rain doesn’t put out family campfire event<br />

Staff Report<br />

An unseasonable front carrying a<br />

chill and some rain limited the participation<br />

in the Park District of Highland<br />

Park’s periodical Family Campout May<br />

11.<br />

But a small-but-dedicated group attended<br />

Heller Nature Center for the<br />

event.<br />

The Family Campout is a seasonal<br />

park district series running monthly<br />

through October. The next event is June<br />

22 at Millard Park, where families can<br />

enjoy camping at the beach.<br />

Park District Naturalist Meghan<br />

Meredith said the campouts are a fun<br />

way to get families involved in nature,<br />

as participants take short hikes and chat<br />

with naturalists before playing games<br />

and enjoying marshmallows over a fire.<br />

The theme on May 11 was critters<br />

and insects, and Meredith and company<br />

planning to examine the underside of<br />

fallen logs and branches.<br />

Registration for the June 22 and subsequent<br />

events came be made at www.<br />

pdhp.org or by going to the Heller Nature<br />

Center, 2821 Ridge Road, Highland<br />

Park.<br />

Lonny Miller (left) and his son Simon, 5, of<br />

Deerfield, warm their hands on the fire at the<br />

Family Campout May 11 at Heller Nature Center in<br />

Highland Park. Claire Esker/22nd Century Media<br />

rating: PG-13 | genre: Drama | run time: 101 minutes<br />

‘Chappaquiddick’ movie brings back memories for reporter<br />

Alan P. Henry<br />

Freelance Reporter<br />

For 60 years, much of<br />

the American media has<br />

treated the Kennedy family<br />

name with reverence,<br />

handled family shortcomings<br />

with kid gloves, and<br />

kept the high-minded<br />

fires of Camelot burning<br />

bright. All of which makes<br />

the well-crafted movie,<br />

“Chappaquiddick,” a rare<br />

and refreshing awakening.<br />

Nearly 50 years after the<br />

fact, the movie efficiently<br />

exposes the brutal truths<br />

of how the Kennedy family<br />

and inner circle pulled<br />

strings and manipulated<br />

events in the week following<br />

the drowning death<br />

of Mary Jo Kopechne off<br />

Chappaquiddick Island on<br />

July 18, 1969.<br />

They did so, as the movie<br />

lays out using sourced<br />

materials, as a means to<br />

stymie criminal inquiry<br />

and to cynically salvage<br />

the future political ambitions<br />

of Sen. Edward Kennedy.<br />

Throughout the movie,<br />

Kennedy (Jason Clarke)<br />

oozes an outsized sense of<br />

entitlement and stunning<br />

moral indifference.<br />

The audience learns,<br />

many of them most likely<br />

for the first time, that Kennedy<br />

fled the scene of the<br />

accident, went home, slept<br />

it off, and did not report it<br />

to the police for ten hours,<br />

and only then after contacting<br />

trusted advisors. “I<br />

am not going to be president,”<br />

is the first thing he<br />

says to the first person he<br />

talks to cousin Joe Gargan<br />

(Ed Helms), who months<br />

later became the only insider<br />

to walk away from<br />

the family.<br />

When Kopechne’s body<br />

is recovered the next<br />

morning, it appears she<br />

may have not drowned,<br />

but rather died of suffocation,<br />

which means she<br />

could possibly have been<br />

saved if help had come<br />

quickly.<br />

At Kopechne’s funeral,<br />

he wears a fake neck<br />

brace, telling advisers, “I<br />

am winning back the sympathy<br />

of the people.”<br />

But equally chilling, or<br />

perhaps even more so, is<br />

the movie’s portrayal of<br />

Kennedy’s willing, even<br />

enthusiastic, accomplices<br />

in coverup and deceit.<br />

They remind the public<br />

that the powerful and the<br />

connected are very good<br />

at circling the wagons to<br />

protect their own. That<br />

goes double for the family<br />

patriarch, Joe Kennedy Sr.,<br />

who twice barks out one<br />

word of advice: “Alibi!”<br />

On July 25, one week<br />

after the accident, the networks<br />

give Kennedy the<br />

national stage to work his<br />

Camelot magic. “If you do<br />

it right you might even be<br />

more electable,” said Mc-<br />

Namara when the scheme<br />

is hatched.<br />

In the end, the inquest<br />

goes nowhere. Kennedy<br />

pleads guilty to leaving<br />

the scene of an accident<br />

and receives a suspended<br />

sentence of two months.<br />

Power trumps truth. And<br />

the waters close over.<br />

More than a movie to me<br />

I had a personal reason<br />

for wanting to see the movie<br />

“Chappaquiddick,” that<br />

depicted the July 18, 1969<br />

death of young campaign<br />

worker Mary Jo Kopechne<br />

and the subsequent reframing<br />

of events by Sen.<br />

Edward Kennedy and his<br />

faithful posse of powerful<br />

insiders. I wanted to see<br />

how they depicted what I<br />

found and reported in the<br />

Boston Herald American.<br />

In the official inquest<br />

into Kopechne’s death,<br />

and consistently thereafter,<br />

Kennedy said he and<br />

Kopechne left a party<br />

around 11:15 p.m. on<br />

Chappaquiddick island to<br />

catch the last ferry back<br />

to Martha’s Vineyard.<br />

Once on the main road,<br />

they took a “wrong turn”<br />

onto Dyke Road that led<br />

to Dyke Bridge, where he<br />

lost control of his car, they<br />

plunged into a tidal pool,<br />

he escaped and she didn’t.<br />

He had taken the wrong<br />

turn, he swore under oath,<br />

because he had never before<br />

been on the island and<br />

was therefore “unfamiliar”<br />

with the road back to the<br />

ferry. Not until January<br />

1980 did anyone publicly<br />

contradict his claim.<br />

That’s when I, as a reporter<br />

with the Herald,<br />

as well as a reporter from<br />

the New York Post, went<br />

to Chappaquiddick and<br />

independently talked to<br />

the four people who came<br />

forward to state that Kennedy<br />

had been on the island<br />

on numerous previous<br />

occasions. They were<br />

the Chappaquiddick ferry<br />

operator, an island realtor,<br />

the Chappaquiddick Beach<br />

Club manager and a club<br />

member.<br />

But my story made a<br />

more damning observation<br />

as well. The inadvertent<br />

“wrong turn,” which I<br />

recreated numerous times,<br />

was next to impossible to<br />

make by mistake.<br />

The main asphalt road<br />

was banked and curving<br />

to the left at the point<br />

where it intersected with<br />

Dyke Road on the right. A<br />

reflecting arrow directed<br />

motorists to the left, as the<br />

movie correctly portrays.<br />

But Dyke Road was not<br />

a smooth road easily accessible<br />

by an easy turn<br />

from the main road, as<br />

characterized in the movie.<br />

Rather, it was a narrow,<br />

rutted dirt road with<br />

a steep drop from the main<br />

road, surrounded on either<br />

side by reeds. To make the<br />

90 degree turn onto Dyke<br />

Road would have required<br />

the driver to first make an<br />

almost complete stop.<br />

After writing my story, I<br />

was dispatched by my editor<br />

to Pennsylvania’s Pocono<br />

Mountains, home of<br />

Mary Jo’s parents, Joseph<br />

and Gwen Kopechne. They<br />

had received a $141,000<br />

settlement from Kennedy’s<br />

insurance company<br />

and subsequently moved<br />

to the unincorporated community<br />

of Swiftwater.<br />

Their front door was<br />

blocked by weeds and<br />

brush. Walking around<br />

to the kitchen door, I first<br />

saw a yellowed three-byfive<br />

card taped to the doorframe<br />

telling reporters to<br />

leave them alone.<br />

The screen door was<br />

closed but the wooden<br />

door was open. Inside, in<br />

a small kitchen, Joe was<br />

cooking on the stove. I<br />

identified myself, told him<br />

I had talked to four men<br />

who said Kennedy was<br />

lying about never having<br />

been on the island and<br />

reminded him that he had<br />

always said that he would<br />

talk to the press if ever<br />

any new evidence came to<br />

light.<br />

His wife suddenly appeared,<br />

told him not to<br />

say anything and walked<br />

toward the door to close<br />

it. But before she did, Joe<br />

said: “I knew he was there,<br />

no matter what he says<br />

about it.”<br />

Not Pulitzer Prize material,<br />

to be sure, but more<br />

than anyone else had gotten<br />

out of him to that date.<br />

As a postscript, the Kopechnes<br />

said in 1994 that<br />

Kennedy had never apologized<br />

directly to them over<br />

his role in their daughter’s<br />

death. They both died over<br />

a decade ago. As for me,<br />

I’d seen and heard everything<br />

I needed to know<br />

about the “Lion of the Senate.”<br />

You too can review a movie<br />

for The Highland Park Landmark!<br />

All you have to do is<br />

see a new movie and send in<br />

a 500- to 600-word review<br />

of the film to Editor Erin<br />

Yarnall at erin@hplandmark.<br />

com

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