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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 />
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