On my mind today

Remember that scene near the end of Spielberg's Lincoln? The President is speaking informally to members of  his cabinet when he gets word that Mrs. Lincoln is waiting for him to go to Ford's Theater. "It's time for me to go," he says, "but I would rather stay." That scene always makes me cry.

That was 150 years ago today.

My mind keeps going back to JBKO in her oral history, Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. Jackie tells us that in July 1963, JFK asked Princeton historian David Donald, "Would Lincoln have been as great a president if he'd lived?" Four months later, well, you know.

 "It's time for me to go, but I would rather stay."

Oh, Mr. Lincoln, you haunt my imagination!