It was the summer of 1980, and I was about to become a high school senior. I was too young to vote in the presidential election that year, but I had hopes that Jimmy Carter would be re-elected. That's not what happened, of course, and our country has been on a very strange course of events since then.
I watched the Democratic National Convention that year, the first one I had watched with any sense of political awareness. Senator Ted Kennedy had to give a concession speech, but of course, it turned out to be one of the most eloquent speeches ever given and hardly a concession at all.
I remember reading Time or Newsweek the following week in order to find out where he got the quote that he cites a few minutes into this clip. It's from the poem "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and it's become one of my favorite poems over the years. I frequently teach it, and I always love rereading it.
Almost a year after he delivered this speech, I used the same lines from the poem as a part of my high school graduation speech. I was the salutatorian, having missed being the valedictorian by 0.6 points (not that I'm still bitter after all these years, mind you). I like to think that Kennedy inspired me that night at the Democratic National Convention. Due in part to him and his work, I not only became a lover of poetry but also a long-time liberal.
Thank you, Senator Kennedy, for all of your work on behalf of those less fortunate, those who have been ostracized, those for whom government no longer seems to care.
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