thedrifter
05-20-07, 10:18 AM
Last week, when Maria came to town
By: JOHN VAN DOORN - Staff Columnist
Maria Shriver, wife of the governor of Coleeforneeya, is a class act and always has been, probably owing, at least in part, to her Kennedy forebears.
They were the administration that came to be known as Camelot. There were flaws aplenty in that rare and royal American family, but the Kennedys had class. They didn't sweat the small stuff, they regarded corporate swells as no more important than the homeless, they were comfortable in tuxedos and they knew a finger bowl from a trough.
So it was no surprise last week that Shriver came to Camp Pendleton to have a look at a program there known as Operation Bigs. Probably some political angle figured in the visit, but it would be rude to look for it. A Kennedy/Shriver would be doing this, without prompting and absent the title of first lady, just because it was the human thing to do. That's class, any way you look at it.
The Bigs are Marines, and the Littles are the children they take under their wings when the kids' parents are off to war. Picture that. Little kids with large gruff Marines in the role of dad, uncle, pal or brother, helping the youngsters deal with the other side of madness half the world away.
Our Tom Pfingsten wrote that Shriver was all smiles and all understanding at Pendleton, and charmed the crowds.
There has always been charm in the family, on the Shriver side as well as the Kennedy. Her mother, Eunice, was a sister of the late President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Charm came with the territory in Hyannisport.
But her father, Sargent Shriver, was a charmer, too, of the first magnitude. He was full of energy and fire, and was a close and important adviser to President Kennedy, who, upon election, gave Shriver vital assignments.
Sargent Shriver created (or inspired or directed) such programs as Head Start, VISTA, the Job Corps, Community Action, Upward Bound, the Special Olympics and the Peace Corps. Peace Corps volunteers of those first years in the 1960s revere him still. He knew most of them by name.
He also ran the War on Poverty, a benchmark program during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. He was a gifted man with social graces and a social conscience.
Johnson named Sargent Shriver ambassador to France in 1968, and his service there -- observed for a time by your observer -- was something to behold. Among other things, he spoke idiomatic French; it is worth mentioning because U.S. ambassadors, or those who are political appointees, too often do not speak the language of nations to which they are posted. It can be embarrassing.
Sargent Shriver traveled the country and bounced in and out of French towns, cities, farms and vineyards like a grinning conqueror without malice. He became a celebrity in France. Time magazine said he brought "a rare and welcome panache" to diplomacy.
No surprise that the French loved him, and by extension loved the United States.
It is no surprise either that a daughter of Sargent Shriver would be doing just about the same work in much the same manner, differing in degree and separated by time and place, but marching to similar music, instinctively reaching out to do what some families sense they must: help. Very classy, this Maria Shriver.
-- Contact columnist John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.
Ellie
By: JOHN VAN DOORN - Staff Columnist
Maria Shriver, wife of the governor of Coleeforneeya, is a class act and always has been, probably owing, at least in part, to her Kennedy forebears.
They were the administration that came to be known as Camelot. There were flaws aplenty in that rare and royal American family, but the Kennedys had class. They didn't sweat the small stuff, they regarded corporate swells as no more important than the homeless, they were comfortable in tuxedos and they knew a finger bowl from a trough.
So it was no surprise last week that Shriver came to Camp Pendleton to have a look at a program there known as Operation Bigs. Probably some political angle figured in the visit, but it would be rude to look for it. A Kennedy/Shriver would be doing this, without prompting and absent the title of first lady, just because it was the human thing to do. That's class, any way you look at it.
The Bigs are Marines, and the Littles are the children they take under their wings when the kids' parents are off to war. Picture that. Little kids with large gruff Marines in the role of dad, uncle, pal or brother, helping the youngsters deal with the other side of madness half the world away.
Our Tom Pfingsten wrote that Shriver was all smiles and all understanding at Pendleton, and charmed the crowds.
There has always been charm in the family, on the Shriver side as well as the Kennedy. Her mother, Eunice, was a sister of the late President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Charm came with the territory in Hyannisport.
But her father, Sargent Shriver, was a charmer, too, of the first magnitude. He was full of energy and fire, and was a close and important adviser to President Kennedy, who, upon election, gave Shriver vital assignments.
Sargent Shriver created (or inspired or directed) such programs as Head Start, VISTA, the Job Corps, Community Action, Upward Bound, the Special Olympics and the Peace Corps. Peace Corps volunteers of those first years in the 1960s revere him still. He knew most of them by name.
He also ran the War on Poverty, a benchmark program during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. He was a gifted man with social graces and a social conscience.
Johnson named Sargent Shriver ambassador to France in 1968, and his service there -- observed for a time by your observer -- was something to behold. Among other things, he spoke idiomatic French; it is worth mentioning because U.S. ambassadors, or those who are political appointees, too often do not speak the language of nations to which they are posted. It can be embarrassing.
Sargent Shriver traveled the country and bounced in and out of French towns, cities, farms and vineyards like a grinning conqueror without malice. He became a celebrity in France. Time magazine said he brought "a rare and welcome panache" to diplomacy.
No surprise that the French loved him, and by extension loved the United States.
It is no surprise either that a daughter of Sargent Shriver would be doing just about the same work in much the same manner, differing in degree and separated by time and place, but marching to similar music, instinctively reaching out to do what some families sense they must: help. Very classy, this Maria Shriver.
-- Contact columnist John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.
Ellie