Jacqueline Kennedy - Caroline Kennedy [112]
LaLanne, yes.
So Jack would lower—and there'd be Jack LaLanne, and he'd be telling Caroline and John to do what they were doing, so they'd be lying on the floor. Sometimes he'd touch his toes with John a bit. But he'd have them tumbling around. He loved those children tumbling around him in this sort of—sensual is the only way I can think of it. And then he'd always come out in the garden during their recess in the morning and clap his hands, and all the little things from school would come running.60 The teachers—he used to call out his two favorites, Caroline and Mary Warner. And then the teacher said it wasn't fair for him to give them candy. She told Caroline she could only get candy if there would be some for the entire class. So Mrs. Lincoln had an entire box of Barracini candy that—but he'd go out or, if I was around there with John, he'd call us in and a little bit in his office, and then he'd send them out and then John would play on Mrs. Lincoln's typewriter. Then they'd come over in the evening, just as he was finishing up for the day, and just play around his office. One of the last days I remember—well, you know, there's that wonderful picture of them all talking about Berlin and Jack—which was an awful, sort of a crisis—and John tumbling out from under his desk. But, oh, and then one of the last days, Charlie the dog came in and bit John on the nose, and Bundy had to get Dr. Burkley.61 You know the children were never bratty but he liked to have them underfoot, and then he'd take them swimming and—or else, if it didn't work out quite that way when he'd come upstairs before dinner, no matter who we had for dinner, they'd come in. You know, they'd have their time with him in their pajamas. He really would play with them first, even if it was a state dinner. He'd always say—or even when it was a state lunch or just a man's lunch. Usually, he'd have me in the room and he'd say, "Go get the children!" And, of course, they'd always be in their naps in their underwear or something, and I'd have to bring them out in their underwear because he'd never give you warning before. But he just loved to have them around. And then he'd—he really taught Caroline to swim. He made her dive off the high diving board. He made her swim the length of the pool in Florida, the last Christmas she was there. Well, she got a quarter of the way and did the rest under water. He was saying, "Come on, you can make it!" You know, he did so much with them. And he told her all these stories. He'd make up "The White Shark and the Black Shark," and "Bobo the Lobo," and "Maybelle"—some little girl who hid in the woods. And then one day, he was desperate and I said, "What?" He said, "Gosh, you've got to get me some books, or something. I'm running out of children's stories." He said, "I just told Caroline how she and I shot down three Jap fighter planes." But—
THE WHITE HOUSE SCHOOL
Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
JOHN AND CAROLINE VISIT THEIR FATHER AT WORK
Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston
Were there any books that he liked reading or the children demanded that he read?
No, he didn't read—he didn't like to read books to them much. He'd rather tell them stories. But he'd make up these fantastic ones. Sort of that they were just riveted by. Oh, and then he'd have ponies for Caroline—White Star and Black Star. Caroline said to me, "Daddy would always let me choose which pony I wanted to ride and which pony my friend would ride." And then he would make some race and he would always let Caroline win the race. And then he had a—oh, Miss Shaw was in a lot of them, rather ludicrously—and Mrs. Throttlebottom was in the race. And how Caroline