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While at Fessenden, John Kerry met Richard Pershing. Like John, Pershing had been educated in Switzerland and inculcated with the importance of America's role in the world. They were inseparable playing games and plotting a future. In 1957 John Kerry and Dick Pershing left Fessenden. Pershing went to Phillips Exeter Academy and John heading to St. Paul's School in Concord. They kept in close touch. John Kerry went to St. Paul's not on his fathers finance's but on the generosity of his great-aunt Clara Winthrop who had no children of her own. John's parents couldn't afford to pay for it.
At St.Paul's John Kerry was a odd man out in several ways, believing he was not of the same financial standing. In addition, he was a Kennedy fan on a campus dominated by Republicans. But with his years of education, Kerry had no problem with the rigorous academics. Kerry began St.Paul's in 8th grade and stayed through graduation. Kerry entered St.Paul's a short pudgy boy, focused on intellectual pursuits. Within a couple of years, however, Kerry skyrocketed up in height an soon resembled the man he is today. He was one of the tallest boys on campus and became a sports standout.
Having spent years debating issues around the family dinner-table, Kerry craved debate and he founded the John Winant Society, an organization named after a former New Hampshire governor that still exists to discuss major issues of the day. Kerry gave many award winning speeches.
Aside from debate, politics, and athletics Kerry found time for a favorite pursuit: rock-n-roll. Kerry and six other boys formed a band called The Electra's, which produced 500 copies of an LP. One of Kerry's best friends Peter Wyeth Johnson wrote the liner notes. Kerry played bass. Kerry and Johnson and some of the others sailed a boat owned by Kerry's father from Bermuda to the United States. But this would turn out to be one in a series of memories that a bitter ending for Kerry. Seven years after Johnson penned liner notes in Kerry's junior year at high school, on Feb.13,1968, First Lieutenant Johnson of the U.S. Army would die of small arms fire in Binh Dinh in South Vietnam.
But that would be in the future. At the time, St. Paul's seemed safe, insular world, sealed off from the world. The Reverend John Walker was hired as the first African American teacher, and became Kerry's mentor. Walker spent hours talking to Kerry about civil rights, racial problems, and many other matters. The influence of Walker was one of several factors that reinforced Kerry's decision to become a lifelong Democrat. Kerry's father was a Democrat and the family long focused on the home state senator John F. Kennedy, then Kennedy ran for president 1960 and that sealed the deal. Living at a in which mostly supported Richard Nixon made Kerry more a Kennedy zealot.
On Nov.7,1960 Kerry traveled by passenger train from Concord to Boston's North Station in order to attend Kennedy's last speech before the election. More than 100,000 people lined the streets and another 20,000 or so were inside Boston Garden including Kerry. Kennedy's speech would have a ever lasting impact on Kerry. Kerry returned to Concord. The next morning he delivered his orientation in favor of Kennedy's election to his St. Paul classmate's. Kerry never had a chance of winning over what was mostly Republican friends but he was convinced he was a Democrat in a Kennedy mold.
In 1962 Kerry worked briefly for the U.S. Senate bid of Edward M. Kennedy handing out leaflets. That same year 18 year old Kerry began to spend time with Janet Auchincloss, the half sister of Jacqueline Kennedy. This caused a stir, as Kerry's friends already became fascinated with striking parallels between John Forbes Kerry and the American president John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Aside from having the same identical initials,both lived at least part of their childhood in Mass. and shared the similar political philosophy. They talked about how Kerry even sounded like Kennedy with his deep Boston accent.
In Aug.1962, Janet Auchincloss invited Kerry to her family's palatial estate, Hammersmith Farm in Rhode Island. President Kennedy was there on a visit. Kerry got the opportunity to visit the president. Kerry told the president he just graduated from St. Paul's and was getting ready to attend Yale. Later the president, Kerry and others went sailing on the Coast Guard yawl in Narragansett Bay.
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