http://www.newsmax.com/us/kennedy/2008/05/21/97950.html
Boston Contemplates Life After Ted Kennedy
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
BOSTON -- After the Boston Red Sox's 86-year span without a World
Series champion****p, perhaps the most familiar streak in Massachusetts
is the half-century that a Kennedy has represented the state in the
U.S. Senate.
Now, the news that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has a cancerous brain tumor
is forcing people to contemplate the day when he will no longer be
there.
"It's almost incalculable," said Thaleia Schlesinger, whose brother,
former Sen. Paul Tsongas, toiled in Kennedy's oversize shadow before
resigning in 1984 to cope with cancer that eventually killed him in
1997. "He's the go-to guy over and over again. You just look at the
universities, the hospitals, the high-tech industry, education, never
mind health care. He's always been there."
Immigrants lining up at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, tourists
strolling on the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway and ordinary folks who
received handwritten thank-you notes from the senator or a surprise
distinguished visitor at a family wake pondered a future without Ted
Kennedy.
"Forty-six years is a long time to be a senator. That's got to count
for something when it comes to delivering for the state," said Ron
Mills, who runs the shoe****ne stand next to 122 Bowdoin St., the
Beacon Hill address John F. Kennedy claimed when he served in the
House and Senate and was elected president in 1960.
JFK served in the Senate from 1953 to 1960. Then Kennedy family friend
Benjamin Smith warmed the Senate seat for two years until Ted Kennedy
reached the minimum age of 30 specified in the Constitution. His
Senate career is now the third-longest in the chamber's history.
Brian Hart of Bedford first met Kennedy in November 2003 at Arlington
National Cemetery, when the senator attended the funeral of Hart's son
John, a soldier killed in Iraq. He recalled Wednesday how the senator
listened to his story about soldiers and their vehicles lacking proper
armor. Kennedy followed up by calling a hearing later that month.
Today every military vehicle in Iraq is armored. And within six months
of Kennedy's hearing, all U.S. soldiers had been issued ballistic
plates for their body armor.
"He's a wonderful guy. Literally hundreds of people are alive because
of his work and literally hundreds were not wounded because of his
work," Hart said.
The 76-year-old Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant glioma, an
especially lethal type of brain tumor. Most such patients die within
three years, sooner if they are older.
On Wednesday, Kennedy was released from Massachusetts General Hospital
in Boston and returned to the family compound at Hyannis ****t to await
test results that will help determine his treatment, which is expected
to include chemotherapy and radiation.
Kennedy gave a thumbs-up to well-wishers and kisses to relatives as he
walked out of the hospital. A square bandage on the back of his head
marked the spot where doctors performed a biopsy on the brain tumor.
Kennedy's dogs, Sunny and Splash, met him at the hospital door.
Hospital employees and others applauded the senator.
Before he and his wife, Vicki, got into a dark Chevrolet Suburban,
Kennedy kissed his daughter, Kara, and his niece Caroline Kennedy, and
embraced his son Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island.
On the road to the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod, neighbors placed
signs welcoming the senator home. "We wish you well Ted, The Sullivan
Family," one read.
The Boston Herald, the conservative tabloid that has delighted for
decades in ridiculing the senator, declared, "We're with you, Ted"
across its front page.
Kennedy took a walk on the beach with his dogs as soon as he got home.
"Good to be back home," he told re****ters before he and his wife
headed off for a sail on his sloop, Mya.
Doctors said Kennedy has "recovered remarkably quickly" from the
biopsy. They said he would recuperate at his home over the Memorial
Day weekend.
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