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A review by romrosp
Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years by Michael Palin
Sunday, March 16th 1975
We eventually found ourselves at the scene of the shooting. What struck me most was the eerie ordinariness of the spot. Possibly I’d expected the area to be razed to the ground, but here we were, on a cool March Sunday, standing on the most famous – the only famous – grassy knoll in the world, looking up at the Book Depository windows from which Oswald had fired, and across to the road, narrow by American standards, where Kennedy had been shot. The strongest impression is that Oswald must have been a genius to fire three times accurately from that angle, at a car travelling away from him down a sloping road. Second impression is that the grassy knoll, besides offering a much closer and easier view of the target, was an ideal place for an assassin to escape from. An expanse of open railway land, away from streets, cars, sightseers.
We eventually found ourselves at the scene of the shooting. What struck me most was the eerie ordinariness of the spot. Possibly I’d expected the area to be razed to the ground, but here we were, on a cool March Sunday, standing on the most famous – the only famous – grassy knoll in the world, looking up at the Book Depository windows from which Oswald had fired, and across to the road, narrow by American standards, where Kennedy had been shot. The strongest impression is that Oswald must have been a genius to fire three times accurately from that angle, at a car travelling away from him down a sloping road. Second impression is that the grassy knoll, besides offering a much closer and easier view of the target, was an ideal place for an assassin to escape from. An expanse of open railway land, away from streets, cars, sightseers.