George Rebeles lives in Ferris, Texas, a town with an estimated population of 2,788. Last month, while shopping at a local thrift store, Rebeles came across an original polaroid image, with a handwritten date on the back “11-22-63” — a date which every American ought to know, but unfortunately don’t.

Tucked inside an old compact disc case, Rebeles discovered an unpublished image of President John F. Kennedy as he departed from Love Field in his motorcade. The candid photograph captures smiling observers, but the occupants of the vehicle are turned away.

As someone who has a deep and sincere appreciation for American history, stories like these fascinate me, and I find them deeply intriguing — even more so given the circumstances of that particular tragedy. But not only that: just a few short months ago, the federal government released a trove of documents related to the assassination; records which shed new light on the alleged role of the CIA.

I often wonder how many amazing tales of heroism and nobility (what I appreciate most about history) have been lost because of the tremendous efforts and providence required to preserve the historical record, and I lament it. All I could think about was this: the moment immortalized by this black-and-white polaroid could have been easily lost, had Rebeles grown up in a time when a comprehensive “education” meant instruction in personal pronouns and inclusive “gender” language; the sanitation and rewriting of what ought to be an objective discipline, or CRT; an obsession with sexualization and pornography, or CSE; or regressive activism.

How many modern students could recognize President Kennedy, let alone see an inconspicuous image and immediately recognize it was the fateful motorcade? I’d venture to say that number is extremely low, if not zero — and what a tragedy in and of itself.

And this illiteracy isn’t exclusive to public education, or even elementary education; as we all know, it’s completely polluted academia as well. Ronald Reagan put it best when he said, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.