With silence, a friend pays tribute to JFK Jr.'s memory

The Kennedy family is like a tornado that never really dies down.

Its members shift and travel across the American cultural and political landscape, touching down from time to time, stirring up everything in their midst.

So it makes sense that the eye of the Kennedy storm is the quietest place of all.

Dan Samson has spent 20 years in the stillness of that eye. And even with his friend, John F. Kennedy Jr., dead for a year now, Samson prefers to stay quiet about their friendship. It is a vow he refuses to break.

And yet, there are things we already know.

Samson lives in Magnolia. He was in Hyannisport last July, waiting at John's house for a visit. He was there when the morning came, and still no John, no Carolyn, or Carolyn's sister, Lauren.

He was there when the news trucks came, their generators churning, their antennae a forest that had grown overnight, their riders emerging with microphones out, notebooks open, waiting.

I waited, too. But Dan Samson says I can wait forever. John was his friend, worth more than all the newsprint in the world. It was his loss, too.

Now 39 and the former owner of Dankens Gourmet Ice Creams, Samson was a sophomore at Yale when he befriended Kennedy, who was a freshman at Brown. They were introduced by Kennedy's cousin, Timothy Shriver, who enlisted both of them to work the summer at Upward Bound, an enrichment program for disadvantaged kids.

Twenty summers later, Samson was the first one to realize Kennedy's failure to come through the kitchen door of his house in Hyannisport was not just John's being late again. Something was wrong. Samson called authorities, he called the family, he called his wife.

And then he hunkered down in the house for days, dodging the media throng that would convey the news of another Kennedy's death to the world.

I called Samson a few weeks ago, as the anniversary of that week approached. I got the answering machine.

Did he want to talk? I asked. Say anything about his friend? If so, call me back. If not, call me back anyway. Just so I know I have the right person.

Samson called from his cell phone. He was walking his dog.

Yes, he was John's friend. But no, he had nothing to say. It was too hard, too much of a loss.

And it was too soon. A year had not been nearly long enough to recover from the shock of two beautiful people, two good friends, being gone for good.

Quickly, before I lost him, I asked a few things. Is it true Kennedy was thinking of moving to Magnolia?

No, he said. Samson was just showing him around one day in a rented convertible, pointing out nice houses. People saw them and took Samson to be a real-estate agent.

The rumor spread like wildfire, as did the list of items that John picked up at the Magnolia Red Apple (now the Thriftway) during his visit. Bags of chips and beer made the news, simply because it was John who had bought them.

It was a crazy way to live, Samson said.

But it was better than now; than not at all.

No. No interview, Samson told me. But thanks anyway.

"I only called you back," he said, "because I don't want a rude person connected with John. It sounds silly, but. . . ."

Days later, a letter came.

"I want to apologize to you for having to decline your request to meet with me to talk about my friend, John," it began. "The rarer the commodity, the more valuable it is . . . I am sure you can understand that for John nothing held greater value than his personal life.

"John's closest friends were those that protected the sanctity of that personal relationship. So my gut tells me I should honor that spirit in both John and Carolyn's death as I did during their lives."

Samson would mark the anniversary away in the San Juan Islands. Beyond that, he would only say this:

"John had a zest for life like no other person that I have known or come to know. It is little consolation, but some comfort can be taken in knowing that John packed more life into 38 years than most of us could ever hope for in 100 years.

"My wife Jody and I . . . miss them both a great deal and just hope that they are able to find some peace in their deaths, that which was too often hard for them to come by during their lives."

And that was that. The rest of the stories, the truth to the rumors, would stay with Samson, along with the pictures, the memories, the pain . . . and the quiet. Which seems even more so now.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in The Times. Her phone number is 206-464-2334. Her e-mail address is nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. God, he was beautiful.