Saying goodbye to Ted Kennedy

BOSTON - His life's journey ended, the body of Sen. Edward Kennedy traveled by motorcade yesterday from the family compound where he spent his last days, past the building where he opened his first office to the presidential library named for his slain brother.

Thousands of mourners assembled along the 70-mile route that was dotted with landmarks named for the Kennedys. The crowds gathered to bid farewell to the last of the family's brothers and mark the end of a national political chapter that was equal parts triumph and tragedy.

For many, it was hard to untangle Kennedy's larger-than-life role as statesman from his role as neighbor and local celebrity, whether he was taking a turn conducting the Boston Pops or throwing out the first pitch for the Red Sox.

"It was Teddy's home team. It just seemed appropriate to leave him the cap," said James Jenner, 28, placing a Sox cap he was wearing near the entrance to the library. "It symbolizes everything that he loved about his home state and everything he was outside the Senate."

The motorcade started its trip in Hyannis Port, at the Cape Cod home where Kennedy's family held a private Mass. Eighty-five Kennedy relatives traveled with the senator's body to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, where the Senate's third-longest-serving member will lie in repose.

Among those accompanying Kennedy were nieces Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his late sister Eunice; and his son Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island congressman.

Before the motorcade departed, mourners crowded the end of the barricaded road leading to the family compound.

Virginia Cain, 54, said she walked 2 miles from her summer home in Centerville so she could watch the procession.

"I can remember where I was when President Kennedy died, and I'll remember where I was when the senator left Hyannis Port," she said.

On Main Street in downtown Hyannis, flags, flowers and personal notes lay at the base of a flagpole outside the John F. Kennedy Museum, where about two dozen people gathered.

Someone had placed an old Kennedy campaign sign with a new inscription: "God bless Ted, the last was first," referring to his ascension to political greatness after his two older brothers were assassinated.

Several enlarged photos showed events in Kennedy's life - meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., reading to a school girl. A rosary hung over a picture of Kennedy standing in his office.

Echoes of the Kennedy history were hard to miss as the motorcade traveled through the city.

Kennedy's wife, Vicki, put her hand over her heart as the procession rolled down Hanover Street in the North End neighborhood, past St. Stephen's Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and where Kennedy later eulogized her. The crowd applauded, and his niece Caroline and other family members acknowledged them with a wave from their cars.