Every boomer can tell you in great detail where they were on two dates: The day Kennedy was shot and September 11, 2001. May 4, 1970 can be added to my list.
Growing up in Tallmadge, Ohio, only five miles from Kent State University and having a sister attending at the time made it a little more personal for me. The story of May 4 has been analyzed, studied, documented and logged into the annals of history several times and by many more qualified than me, but the following memories are from a fifteen year old mid-teen being shaped by her generation, mass media, liberal surroundings and May 4, 1970.
As soon as we got word what had happened at Kent State my BFF, Debbie and I hopped in Debbie’s boyfriend’s Caspian blue Ford Fairlane and headed for Kent. Debbie and I, best friends, dated Dane and Mick, also best friends. Since our boyfriends had wheels and licenses, the four of us spent many hours exploring trails, graveyards and hidden places to talk, laugh and play ‘kissy-face’. I’m sure Debbie was in love with Dane, but me? Mick was fun and a lover of the outdoors, which was what we had in common, but we fought constantly. We broke up and got back together many times. The fights were the typical teenage drama that I usually initiated. To this day I’m not sure if I was bi-polar or he was. (More on that later.)
Anyhow, Mick had wild hair, black glasses and resembled Woody Allen. That “Woody” look could describe most of my serious relationships, including husband one and husband two. In a book entitled, "The Soul's Code," the author gave a rather lengthy explanation of how we fall in love and with whom. To put 500 pages in a nutshell, picture your early years as series of random hole punches (like a reel from a player piano) on a card tracking pleasurable experiences. Every time you have a happy episode, a new hole is punched recording everything about it -- who you were with, what they looked like, the aromas, the temperature...the whole atmosphere. As years go by someone comes along and matches those ‘holes’ and you experience love. There must have been a person with wild hair and black glasses (and probably a beard) because then and now I equate that look with dry and silly wit, along with intelligence and you guessed it, love.
Mick might have filled a few but not many of those holes. He did however take me to my first concert. Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Grand Funk Railroad shared the billing in Canton Ohio, one night and we had nosebleed seats. We were late and it was hot, humid and stuffy in that overfilled auditorium. I’m grateful for the experience, though. It was the night I discovered that hard rock was not my jam. To this day I can’t tell you any hits these bands played nor do I want to. My musical tastes have evolved, looped, reverted, grew and stalled but it never included hard rock.
Mick had a sentimental streak too, writing poems to me and leaving them on my car years later. I’ve always wondered what happens to sixteen year old boys who write words of love at that sensitive age and in a few short years start college and let’s face it, become dickheads who chase pussy, drink 3.2 beer and smoke dope. I don’t know if this happened to Mick but we did cross each other’s paths again in the late seventies. He had spent time in the Peace Corps, then picked grapes across the world to return home. What an adventure that must have been! I have a special reverence for those who are willing to fall face forward into life and enjoy every minute of it.
I’m not sure what the near future had for Dane, Debbie’s boyfriend. All I know is that they broke up soon after she started dating Ronnie who became and still is her husband. Sadly, I heard that Dane died of MS in his thirties.
But…. before all this sadness, marriages and adventures, came a moment in time for the four of us, May 4, 1970.
As soon as we heard the news we packed into the Fairlane and headed towards Kent. Route 261, the main artery between Kent and Tallmadge, was closed, so being savvy to the back roads of our then rural area, we found our way to Route 43 to sneak our way into Kent. We were pulled over by a state trooper.
“What are you kids doing here?” he demanded as Dane stopped and manually pulled down a sometimes -sticky driver’s side window. “Don’t you know what’s happened?”
“No, sir, what?” Dane innocently replied. Is it me or do teenagers have an innate sense of playing dumb? The trooper shook his head and told us that no one was coming in or out of Kent and to “GO BACK HOME!”.
When I did return home, my dad was glued to the news and my sister, who sensed trouble that day and didn’t go to classes, was worried about her boyfriend, Duane, who was still in Kent. Dad, a WWII vet, was visibly upset saying things like, “I don’t blame those kids. I wouldn’t go to Viet Nam either. Why ARE we there?”
Then the doorbell rang. It was Duane who told us his harrowing story.
As he was trying to hitchhike out of Kent, he was confronted by a man who told him to stop. He didn’t. Instead he jumped over the railing of a bridge that crossed the Cuyahoga River and he swam. He swam underwater as far as his breath would allow while being shot at by a National Guardsman.
Call it luck, bad aim or divine intervention, but Duane didn’t become the fifth victim at Kent State that day. After climbing out of the river, he walked five miles through fields and backyards to the safety of our middle-class, blue collar household and a family that had just gotten a first hand jolt of Viet Nam. So many other horrible and disgusting shootings will happen in the next 52 years. And every mass shooting creates that hollow pit in the stomach and a sadness for humanity. But none galvanized a generation and a generation gap so strongly. And for this one-time, 'happy days' teen created a lifelong affinity for counterculture.
###
Growing up in Tallmadge, Ohio, only five miles from Kent State University and having a sister attending at the time made it a little more personal for me. The story of May 4 has been analyzed, studied, documented and logged into the annals of history several times and by many more qualified than me, but the following memories are from a fifteen year old mid-teen being shaped by her generation, mass media, liberal surroundings and May 4, 1970.
As soon as we got word what had happened at Kent State my BFF, Debbie and I hopped in Debbie’s boyfriend’s Caspian blue Ford Fairlane and headed for Kent. Debbie and I, best friends, dated Dane and Mick, also best friends. Since our boyfriends had wheels and licenses, the four of us spent many hours exploring trails, graveyards and hidden places to talk, laugh and play ‘kissy-face’. I’m sure Debbie was in love with Dane, but me? Mick was fun and a lover of the outdoors, which was what we had in common, but we fought constantly. We broke up and got back together many times. The fights were the typical teenage drama that I usually initiated. To this day I’m not sure if I was bi-polar or he was. (More on that later.)
Anyhow, Mick had wild hair, black glasses and resembled Woody Allen. That “Woody” look could describe most of my serious relationships, including husband one and husband two. In a book entitled, "The Soul's Code," the author gave a rather lengthy explanation of how we fall in love and with whom. To put 500 pages in a nutshell, picture your early years as series of random hole punches (like a reel from a player piano) on a card tracking pleasurable experiences. Every time you have a happy episode, a new hole is punched recording everything about it -- who you were with, what they looked like, the aromas, the temperature...the whole atmosphere. As years go by someone comes along and matches those ‘holes’ and you experience love. There must have been a person with wild hair and black glasses (and probably a beard) because then and now I equate that look with dry and silly wit, along with intelligence and you guessed it, love.
Mick might have filled a few but not many of those holes. He did however take me to my first concert. Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Grand Funk Railroad shared the billing in Canton Ohio, one night and we had nosebleed seats. We were late and it was hot, humid and stuffy in that overfilled auditorium. I’m grateful for the experience, though. It was the night I discovered that hard rock was not my jam. To this day I can’t tell you any hits these bands played nor do I want to. My musical tastes have evolved, looped, reverted, grew and stalled but it never included hard rock.
Mick had a sentimental streak too, writing poems to me and leaving them on my car years later. I’ve always wondered what happens to sixteen year old boys who write words of love at that sensitive age and in a few short years start college and let’s face it, become dickheads who chase pussy, drink 3.2 beer and smoke dope. I don’t know if this happened to Mick but we did cross each other’s paths again in the late seventies. He had spent time in the Peace Corps, then picked grapes across the world to return home. What an adventure that must have been! I have a special reverence for those who are willing to fall face forward into life and enjoy every minute of it.
I’m not sure what the near future had for Dane, Debbie’s boyfriend. All I know is that they broke up soon after she started dating Ronnie who became and still is her husband. Sadly, I heard that Dane died of MS in his thirties.
But…. before all this sadness, marriages and adventures, came a moment in time for the four of us, May 4, 1970.
As soon as we heard the news we packed into the Fairlane and headed towards Kent. Route 261, the main artery between Kent and Tallmadge, was closed, so being savvy to the back roads of our then rural area, we found our way to Route 43 to sneak our way into Kent. We were pulled over by a state trooper.
“What are you kids doing here?” he demanded as Dane stopped and manually pulled down a sometimes -sticky driver’s side window. “Don’t you know what’s happened?”
“No, sir, what?” Dane innocently replied. Is it me or do teenagers have an innate sense of playing dumb? The trooper shook his head and told us that no one was coming in or out of Kent and to “GO BACK HOME!”.
When I did return home, my dad was glued to the news and my sister, who sensed trouble that day and didn’t go to classes, was worried about her boyfriend, Duane, who was still in Kent. Dad, a WWII vet, was visibly upset saying things like, “I don’t blame those kids. I wouldn’t go to Viet Nam either. Why ARE we there?”
Then the doorbell rang. It was Duane who told us his harrowing story.
As he was trying to hitchhike out of Kent, he was confronted by a man who told him to stop. He didn’t. Instead he jumped over the railing of a bridge that crossed the Cuyahoga River and he swam. He swam underwater as far as his breath would allow while being shot at by a National Guardsman.
Call it luck, bad aim or divine intervention, but Duane didn’t become the fifth victim at Kent State that day. After climbing out of the river, he walked five miles through fields and backyards to the safety of our middle-class, blue collar household and a family that had just gotten a first hand jolt of Viet Nam. So many other horrible and disgusting shootings will happen in the next 52 years. And every mass shooting creates that hollow pit in the stomach and a sadness for humanity. But none galvanized a generation and a generation gap so strongly. And for this one-time, 'happy days' teen created a lifelong affinity for counterculture.
###
RSS Feed