General Discussion

about the campus in 1969.

We had seen the 1968 assassinations and the police riot at the Democratic Convention; I sat by Jerry Rubin when he spoke in our student union building; I voted for the first time; I turned 19.

Spring 1970 the Administration allowed professors to end the formal class semester in order for students to protest and do assignments about their activities.

P.S. I hadn't heard the Kent State killings referred to as a "massacre." But it nevertheless was one.

P.P.S. The famous photo of the distraught girl kneeling at William Schroeder? She wasn't a student.

P.P.P.S. 1969.The Moon landing. Chappaquiddick. Manson/Tate/LaBianca. Altamont.

The Sixties and all the optimism we mustered after 11/22/1963 when in 1964-1967 the British Invasion brought us color, song, joy, hope, freedom---died, along with 55,000 of my contemporaries in The Big Muddy.

And nothing in our history since has restored in any way that sense of optimism.

Not after we learned the stark lesson that our government would have no qualms not only about drafting us from campus, but in killing us on campus.