Years ago, my wife and I lived in far western Kansas for a short time. Passing to and from Garden City, we would have to go by Holcomb, KS. It is an idyllic little town. Just common, out of the way folks. But there always seemed to be a pall over that community. I suppose when the glare of the news media, a best selling novel chronicling a singular tragic event that had happened there, and a blockbuster movie from that novel descends on such a town, it leaves it never to be the same.
Such is what will be commemorated tomorrow, May 4...the Kent State Massacre...
I don't remember anything of that day. I was like most of my classmates...trying to survive my freshman year of high school. Vietnam, the draft, hippies, etc., all seemed like something very far away. The music had changed, coming into the late '60's/early '70's. More protest songs. Songs with anger in them. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I doubt I was alone among my peers, I had a great dislike and distrust of then-President Richard Nixon. It was just a strange time.
Fast forward 40 years, and my boss is taking me to the airport after attending the Kaman's Art Shoppes new manager training/orientation. (Rhonda. Have you found me yet?)...sorry. Inside joke. We had talked about Ohio, and I had lots of lag time before having to be in Columbus to fly out. We were up in the Cleveland area, which is where the home office is located, and as it turns out, so is Kent State University. So we took a side trip to visit. Here I am at the memorial on the campus...
...they were planting daffodils for the occasion...
...this is what I saw as I came up the hill, and it's the spot the tragedy took place...
These four stones represent the four students slain that day...
It was hard to pray. What I could get out was the first line of the "mourner's kaddish." I'm not sure anyone can approach such a place with a cavalier attitude. Even though I have a reputation as a jokester, it was difficult to choke back a lump in my throat.
These three stones are in order from left to right...
From what Brad told me(and if my faulty memory has it correct), over 50,000 daffodils will be planted for all Americans who died in the Vietnam War...
This is a stage of some sort that was being erected. I'm sure it will be for whatever "remembrance" will take place at Kent State...
One of my other bosses went to Kent State. She joked about it being 5 1/2 years of blissful partying. And in many ways, that seems to be college life. Even the deprecating humor that most have for their "alma maters." She texted me, "Can't Read, Can't Write,...Kent State," which I'm sure is a standard joke from most alums. But in the American psyche, it will never lose the image of a time when Americans were killed by other Americans in such a tragic way, and a time when peaceful assembly as a basic right in our country was under such challenges. We had to look at ourselves differently from then on, even if it is the burden of Kent State University.
So with apologies to Neil Young...
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio."
