May 5, 2020

Innocence Lost

I came to America in 1969.
Not a good year for America.
Even harder on Germany.

But 1970 was worse.

I was in South Carolina and planning my escape!
For a high scgool student, there were only two options:
College or military draft.
I could handle the draft since father was a personal friend with Nixon.
So, hoping to avoid the Coast Guard, I was working the college angle.

In the pre-internet days, you had magazines ads to learn about schools.
So, I had found some which looked like they would take me.
And as far from South Carolina as I could get!
Two f my top choices were Lee College in Tennessee and Ohio's Kent State.
Two non descript schools.

But, as this week was to playout, fifty years ago .....

The nation was stunned,
Then broke into factions,
By the end of the week,
It was mass rioting and confusion.
Kent State was but the spark.

My school sponsored a guy named Rudd(?) to come and speak on civil disobedience.
I certainly understood his passions,
But I knew from Nixon, personally, his split view on anti-war and governing requirements.
Although portrayed as a hard ass conservative in the press,
he was a very much a feeling man with liberal values .....

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