|
It was winter of 1974. I was just leaving one of my many English Lit classes, and trying to make my way across the grass to the parking lot during a sudden and unexpected heavy rain. With my head down to ward off the downpour, I continued to splash my way to my car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a male student, clad only in a cowboy hat and boots, “flash” by me. I laughed until I almost wet my pants!
 |
 |
| At left, then-Governor Ronald Reagan speaks at Convocation in 1970 as then-university President William Langsdorf looks on. Reagan's appearance prefaced campus unrest, including student protests, a sit-in and occupation of the President's office. |
|
It's déjà vu all over again. A nation bogged down in an unpopular war; citizens taking to the streets; a president leading the nation down a path of irrevocable harm.
It would be difficult to forget my first year at CSF: 1960-70. Governor Ronald Reagan's angry, beet-red face when confronted with hecklers in the Titan gym. The midnight arrests of Silver and Hitchcock, two activist professors, pulled from their beds in response to embarrassing a sitting governor.
The massacres at Kent State and Jackson State. The trials of the Chicago Eight. Attending SDS meetings in a small apartment across Nutwood from the campus. Discussions about a splinter movement creating dissention within the national organization - soon to be known as "The Weathermen."
"Anthropology 69" in the Quad during a student strike. Professor Hans Leder in his perennial olive-green, corduroy coat conducting an open seminar with the energy and animation of a Timothy Leary.
Bell-bottom pants, blue denim shirts, flower patches, work boots, long hair, long beards, granny glasses, Afros. Right on, brother. Right on! Power to the people. All power to the people!
The idealism, purpose, and struggle of those times are once again alive today and, hopefully will carry forward into a future of renewed hope for a strongly democratic American republic.
