{"id":8911,"date":"2019-10-01T15:12:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T15:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/?p=8911"},"modified":"2019-10-02T16:09:54","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T16:09:54","slug":"day-glo-napalm-committed-sixties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2019\/10\/01\/day-glo-napalm-committed-sixties\/","title":{"rendered":"Day-Glo &amp; Napalm: Committed Sixties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"734\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2019\/10\/Chris-and-Ken-e1569941785155-734x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"8912\" data-link=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/?attachment_id=8912\" class=\"wp-image-8912\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2019\/10\/Chris-and-Ken-e1569941785155-734x1024.jpg 734w, https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2019\/10\/Chris-and-Ken-e1569941785155-215x300.jpg 215w, https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2019\/10\/Chris-and-Ken-e1569941785155-768x1072.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/files\/2019\/10\/Chris-and-Ken-e1569941785155.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 734px) 100vw, 734px\" \/><figcaption>Chris Malis and Ken Sachs lead the way at a March 20, 1969 \u201cFinger-In\u201d demonstration at Gulley Hall organized by SDS.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p> The following guest posts by alumni Chris Malis (&#8217;72) and Ellie Goldstein\/Erickson (&#8217;70) are in conjunction with the current UConn Archives exhibition <em><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2019\/07\/03\/day-glo-and-napalm-uconn-from-1967-to-1971\/\">Day-Glo &amp; Napalm: UConn 1967-1971 <\/a><\/em>guest curated by George Jacobi (&#8217;71).  The exhibition is on display until October 25th in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.  The Gallery is open Mon-Fri 9-4pm, with a Saturday viewing on October 12th, 9-5pm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <strong>Guest Post by Chris Malis (&#8217;72):<\/strong>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We Are Stardust <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coming of age in the Sixties (c.1965-c.1972) was a gift; it\nmade me who I am now. Contrary to the changes of many as they age, I have not\ngrown more conservative over the years. Am I the same person I was then? Of\ncourse not. Would my 20-year-old self like my 70-year-old self? Perhaps not so\nmuch. Would I do (or not do) certain things differently if I could go back in\ntime? Sure. But on the whole, I feel grateful to have come of age in that time\nand space. It was the most magical, earth-shaking decade of the 20<sup>th<\/sup>\nCentury. I won\u2019t say earth-changing, because \u2026 look around. Who would have\nthought that, 50 years later, we\u2019d still be fighting racism, poverty, war,\nwomen\u2019s reproductive rights, income inequality, sexual violence, and impending\nenvironmental collapse? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the words of Lincoln\u2019s first inaugural address on March\n4, 1861: <em>\u201cWe\nare not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have\nstrained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory\nwill swell \u2026 when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels\nof our nature.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Sixties, for me, was a time of better angels coming to\nthe fore. I desperately hope they return in force\u2026 and soon!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I Was So Much Older Then <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I began my Leftist political journey in 1963, quite by accident, at the ripe age of 14. It was my turn that year to spend time with my cousin and his family in Silver Spring, MD. We\u2019d explore D.C. by bus and by foot. On August 28, 1963, we left the house as usual, with the admonition from my Aunt to steer clear of the \u201ctroubles\u201d near the Washington Mall. This, of course, made visiting the Mall an imperative and we were soon at the Lincoln Memorial, now part of the almost 300,000 people participating in the <strong><em>People\u2019s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom<\/em><\/strong>. Chance and adolescent rebellion gifted us with witnessing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s historic <strong><em>\u201cI Have a Dream\u201d<\/em><\/strong> speech. Our initial apprehension at being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of mostly Black people quickly faded as we stood among the working poor, the homeless, people fighting for economic equality and social justice, as we listened to Dr. King, John Lewis, Roy Wilkins and the protest music of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul &amp; Mary. We were accepted and supported by the people who were marching to achieve those very things. It was a transformative, life changing day for me, one I would not have again until Woodstock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Attending UConn in the Fall of 1967, following the \u201cSummer\nof Love,\u201d opened up a whole new world for me. For the next 4 years, I would\ntry, and sometimes succeed, in living in the moment\u2026 and accessing the \u201cbetter\nangels\u201d within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>After Bathing at Baxter&#8217;s &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I first dropped acid as a Freshman in April, 1968, I was\nfortunate enough to get two capsules of Sandoz Pharmaceutical (now Novartis)\nmedical grade Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25. My roommate \u201cWhitey\u201d and I each\ntook a capsule. Two friends accompanied us for our safety, and another friend drove\nus to a lovely stream in the woods of Coventry. At one point that beautiful\nafternoon, I spontaneously decided to get up and run through the woods. I believed\nI was running in a straight line, directly THROUGH the trees. My friend George\nthought I was freaking out, and ran after me yelling \u201cChris, I\u2019m your friend!\nIt\u2019s OK!\u201d &nbsp;It was OK. On our walk back, I\npulled a dead sapling out of the ground and dragged it along. Arriving back at\nthe stream, my roommate was nowhere to be seen, and our friend David was\nsitting there waiting. A voice called my name from a wooded area to our right. Making\nour way to the spot, we saw my roommate, also holding a dead sapling HE had\npulled out of the ground in his hand! He told me that I was the only one he\ncould communicate with, and we all went back to the stream. A short while later\na beautifully carved walking stick floated down the stream. I pulled it out. On\nit was written \u201cThis is a MAGIC STICK.\u201d To this day, no one has claimed\nresponsibility for placing it in the stream! Later that afternoon the sun seemed\nto \u201cvanish\u201d from the sky, replaced by a kaleidoscope of colorful Chinese dragon\nkites. That evening, when our \u201cdriver\u201d Bill came to pick us up, we passed a\nMichelin tire store, and I got a big kick out of the giant Michelin Man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another highlight of my time at UConn was during a\nphilosophy class, when we all dropped acid and went to see Walt Disney\u2019s\nFantasia at the College Theatre! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One prevalent theme at the time, of searching for inner\nenlightenment, coupled with my youthful sense of invincibility,&nbsp; &nbsp;enabled me to leap into the unknown with\npsychedelics. Today, LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, MDMA, and other psychedelics\nare at the forefront of scientific\/medical studies into their extremely\npositive effects on depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies by literally\nrewiring and creating new synapses in the brain, thus helping people hindered\nby a physiological resistance to anti-depressant drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Out of the Jungle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The strangers who became friends in the Jungle at the end of\nthe Summer of Love decided to stay together the following year. We had abandoned\nthe traditions of the frats: hazing, beanie caps, panty raids, and weekend\nbinge drinking. &nbsp;We had pot and our music,\nplus Civil Rights, the Vietnam War and the draft to deal with. So in the Fall\nof 1968, we moved into the second floor of McMahon Hall, creating our own \u201cfraternity\u201d:\nFrappa Rappa Eappa Appa Kappa &#8211; \u201cFREAK\u201d HOUSE!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A Day (actually, 4 Years)\nIn A Life<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My parents got REALLY tired of seeing me on the local\nevening news, at one demonstration or another, disrupting Board of Trustee\nmeetings, occupying Gulley Hall, participating in \u201cBloody Tuesday\u201d at the house\nused for corporate recruiting \u2013 in this case, Olin Matheson &#8211; on Gilbert Rd., occasionally\ngetting arrested (including voluntary arrests en masse!) for minor misdemeanors\nrelated to the protests. But Dad came around, especially after Tricky Dick\nexposed himself as the lying traitor crook that he was. A fun day for me was\nperforming in a Charlie Brover play during English class. I only remember\nwalking around on stage with a bowl of Corn Flakes, hurling handfuls at the\naudience while shouting \u201cConsume! Consume!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a reading by Allen Ginsberg at Jorgenson Auditorium one\nweekend (at which many tuxedoed parents in attendance walked out due to his\nconstant and pronounced use of the word \u201cFuck\u201d), we gathered at the Inner\nCollege House off campus on Rt. 195 next to a hardware store for a party in\nAllen\u2019s honor. At one point, Allen Ginsberg came up to me and asked if I wanted\nto fuck! Somewhat taken aback by this surprise gesture, I politely declined the\ninvitation, and Allen went on his way to other potential partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Questioning (and\nFlaunting) Authority<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our sit-in at Gulley Hall in the Fall of \u201868 was a\nfascinating experience for me, a direct action that had the potential to\nnegatively impact my future, both immediate and long term. Organized by SDS,\npeople were busy all night reading and copying documents of all kinds. There\nwas a record player in Gulley Hall, and I remember listening to the recently\nreleased Dylan album \u201cJohn Wesley Harding,\u201d with his original version of \u201cAll\nAlong the Watchtower\u201d during the night. Exiting the building the following\nmorning, with our hands held high in Peace signs, was exhilarating.&nbsp; We believed in what we were doing, and\nwilling to risk our futures to achieve our goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Same was true for \u201cBloody Tuesday,\u201d when we gathered \u2013 again\n&#8212; to attempt to prevent corporations like Dow Chemical (the makers of the\nnapalm \u201cdefoliant\u201d) and Olin Matheson from recruiting students to their ranks\nON CAMPUS. Another primary recruiting station was the UConn skating rink\nbuilding. A much smaller but vocal and aggressive group called \u201cYoung\nRepublicans\u201d would often confront us there. \u201cBloody Tuesday,\u201d however, was at a\nhouse on Gilbert Rd. being used for corporate recruiting purposes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At both the Gulley Hall and Gilbert Rd. incidents, the State\nPolice were called in. While things remained peaceful at Gulley Hall, a scuffle\nturned into a small skirmish with the police at the Gilbert Rd. house. As a\nresult, a cop hit one of the demonstrators (I believe it was Ed Vann) on the\nhead with his club, drawing blood; hence, \u201cBloody Tuesday!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other Leftist events occurred off campus. For several months\nat a time, it seems like I would travel to Boston, New York, and\/or Washington\nD.C. for a rally or demonstration of one sort or another at least once a month.\nThe national Student Moratorium Committee would hold an anti-war rally almost\nmonthly in D.C., and various friends and I would often be there. Sometimes, a\ngroup of us would break off from the hundreds of thousands of people listening\nto speakers and musicians, and move over to the Justice Department for some\nmore hard core demonstrating against John Mitchell and Tricky Dick. We usually\nwore bandanas, not so much to hide our identities, but to buffer the tear gas\nthey used on us; it wasn\u2019t much protection. Another D.C. trip occurred on\nThanksgiving Day in 1969 or 1970, when friends showed up at my parents\u2019 door at\nthe appointed time, hopped into my brand new VW Bug, and I drove to D.C. for the\nBlack Panthers\u2019 First Plenary Session of the People\u2019s Constitutional\nConvention. It was there that I met Jane Fonda (albeit very briefly), better\nknown to right-wingers as \u201cHanoi Jane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May Day (May 1 each year) was always a significant date each\nyear for many Leftists. On May Day 1970, I was at Yale University in New Haven,\nprotesting the trial of Bobby Seale, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, and\nthe continuing Vietnam War. Local news came on TV at 6:00 pm each evening, and\nsome of the crowd wanted to go back to the dorms to watch. As I picked up and\nhurled a tear gas canister back at the police, I shouted \u201cWe ARE the news;\u201d\neveryone stayed. That weekend we stayed at my friend Gary\u2019s mother\u2019s house, as the\nprotests continued. One morning we were on the Yale campus and went to leave\none building to go to another. As soon as we opened the building door, the same\nINVISIBLE tear gas they used in Vietnam hit us. Our third member, Kate, went\ndown like a sack of potatoes. Gary and I carried her to an improvised medic and\ntriage tent, where she recovered and we continued our activities. Prior to this\nevent I had never heard of colorless tear gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May Day 1971 was a big one. A rather thick pamphlet had been\npublished, telling the world (including the authorities) that the goal was to\nbring a halt to Washington, D.C. business as usual\u2026 and explaining exactly how we\nwere going to do that. Buses came in from all over the country, most from\nvarious schools and universities, some from religious or other groups. The\norganizers had prepared well with the various schools in and around D.C. for\nhousing and strategic planning purposes. Those of us from UConn went to our\nrespective school for housing and to receive our assignment for the May Day\nshutdown of D.C. Because May 1<sup>st<\/sup> was a Saturday, the shutdown was\nscheduled for Monday, May 3. We attended rallies that weekend, and camped out\nat the Washington Monument one night. Around daybreak the following morning, we\nwere listening to Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth performing live for us, when\nword that the police would soon run a sweep of the area came through. A couple\nof thousand people picked up their things and vanished in minutes! Monday\nmorning, May 3, we arrived at our designated shutdown intersection at 5:00 am,\nconferred with our group leader, and proceeded to sit down in the intersection,\nlocking arms and preventing commuters from driving to work that morning. As I\nremember, we were pretty successful in shutting down Washington business \u2013\ngovernment and commercial \u2013 for the day. By late morning, we were entangled\nwith the police, as they tried to round up as many of us as possible. Something\nlike 12,000 people were arrested that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>D.C. had a very large and \u201cspecial\u201d goon squad that they\nwould call out for Leftist actions like this. These were cops (or deputized\nthugs) who ENJOYED banging heads of left-wing agitators like us, however\nnon-violent we might have been. At many actions that I participated in, we\nfaced these goon squads as they charged us on electric scooters and on\nhorseback, flailing away at our heads with their billy clubs; I narrowly\nescaped their attacks more than once. At a demonstration at the DOJ building, Mitchell\nstood on his little balcony watching. It was lunch time, and mothers were out\nwalking their kids or their dogs, workers were on lunch break, and others were\nsimply walking from one place to another. They all got caught up in the goon\nsquad net at the DOJ. In spite of the Chief of Police shouting through his\nbullhorn that anyone who wanted to leave could do so and not be arrested, the\nphalanx of goon squad cops closed off the street and prevented ANYONE from\nleaving. More folks were arrested on that day and place than any other single\nday in U.S. history! Buses were brought to the large opening on the side of the\nDOJ building, and info was taken on each person \u2013 babies, dogs and all \u2013 as we\nwere loaded onto the buses for transporting to our arraignments. As the jails\nwere already full, many of us, including myself, spent the night at the JFK\nstadium, where we awaited our initial court date. A class action lawsuit against\nthe government in the \u201880s won a court battle establishing the illegal nature\nof this goon squad and indiscriminate mass arrests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? The Draft and the Lottery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was in the small TV lounge in McMahon in December 1969\nthat we all sat down to watch the first drawing of Draft numbers AS A LOTTERY,\nlive on TV. Those present each kicked in a buck, and the person with the worst\n(lowest) number won. I took home $30.00 that day. My birthday drew number 14;\nnobody else was even close. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had been doing anti-war counseling, helping people apply\nfor Conscientious Objector status, and steering students to a UConn\npsychiatrist named Dr. Steinman who protected those who had received their\ndraft notice by writing letters for them. When my best friend from high school\nwas ordered for his physical, this wonderful doctor met with him and wrote and\nincredibly insightful letter for the draft board, resulting in a 4-F\nclassification for him. My friend was NOT cut out for the military; the Army\nwould have killed this kind and gentle man before he got out of boot camp. By\nthe time I got my induction notice for my physical, Dr. Steinman\u2019s signature\nassured an automatic trip to \u2018Nam. I, and others, found a New Haven psych\nclinic called Psychotherapy Associates; they wrote me a letter which got me a\n1-F classification. Had this not worked, I\u2019d probably be living in Canada now.\nThe former head of Psychotherapy Associates was kind enough to write an essay\nfor the <strong><em>\u201cDayglo and Napalm\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Exhibit. Over the years, I\u2019ve sometimes\nfelt conflicted by my choice. I did and still do believe the Vietnam War was\nboth illegal and immoral, initiated by a lie (Gulf of Tonkin non-incident),\nimposed on the poor who could not avoid a draft that was fundamentally racist\nin its execution. I opposed the war on moral, philosophical, political, social,\neconomic and spiritual grounds. But unless you were raised in a faith that\nexplicitly prohibits killing under any circumstances, you could not qualify as\na Conscientious Objector. Ironically, the Quaker faith in which Nixon was\nraised DOES prohibit killing! Go figure! As for war objectors, I always felt\nthe ones who went through the experience of Vietnam had the most credibility to\npoint out the flaws of war. On the other hand, you don\u2019t have to actually do\nheroin to understand the dangers and negative impacts of using it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Spring of 1970 also saw an event put on by a nascent\nenvironmental movement at UConn, called the \u201cGarden.\u201d I am happy to have been\npart of it, singing with our ad hoc group Ripe Olives during the event. A\ngeodesic dome was built down by Mirror Lake, and we had literature and speakers\nabout the environment as well. Nixon allowed the creation of the Cabinet-level\nEPA in 1970 due to popular demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t shoot! We are your Children.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biggest single event of my time at UConn occurred on May\n4, 1970. In response to Nixon\u2019s expansion of the Vietnam \u201cConflict\u201d into\nCambodia, anti-war demonstrations increased. On May 4, a sunny Spring Monday,\nat lunchtime on the campus of Kent State University, 28 young (mostly 19 and 20-year-old)\nOhio National Guardsmen with live ammo were ordered to shoot at unarmed students.\nYeah, I know the \u201cofficial\u201d report says no one \u201cordered\u201d the shooting, but the\nKent State Archives at Yale has a tape, which recent technological advances\nhave allowed us to hear an officer shout \u201cFIRE;\u201d 67 rounds and 13 seconds\nlater, 4 persons lay dead, and 9 others were wounded, one of whom became a\nparaplegic. Some of those 13 people were demonstrators, some were simply changing\nclasses, some were just enjoying a beautiful Spring day. Suddenly, American\nkids were killing American kids on American soil at an institution of higher\nlearning. The Scranton Commission, <strong>\u201c<em>The President\u2019s Commission on Campus Unrest<\/em>,\u201d<\/strong>\nset up by Tricky Dick, concluded that the National Guard shootings were <strong><em>unjustified<\/em><\/strong>,\nbut the 8 indicted Guardsmen never faced trial; a conservative judge dismissed\nall charges. The Grand Jury INSTEAD indicted 24 students and 1 faculty member, (the\n\u201cKent State 25\u201d), of which 5 went to trial. One person was convicted, and 2\nothers pled guilty. One person was acquitted, and the 5<sup>th<\/sup> person had\ncharges dropped. The remaining 20 indictments were thrown out for lack of\nevidence in 1971.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio\nkneeling in a frozen scream of horror beside the dead body of Jeffrey Miller\nlying in a pool of his blood (he was shot through his mouth) is forever etched\nin my mind; it still gives me shivers when I see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>STRIKE!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>4,000,000+ students across the country then participated in\nthe first ever national student strike. Over 450 colleges and universities shut\ndown for the remainder of the school year. It remains the largest student\nstrike in history. &nbsp;UConn gave us two\nchoices: either take the grade we had as of May 4, or accept a simple Pass\/Fail\ngrade. The administration made all classes optional to students; faculty had to\nbe present for students who wanted to attend class. &nbsp;A group of us decided that this was\nunacceptable under the circumstances. That week a dozen of us covered our faces\nwith kerchiefs and roamed the campus, interrupting the two or 3 classes we\nfound in session, to ask why they were discussing math instead of the Kent\nState Massacre. On Friday, May 8, there was a knock on my door. &nbsp;It was a letter requiring me to appear before\nthe Dean of Students the following week to justify why I should not be\nimmediately suspended\/expelled from UConn for my activities. I was thus\nsuspended pending a hearing during the summer, at which I expressed my views on\nboth my actions and the war itself. The final verdict, made by Dean of Students\nJack Manning, was to keep my suspension in place, but to \u201csuspend the\nsuspension\u201d for the remainder of my academic time at UConn\u2026 providing I was a\n\u201cgood boy!\u201d [As we had come to know one another somewhat during1970, I utilized\nDean Manning to get me into a full class in the Fall of 1971, thus allowing me\nto complete my undergraduate work at UConn in my 5<sup>th<\/sup> year, while I\nworked full time in a factory in Willimantic.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The invasion of the \u201clittle boxes on the hillside\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WHITE Baby Boomers were raised after the horrors of the\nDepression and WWII, in the tranquil \u201850s, when tract housing in the suburbs, a\nnew car, a manicured lawn and 2.5 children was the new American Dream. Unions\nhad created a Middle Class. Most of my peers and I came from relatively\ncomfortable, albeit not affluent, homes. By the mid-\u201860s, however, we were\nquestioning the values of our parents\u2019 generation, which included political,\nphilosophical\/moral, and social mores of the time. The Beatles \u2013 primarily\nGeorge \u2013 opened the doors to Transcendental Meditation and Eastern religion and\nphilosophy.&nbsp; Aldous Huxley, Herman Hesse,\nC. S. Lewis, Ram Das, Timothy Leary and others opened the doors of perception\nto not new ideas so much, as to new\/old ways of looking at ideas and the world.\nThe wisdom of 19<sup>th<\/sup> Century Indigenous peoples helped spread\nalternative views of life and the environment. By the mid-\u201860s, technology had\nbrought the national news with Walter Cronkite (\u201cUncle Wally,\u201d touted as \u201cthe\nmost trusted man in America\u201d in the \u201860s), into our homes Monday through Friday\nat 6:30 pm, extended from its original 15-minute time slot to \u00bd hour. The world\nwas at our doorstep transported by the rabbit ears on our TV, the books that we\nread (Hermann Hesse, Ram Das\u2019 Be Here Now, etc)\u2026 and the music that we listened\nto and saw live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rock my Soul<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll became Rock music in the mid \u201860s, a torch to\nlight the way to this alternative worldview. &nbsp;Movies like \u201cEasy Rider,\u201d \u201cComing Home,\u201d \u201cBilly\nJack,\u201d \u201cThe Trial of Billy Jack,\u201d \u201cA Man Called Horse,\u201d and \u201cMcCabe and Mrs.\nMiller\u201d influenced a generation. We learned that not only is there more than\none way to look at just about anything, but that a lot of what we were taught\nas youngsters growing up was actual lies\u2026 and just plain wrong. We learned to\nquestion authority. Music lyrics helped guide and reinforce both our beliefs\nand our experimentation; they were written by band members who were of our\ngeneration, and expressed what we were feeling and thinking. Baby Boomers\nevolved into listening to whole albums, not just hit singles. This was, in\npart, because bands and artists not just pushed the envelope of sound, but tore\nthe lid off of what was lyrically and sonically possible. Corporate control of\nmusic hadn\u2019t yet established their formulaic sound for maximum profit through repeat\nsales of the same song over and over again. Record labels then just saw dollar\nsigns in the youth generation. They signed anybody who played guitar, and Rock\nwas born, on the foundation of Blues, Country, Folk, Bluegrass and R&amp;B,\ninto something new and fresh. It truly was the Classic Age of this incredible\nmusical form called Rock; even Pop and Easy Listening artists were influenced\nby it. Experimentation was tolerated, if not outright encouraged! For much of\nmy college life, if I did not see three live concerts and two films (at the\nCollege Theater just off campus) each week, it meant that I was ill \u2026 or away\nat another demonstration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The musical free expression of my generation culminated in\nthe August 15 \u2013 17 (ending mid-morning on the 18<sup>th<\/sup>) weekend forever\nknown as Woodstock. This was NOT merely a Rock concert. Woodstock \u201994 and\nWoodstock \u201999, Bonnaroo, Coachella, along with most any other music festival\nyou can name, are commercial music concerts. In spite of what you may have read\nin this 50<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary year, Woodstock was different \u2013 a <strong><em>unique<\/em><\/strong>\nevent that couldn\u2019t have been planned or executed by human thought and endeavor;\na <strong><em>singular,\ntranscendent<\/em><\/strong> event that literally changed the entire forward trajectory\nof the lives of many of the attendees. Although most of the biggest bands in\nthe world played Woodstock, the festival also happened at hundreds of small\ncampfires scattered around the 600-acre farm of Max Yazgur, where kids played\ntheir own guitars, kazoos, tambourines, mouth harps, etc. in communal bonding\nto a Gathering of the Tribes. <strong><em>Two million<\/em><\/strong> people attended the\nfestival at some point during that weekend. We were the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> largest\ncity in New York State, with all the inherent problems any big city has: not\nenough sanitation, food shortages, lack of shelter, communication breakdowns,\netc. So the State declared a \u201cDisaster Area\u201d around Bethel. But they weren\u2019t\nthere. They didn\u2019t see what we saw. They didn\u2019t experience the reality of\nrunning a city on <strong><em>counterculture <\/em><\/strong>values of Peace, Love, Communal and Community\nSharing, of aspiring to our better angels by accepting EVERYONE there as\nBrother and Sister\u2026 as Family. In part because no money was involved,\ncapitalism had no presence there that weekend. Thus, no greed, no selfishness\u2026\nNO FIGHTS! This is why duplicating that festival is impossible, given $400\ntickets, $40 T-shirts and $4 bottles of water. We were <strong><em>safe<\/em><\/strong> in each other\u2019s\narms, safe to express our true selves, safe to experiment with drugs seeking\nour inner selves within the context of the outer universe&#8230; having each other\u2019s\nbacks. I am still so grateful to have been there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Course work back then for me included writing an almost\n20-page document as the final project for a philosophy class. I called it: An\nAutobiography of God.\u201d It was my young life story up to that point\u2026 and it was\ncomposed entirely of Rock lyrics accurately describing every aspect of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Work, or We were looking for someone who could quote\nKant.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I graduated with a major in English and a minor in\nPhilosophy, making me uniquely qualified to be an apple picker, a cab driver, a\nwelder, a house painter, a wholesale traveling salesman for a small-label vinyl\nrecord distributor, a retail salesperson at a vinyl record store at the\nEastbrook Mall in Mansfield, a newspaper correspondent, a writer for a Union\npaper, an 18<sup>th<\/sup> century house restorer\/carpenter\/laborer, and an aide\nat Mansfield Training School, which was a large institution for those with\nintellectual disabilities (then called \u201cretarded\u201d). But that\u2019s another story!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When it all comes\ndown,<\/strong><strong> you&#8217;ve got to\ngo back to Mother Earth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In spite of these apparently limitless career opportunities,\nI felt compelled to participate in the Back-to-the-Land Movement and in 1972 bought\n50 acres of land overlooking Lake Ainslie on beautiful Cape Breton, Nova Scotia,\nCanada for the astronomical price of $3,000.00! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sidebar: <\/strong>In the\nFall of \u201972 I drove West, via Canada, then down through Detroit &#8211; where the\ncustoms agents at the border literally tore my VW bug apart looking for drugs\n(and made us put the car seats and our belongings back together at 1:00 am!) &#8211;\ncontinuing on to Chicago and then heading down through Boulder, Albuquerque and\nSanta Fe, then Phoenix and Tucson, over to San Diego, and up the Pacific Coast\nHighway to my final destination of San Francisco, where I and 10 others lived\nin a beautiful urban commune on Frederick Street, just down from the old Dead\nand Airplane houses in the Haight-Ashbury. &nbsp;The return trip East the following year was\nspent mostly camping in National Parks and Forests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I returned to CT, during every summer from 1973 through\n1980, I\u2019d quit whatever job I had and head up to Cape Breton to live on my\nland, with about $300 in my pocket. Often, I would return with more money than\nI left with, as day laborers were greatly appreciated by the area farmers. &nbsp;I had a large cabin tent as my base camp, and\na backpacking tent for travel. I met several people with the same idea that\nfirst summer, and even more as the years passed, and we all helped build many a\nlog cabin. We lived in a 20-mile radius of husband and wife U.S. expats, and\ntheir 8 kids (7 boys and a girl) whose farm was the center of our\ncounterculture community, in the lovely farming village of Mabou. Returning to\nthe States each Fall, I became a member of the Willimantic Food Coop, then operating\nout of a church basement on Valley Street, where bulk orders were distributed\nonce a month. When the Coop moved to their present retail location in the early\n\u201870s, I wrote for their early newsletter, contributing the name <strong><em>\u201cThe\nMonthly Compost.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> &nbsp;Coop members\nalso contributed financially, in effect becoming owners\/workers\/consumers of\nthe coop, for the good of the entire community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Talking Your Friend the Atom Blues<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I tried to live according to my values into the \u201880s, with\nthe No Nukes and Earth First Environmental Movements. In 1991, a quasi-public\nstate agency called the <strong>CT Hazardous\nWaste Management Service (CHWMS)<\/strong> chose 3 sites for a <strong>Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) <\/strong>dump in the\nVernon\/Ellington\/South Windsor area. The siting process was mandated by the\nfederal gov\u2019t, as the two out-of-state facilities that CT and other states were\nsending their LLRW to &#8211; Barnwell, South Carolina and Envirocare of Utah, Inc &#8211; were\nboth reaching capacity. Congress simply abdicated finding a permanent disposal\nsolution for LLRW, and mandated each State dispose of their own LLRW, with the\ncaveat that States could enter into Regional Compacts to accomplish that goal. &nbsp;All 3 of the CT sites, plus a potential 4<sup>th<\/sup>\nsite in Stafford, included prime farmland, were in close proximity to several\ngrade schools, and had a high population density as well as a high water table.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When they chose these sites, they calculated that the local\nyokels living in the region wouldn\u2019t even notice, much less put up a fight.<em> <\/em>However, our neighbors included farmers, parents,\nscientists from UConn and other area schools, experts on water, soil, nuclear\ntechnology, social impacts, and the economy. Real Estate agents documented the fall\nof property values as a result of the dump.\nPrinters printed signs and buttons for us for free or at cost to spread the\nword and provide visuals for the media to state our purpose. We formed two\ngroups: <strong>C.O.R.E. (Citizens Opposed to a Radioactive\nEnvironment) <\/strong>and<strong> COW (Citizens\nOpposed to Waste)<\/strong>; I was Vice-President of C.O.R.E. We marched, we rallied,\nwe met with other groups, and we physically stopped CT surveying teams and\nothers from accomplishing their objectives. We also went on speaking tours to\ntowns all over the State that invited us to speak to their officials and towns\npeople about the situation, and to offer ways they, too, could resist the\nbuilding of a LLRW dump in their communities. We used a detailed manual we\ncreated over the first few months containing all aspects of the issue, making\ncopies to give to other CT towns when we visited them. It took over 1.5 years,\nbut we stopped the siting process and the proposed LLRW dump. As a result, the\nCHWMS changed tactics. Instead of mandating a site, they made it voluntary,\noffering financial incentives to any town that volunteered to host the LLRW\ndump. To date, not one town has gone for the 30 pieces of silver, knowing there\nis NO suitable site for a LLRW dump in the state of CT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[NOTE:<\/strong> TODAY Trump wants to REDUCE oversight and safety visits to nuclear power plants and the 33 LLRW storage sites in CT\u2026 and all over the country. These plants are DECADES past their stated life spans, but, once again, there is no way to truly decommission a plant safely. In the late \u201850s, \u201cyour friend the atom\u201d was supposed to be benevolent, providing energy that would be \u201ctoo cheap to meter!\u201d Behind their motto of Profit over People, they once again put the cart in front of the horse, stating that we humans would figure out how to decommission nuclear power plants and dispose of nuclear waste by the time we needed to. Well, that time has come and gone, with STILL no solution in sight.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Final Words<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, I believe \u2013 thanks to my education at UConn \u2013 that the word \u201cpolitics\u201d can be defined as \u201chow we live our lives.\u201d Our lives define our politics. It is all too easy to leave the Light and go to the Dark Side. With all the shit going on today, I struggle each and every day to bring myself back from the brink of becoming that which I hate&#8230; while remaining true to my Progressive ideals. So I persevere, struggling to achieve BALANCE, and a modicum of GRACE and WISDOM, constantly stumbling. I am bolstered by my music (from back in the day through now &#8211; although I have no idea what\u2019s in the Top 40 today \u2026 except to know it\u2019s not MY music!), Progressive politics, Hippie ideals, the still beautiful natural world around me, and the Leftist ideals embodied in true Socialism, in the best sense of that word: Of the People, By the People, and For the People. I strive to achieve a mindfulness that truly resonates with me, as an individual, as part of a community of humans AND other living beings, and as a citizen of the planet Earth. Both my father and my UConn experience taught me that the means justify the ends, NOT, as is so common today in politics and business, the other way around. I was set on this course by my years at UConn (\u201967 \u2013 \u201972), and I am ever grateful for having come of age at that time and place. Participating in political protest, immersing myself in the counterculture experimentation and questioning of the times, taught me so much more than mere classroom book study did. The risks I\/we took were worth every ounce of energy I expended on them. When I think back to those years 50+\/- years ago, I still smile. After all, we are stardust, we are golden, but we\u2019re also carved in the Devil\u2019s bargain \u2026 so we\u2019ve got to get back to the Garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chris Malis, Class of \u201872 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Guest Post by Ellie Goldstein\/Erickson (&#8217;70):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UConn Memories<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started at UConn as\na freshman in the fall of 1966. My family had lived in Pennsylvania until the\nsummer of 1966, when my father took a new job as a full professor and director\nof research at the UConn Graduate School of Social Work. This will figure into\nmy story later in November, 1968. Because we moved my parents encouraged me to\ngo to UConn, since we could afford the in-state tuition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had already been\nactive in anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in 1965-66, picketing against Hubert\nHumphrey at a Philadelphia appearance, standing with Quakers at several events,\nincluding a day long fast in front of Independence Hall. That was when tourists\ngetting off buses to see the Liberty Bell would yell at us, call us communists,\nand tell us to go back to Russia if we didn\u2019t like it here. My best friend and\nI both were raised by left wing parents but our mothers always told us to dress\nnicely so no one would criticize our ideas based on what we were wearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I lived in Stowe C at\nSouth Campus and was the only person out of 60 women in the dorm who was\nagainst the war. Ironically, I also was the only person who lost someone in the\nwar; in April 1967 the boy who had been our next door neighbor in Pennsylvania\nand joined the Marines after high school, was killed in Vietnam. A woman on my\nfloor had a fianc\u00e9e in Vietnam who ended his tour and came home safely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For my fine arts\nrequirement fall semester I took a theater class and did makeup for a play the\nteacher, a grad student, was in. Since I was out past 11:00 pm for performances\nI had to get special permission from the house mother to be out that late past\nweek-night curfew. Meeting many of the theater department folks got me going to\nthe Campus Restaurant where a lot of them hung out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t remember how\nI learned about it, but I went to an antiwar conference at Amherst sometime\nduring fall semester 1966. It may have been organized by SDS. By spring\nsemester there were more visible antiwar advocates on campus. Someone arranged\nto rent a school bus and we went to New York in April, 1967 for the first big\nnational march against the war, when Dr. King was the main speaker at the\nrally. I remember meeting Alan Cohen and Jeffrey Thomas on that trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end of spring\nsemester there was an event called the psychedelic dance in the women\u2019s gym (I\nthink it was called Hawley Armory) complete with a light show. That may have\nbeen the start of a more visible presence of what was called the counter\nculture on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During sophomore year\nwe lefties and hippie types started organizing to gain a presence and influence\nin student government to counter the fraternity dominance. We called ourselves\nthe All Student Party and a number of us won seats in the student senate,\nincluding an African American named Tyrone Johnson. We tried to bring more\npolitical awareness to student government. I chaired the Student Welfare\nCommittee of the Student Senate, but can\u2019t remember anyone else on the\ncommittee. I sponsored a resolution in the Senate against campus police carrying\nfirearms, which I presented to Homer Babbidge before a speech he was giving in\nthe recital hall. We had a large turnout to greet him outside with many\nstudents carrying signs supporting not having security carrying guns. That may\nhave been the first time I met Babbidge face to face. In what we come to see\nrepeatedly, he appointed a committee to study the issue. I actually have an\nundated newspaper clipping showing pictures from that event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By my junior year,\n1968-1969, SDS had become a much more visible and active group on campus. SDS\nran a campaign called Vote with Your Feet about the presidential election.\nHubert Humphrey, the Democratic candidate, had been LBJ\u2019s vice president and we\nfelt he was too supportive of the war. We went to Hartford for one demonstration\nagainst both Nixon and Humphrey, but mostly stayed in Storrs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After Nixon was\nelected and even before he was inaugurated we targeted many more corporations\nbesides Dow Chemical, manufacturers of napalm, who were profiting off Vietnam.\nThe university began scheduling the interviews in more remote areas of campus\nto divert us, but we always found out where they were. Students and faculty who\ndidn\u2019t participate in SDS directly also came in support of the antiwar\nmovement. The Olin Mathieson interviews were scheduled in an unoccupied faculty\nhouse at 7 Gilbert Road. As the crowd of demonstrators gathered we were mostly\nin front of the building. I remember being part of a group that stood on the\nsteps to prevent anyone entering in the front. A psychology professor stood\nwith us. The crowd grew enough that it filled the area in front of the house,\noverflowing into the street and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;Someone in an upstairs window used a bullhorn\nto address the crowd, but our response drowned it out. We found out later they\nwere reading the riot act. That gave the cops justification to arrest anyone\nwho didn\u2019t leave. Columns of state police in riot gear came marching in,\ncomplete with helmets and wooden clubs, from several directions, effectively\nhemming us in. Richard Savage, an SDS leader, stood on the trunk of a car with\nhis arm extended as most of us chanted Sieg Heil. Dean of Students Robert\nHewes, standing in front of the building, pointed at Richie. Several cops\nswarmed him, knocked him to the ground and began beating him with their clubs.\nI was near him and got so angry I ran toward Dean Hewes shouting about what\nthey were doing. He pointed at me, said \u201cGet her,\u201d and told them my name. I was\ntaken inside the building and handcuffed to a plastic chair in the kitchen. I\nassume it got pretty wild outside, since rocks and clumps of dirt flew through\nthe windows, breaking the glass. I was right next to a window and tried to use\nmy shoulder to protect my face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At some point a man\nin a suit came in and wanted to know why I was handcuffed like that. I hoped\nthey would put me in a safer place, but he told them I was dangerous and should\nbe handcuffed behind my back. I need to point out that at that time I weighed\n117 pounds and was wearing a wool jumper since it was cold. Another cop opened\nthe handcuffs, put my hands behind my back and refastened them to the chair leg\nwith the handcuffs. During that time a man student I didn\u2019t know was also\nbrought in and handcuffed. I have no memory of how long I was there, but eventually\ntwo plainclothes women cops came in, freed me from the chair and started taking\nme out of the building. As we were going down the stairs in front, Provost Gant\nwas coming up the sidewalk. I knew him both from student government and SDS. He\nstopped, clearly astonished, and said \u201cEllie!\u201d with great surprise. I said,\n\u201cHello, Provost Gant.\u201d The women cops holding me by the arms had to stop when I\nstopped. Provost Gant kept looking at me and finally said, \u201cWould you like me\nto call your father?\u201d He knew my father as a full professor at the graduate\nschool of social work. All I could think was how awful it would be for my\nfather to get a call from the Provost saying, \u201cLou, we\u2019ve arrested your\ndaughter.\u201d Since the only people outside at that point were cops and reporters\nI said as loud as I could,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;\u201cNo thank you, Provost Gant. I believe I get a\nphone call.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other student and\nI were put in unmarked cars and driven to the state police barracks at Stafford\nSprings. I don\u2019t remember everyone who was arrested; I think there was a total\nof 7 of us that day. Karen Cassyd, also active in SDS, and I were the only\nwomen. David Colfax, a sociology professor prominently active in the antiwar\nmovement, was also arrested, although we understood he had been teaching during\nmost of the demonstration. After the fingerprinting, etc I asked to use the\nrestroom. Both women cops came in with me. My mother told me later I should\nhave told them to wipe me. They also had a big discussion about what color to\nput down for my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cops put us in\nchairs far apart from each other in the big garage and had us wait. Somehow we\nall decided to refuse to sign a release paper promising to appear in court\nunless they released David Colfax. I remember telling the cop I couldn\u2019t sign a\nlegal document because I was only 19 years old. Much later in the afternoon\nthey loaded us all in a state police bus and drove us to court in Willimantic.\nA judge told each of us when to appear in court and then told us to leave. More\nUConn people were there and drove us back to Storrs. Since this was years\nbefore cell phones I have no clue how they knew we would be there. I think we\nwere charged with disorderly conduct, failure to disperse after the reading of\nthe riot act and something else. My mother called my dorm room just as I got\nthere. Of course the television news had carried all the reports, so she knew\nabout that happened. She just didn\u2019t know I was one of the people arrested.\nThat was the last day of class before Thanksgiving break, so I got a ride to my\nparents\u2019 house in West Hartford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While my mother was\nreally upset, assuming I had been doing something bad to be arrested, she\nalways stood up for me to anyone else, even critical family. Since our names\nand home towns were published in the newspapers, we started getting threatening\nphone calls at my parents\u2019 house. My mother insisted on calling the police\nabout it. She and my father were going out of town to a family wedding over the\nweekend and she was worried about my safety alone in the house. I refused to go\ninto the police station to make the report, so an officer came to the house. He\nassured my mother they would check on me while I was in the house alone. I\nended up having Thanksgiving dinner with Richie Savage and his family since\nthey lived nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometime later that\nwinter we organized a demonstration that entered Gulley Hall where all the high\nranking administrators had their offices. Somehow we decided to have a sit in\nand simply did not leave after all the offices closed. I remember we used heavy\nduty masking tape in crisscross patterns on all the big windows so they\nwouldn\u2019t break if counterdemonstrators threw rocks or the cops shot tear gas\nin. We wrote leaflets about why we were there and used the mimeograph machines\non the second floor to print them. One vivid memory I have is that I was one of\nthe only people who knew how to use them, since I had been on a newspaper staff\nin high school. One of the men students was impressed that I knew how to do\nthis and nicknamed me Tania. I don\u2019t know if anyone slept during the night.\nThere was some kind of negotiation that happened, and we all walked out in the\nmorning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Later that school\nyear UConn hired another dean, Jack Manning, a younger man, who was supposed to\nbe more able to connect with student activists. From our perspective he was\nmore of the same. I remember having an informal meeting with him and other\nmembers of student government in the snack bar of the student union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the time I was\na member of the student senate and chair of the student welfare committee I had\nmet with the dean of women, whose name escapes me. I was spearheading a\ncampaign to get gynecology care for women at the student health center. We\nstarted by distributing surveys through the meetings the dean had with\nrepresentatives of all the women\u2019s dorms and sororities. After getting the\nsurveys back we were able to show the need for medical care for women students\nspecifically. The university hired a gynecologist on a part time basis; I think\nit was two afternoons a week. While I don\u2019t remember the exact date, I do\nremember the Connecticut Daily Campus ran a front page story about it. They\ninserted some subtle humor in the report, using the word climax announcing this\nnew service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When school started\nin the fall of 1969 I had moved off campus with two other women from my dorm.\nWe had a tiny two room apartment at the back of a house right off campus. They\nboth had man friends who lived out in Coventry and spent most of their time\nthere. Early that semester SDS joined a group that included people from student\ngovernment, Jack Allen (a left wing minister) and other progressive folks to\ncontinue organizing against the war. Nationally a movement called the\nMoratorium had started, with activities planned against the war, starting with\none day in October. A young African American minister working with Jack Allen,\nwhose first name I think was Eliott, came into one of our meetings asking if we\nwanted Dick Gregory for our main speaker at the big day time rally. We were\nreally excited to have him, since he was a prominent leader in the civil rights\nand antiwar movement. During this time 8 activists who had been involved in\ndemonstrations during the Democratic convention in Chicago the summer of 1968\nwere on trial for conspiracy in Chicago. Rennie Davis, one of the defendants,\ncame to speak at the big indoor auditorium at Jorgensen the night before, along\nwith Doug Miranda, who was the head of the New Haven branch of the Black\nPanther Party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My parents had loaned\nme my mother\u2019s old car, a Rambler Rebel, when I moved off campus, and somehow I\nbecame the driver to pick up the speakers at the airport. When we took Rennie\nback to the airport his plane had taken off early. We had to get him back to\nChicago by the next morning for court or the judge would revoke his bail. We\nput all our change together and used the pay phones to call airlines to find\nhim a flight. We found one out of New York and somehow got him there in time.\nOn the way back the man driving got a speeding ticket, so they woke me up in\nthe back seat and I drove the rest of the way. I got there in time to drop off\nthe folks with me and get the people who were going with me to pick up Dick\nGregory. On the way back to Storrs we got a flat tire. While I was pulled over\non the highway and we were changing the tire, people coming to hear him speak\nrecognized Dick Gregory standing there and stopped to say hello. Brother Greg\nhimself started laughing both at the situation and that he never expected, as a\nblack man who had grown up during segregation, to have a group of black and\nwhite college students changing a tire for him. He gave an inspiring and\nstirring speech, but we couldn\u2019t use my car to drive him back since it didn\u2019t\nhave a spare. TJ, an African American grad student, somehow got us a car from\nthe University motor pool to drive him back to the airport. I remember being\namazed at Brother Greg\u2019s (which he told us to call him) brilliance and ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In November the\nMoratorium movement went national, with the main east coast event in Washington\nD.C. I went with a group of 15 people in 2 cars. One of the students had family\nin Silver Springs, MD, just outside DC, and we slept in our sleeping bags in\ntheir basement. It started on Friday with what was called the March Against Death.\nWe gathered at Arlington National Cemetery and each person carried a placard\nwith the name of a person who had been killed in Vietnam. I carried the name of\nmy neighbor, who had been killed in April, 1967. We all marched to the White\nHouse, shouted the names we carried and deposited our placards in coffins. We\nspent Saturday getting trained as marshals then Sunday we circled some of the\ndignitaries as they marched. Our dignitaries included Dr. Benjamin Spock and\nmembers of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, some of whom helped carry the\ncoffins with the placards of the names of those killed in Vietnam. The main\nrally was at the Washington Monument with speakers and singers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our problems started\nas the rally broke up. An SDS group headed to the Labor Department and a\ndifferent group went to the Justice Department. I don\u2019t know what happened, but\nthe cops and troops fired tear gas, and my friends and I got caught in it. We\ngot totally lost and ended up near the White House, which was ringed by troops\nwearing gas masks and holding rifles with fixed bayonets. The entire atmosphere\nwas surreal, with gas in the air and troops careening around in jeeps, taking\ncorners on two wheels. We couldn\u2019t find a pay phone to use; most of them were\nindoors and no one would let us in since our clothes reeked of gas. Finally a\nhotel let us in to use the pay phone. We had written our friend\u2019s parents\u2019\nphone number on our arms, so we called using our emergency dimes and they gave\nus directions of how to get out of the city. While moving around DC we had\ncounted off to be sure we were all together. In Silver Springs we realized we\nwere missing Margie, one of our group. When the phone rang it was a volunteer\nmedic at the march telling us he had a woman who had suffered total\ndisorientation from the gas and could only tell him she was number 13. We all\nshouted, \u201cMargie!\u201d He had found the phone number on her arm. We were all\nreunited at our friend\u2019s parents\u2019 house and watched the TV news. I think that\nwas the night VP Agnew gave one of his inflammatory speeches about antiwar\ndemonstrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another event we\nattended in November was a march in New Haven organized by the Black Panthers\nin support of Panthers who had been arrested and charged with the murder of a\nman named Alex Rackley. They were being held on millions of dollars of bail, so\nthey were stuck in jail. The women especially were subjected to terribly brutal\nconditions. The Panthers organized the march with the women in front, declaring\n\u201cSisters lead!\u201d The women\u2019s liberation movement had started and this felt like\na very real and visible manifestation of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Continuing our work\non campus, SDS and the Black Student Union worked together, organizing against\nrecruiting\/interviewing visits by war companies. The university moved the visit\nby General Electric to the warming hut of the skating rink, way up a road above\nthe football stadium. I remember it as cold with a lot of snow on the ground. We\nspent lunchtime in the Campus Restaurant to eat and warm up. After that\ndemonstration we heard some of the people who had been there would be arrested.\nLike the demonstration against Olin Matheson, a select group would face\ncharges. I do not remember if this happened before or after winter break. Again\nthrough some channel we learned one of the people to be arrested was Kevin\nKeyes, an SDS member with whom I was living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin was originally\ncharged with only one count of a misdemeanor but when he had his trial in the\nspring he asked for a jury trial rather than taking a plea deal as some other\ndefendants had done. After a brief recess when we came back to the courtroom\nthere was a new prosecutor, who turned out to be the head state prosecutor. He\nannounced that new evidence had just come to light, and Kevin was charged with\nnine additional counts. Kevin had known from the beginning that this entire\ntrial was a set up. He decided to make it a political trial and represented\nhimself. A professor from the UConn law school named Bard volunteered to sit\nwith Kevin and advise him, but I don\u2019t remember if he stayed for the entire\ntrial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We filled the\ncourtroom every day. Jack Manning, one of the UConn deans, testified for the\nprosecution and identified Kevin in pictures the university had taken. A\nstudent named Jay Doody testified for Kevin. I remember he threw the prosecutor\nfor a loop when he refused to swear to tell the truth before taking the stand.\nJay explained he was a Quaker and the judge realized Jay would affirm rather\nthan swear. One bit of his testimony I remember is Jay telling about right wing\nstudents showing up during the demonstration and physically trying to break us\nup. We all laughed when Jay explained that right wingers don\u2019t wear a\nparticular uniform, especially in winter. There was no way to distinguish them\nfrom us. Another thing I remember happened when we were all outside when the\ntrial was over for that day. The prosecutor was walking out with a smug smile.\nKay Brover, Charlie Brover\u2019s wife, started shouting at him, asking why he was\nsmiling. Kay truly inspired me to do the same in a similar situation a few\nyears later. Reporters were in the courtroom every day and filed fairly even\nhanded stories. Once when the judge reprimanded Kevin for having his hands in\nhis pockets when he was standing, the prosecutor was also standing in his hands\nin his pockets. The reporter included that in his story that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we expected, Kevin\nwas convicted on all counts. We filed an appeal within the time allowed. One of\nthe court clerks let me use an office and I typed up the paperwork, as I had\nspent the previous summer working for Neighborhood Legal Services in north\nHartford. I don\u2019t know what happened after the summer, as Kevin had moved away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In April, 1970, the\ncountry observed the first Earth Day. SDS nationally had been working to build\nan alliance with campus workers. We combined that initiative with our campaign\nto abolish ROTC. I had been working in the early breakfast shift at the McMahon\nkitchen to earn money and establish ties with the people who worked there. I\nlearned that there was no day care available for the women who worked in the\nkitchens. We tried to focus the Earth Day activities on turning the ROTC hangar\ninto free day care for campus workers. Unfortunately we were unable to achieve\nthat goal. Sometime during the night following someone threw a Molotov cocktail\nat the hangar, but the damage was minimal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That spring the\nantiwar movement was gaining strength all over the country, including members\nof Congress and many more adults. It was no longer simply a student or left\nwing movement. I don\u2019t remember exactly when in May we started a march around\ncampus, beginning at South Campus, moving to the highway on the far side of\nMirror Lake, then towards Towers, the Jungle and the fraternity dorms. It may\nhave been after Nixon announced he had sent U.S. soldiers to invade Cambodia,\nthe National Guard had shot and killed four students at Kent State and police\nhad shot African American students at Jackson State. The crowd was much larger\nthan any of us had expected and the group began moving to Gulley Hall. I think\nJack Manning the dean was standing in front trying to tell people to calm down.\nBecause I had charges pending myself I stayed at the back of the crowd, and\nthen went around the back of the building. A friend who was there told me the\ncrowd just moved right past him, breaking the glass in the doors to get in. A\nfriend named Manny Stamatakis who had participated in a lot of marches, came stumbling\nout of the back door holding his hand, which was bleeding profusely from a\nreally deep gash. I grabbed his arm and supported him while I tried to help him\nwalk to the infirmary. We met a student wearing an olive green army jacket,\nwhich he gave us to wrap around Manny\u2019s hand. The nurses at the infirmary\ncleaned and bandaged his hand enough that the bleeding was controlled while I\ndrove us to the emergency room at the hospital in Willimantic. The doctors and\nstaff stabilized Manny and prepped him for surgery. While I waited another\nstudent, John (Chip) Ciputi, came in with some minor cuts on his hand. At the\nsame time cops from both UConn and other agencies came in, looking for anyone\nwho had been injured at Gulley Hall. Even though they had no proof Chip had\nbeen there, they arrested him as soon as he got his hand stitched. They\ncouldn\u2019t arrest Manny because he was being taken into surgery. I remember the\nUConn cop telling me the state was going to come down hard on anyone they could\nidentify. When I got home really late at night I told Kevin what had happened.\nI think that was a time when I was really aware of how frightening events were\nbecoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jim Sober, a member\nof the Progressive Labor Party who had been working with us in SDS, was\narrested along with Chip. Their bail was set at $1,000 each. We spent the next\nday, which was a Friday, trying to raise $2,000. Several faculty members,\nincluding Eric Larsen in sociology wrote us checks in the hundreds. SDS members\ncanvassed the entire campus urging students to donate. Somehow we managed to\nraise enough. My parents lived in West Hartford; their bank was open on\nSaturday. I called my mother, who met us there. I drove there with a woman\nnamed Barbara, whose last name escapes me. She and her husband Mark were active\nin SDS. She and I carried the money in a cardboard box into the bank. We had so\nmuch change it took both of us to carry it in. My mother vouched for us and we\nleft with $2,000 in hundred dollar bills. The jail wouldn\u2019t let us bail out Jim\nand Chip until Monday morning. The man at the jail kept counting incorrectly\nand telling us we were $100 short. Since we knew we weren\u2019t, we took it all\nback and laid it out for him ourselves to prove we had it all. I remember going\nto court with Chip and his parents, but I don\u2019t know what ever happened. Years\nlater someone told me Jim Sober returned the money faculty had put up for bail\nafter his case was decided and his bail was given back to him. I don\u2019t know if\neither of them was convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the invasion of\nCambodia, the shootings of students at Kent State and Jackson State and the\ngeneral anger in the country, many colleges simply ended their school year. At\nUConn most finals were cancelled and students went home. My friend Barbara from\nSDS, who had worked with me on the bail money, went to graduation with her\nhusband, since it was important to her parents. A liberal student named Bill\nPalmer, who was a member of TEP fraternity, was chosen to give a speech on\nbehalf of the students. Barbara told me many of those attending gave him a\nstanding ovation, but she and her husband stayed seated. They felt his speech\nwas not radical enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent the summer of\n1970 living in New Haven working with the Progressive Labor arm of SDS. We\nleafletted at a lot of the factories and attended rallies for the Panthers.\nEven though I had graduated I had no other plans so I returned to Storrs and\nlived in an apartment in Merrow with Nancy Hutchinson and Lily Markons\/Allen. I\nworked at various jobs and stayed active in political events. When the foreign\nminister of Portugal came for a speech we were determined to prevent it.\nPortugal still controlled countries in Africa, including Angola, although many\nother African countries had gained their independence from European countries.\nOur tactic was to clap and cheer when he came out, but not to stop. We even had\nsome faculty members participate also. The clapping and cheering went on so\nlong the officials finally had to escort the foreign minister out. We knew our\naction had been a success when Babbidge announced he was \u201cmortified beyond\nwords.\u201d We believed that the colonization of Africa by Europeans had been unlawful\nfrom the start and wanted the Africans to have their independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In April 1971 my\nfather died suddenly at the age of 52 and my mother was dealing with both her\ngrief and legal issues. My sister and I decided our mother would benefit from\nhaving someone in the house with her, so I left my job waitressing at the Rock\nGarden in Willimantic, where Charlie Shur was one of the bouncers. I moved in\nwith my mother in West Hartford and did some substitute teaching for a year\nbefore going to Berkeley to earn my Master\u2019s in Library Science at UC Berkeley.\nWhile I was still at Cal I ran into Wayne Lawrence and his wife Merle. Wayne\nhad been active in the BSU (Black Student Union) at UConn and attended the\ndemonstration against GE. Charlie Brover had given Merle away when they got\nmarried in 1971. Wayne was enrolled in the criminology school at Cal. We had\ndinner one night that spring, but I lost track of them. I spent more than 40\nyears as a school teacher librarian in public urban high schools in Richmond, CA\nand Berkeley, CA before retiring in June, 2017. I am still involved with\npolitical work, including Planned Parenthood, March for Our Lives and education\ngroups. Most recently I work with Swing Left, campaigning on behalf of liberal\ncandidates for Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ellie Goldstein\/Erickson<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UConn 1970<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following guest posts by alumni Chris Malis (&#8217;72) and Ellie Goldstein\/Erickson (&#8217;70) are in conjunction with the current UConn Archives exhibition Day-Glo &amp; Napalm: UConn 1967-1971 guest curated by George Jacobi (&#8217;71). The exhibition is on display until October &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2019\/10\/01\/day-glo-napalm-committed-sixties\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[351,255,1,9],"tags":[446,109],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NKyO-2jJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8911"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8920,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8911\/revisions\/8920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}