“This is a time that you will always remember; a time that will forever define who you are.”
----a local union leader, Marion, Indiana
Today,
I stop and observe yet another benchmark. On this date, a Saturday a now
half-century ago, I found myself in Indiana. The presidential primary
election, held on Tuesday, May 7, was at hand, and I found myself in
Marion canvassing for Senator Robert Kennedy. What follows is a
column I wrote ten years ago in which I described where I had found
myself in the whirlwind that was 1968:
As
I watched Robert Kennedy give his speech at Campau Square that bright
April afternoon I remember him asking if we would join his campaign
and go to Indiana. I thought, at the time, that it was a rhetorical
question and didn’t think any more of it. We simply nodded yes. A
few days later I got a call from the campaign to do just that. The
Kennedy campaign had chartered a North Star bus out of Big Rapids and
gave us instructions to gather in front of the Michigan Consolidated
Gas building in downtown Grand Rapids and head south to join the
campaign.
It
was not, given the times, a difficult decision to make. The war was
raging, the nation was tearing apart at the seams, and Bobby appeared
to not only have a grasp of the situation, but was the one candidate
who appeared most likely to prevail in the struggle against the
“establishment”—that is, the established order. My problems in
joining the campaign, however, were manifold.
Grand
Valley State was, in those days, a small teachers college with a
growing campus located due west of Grand Rapids on the plains
overlooking the Grand River at Allendale. It was founded in 1963, and
graduated its first class just prior to my arrival in 1967. One of
the peculiarities of the institution was that for some reason, never
made clear, registration for classes occurred on a single day in
which the entire student body, then numbering about 1200, would
converge just off the cafeteria and sign up for classes. Over the
course of time it transpired that a great number of upper classmen
had not been able to register for their foundation courses by this
method and, therefore, were facing a situation where they could not
graduate until they had satisfied the basic course requirements. This
produced a melee in which upper classmen, juniors and seniors,
converged on the proceedings with slips in hand from department heads
and deans, reserving positions in the 100 and 200 level classes
normally taken by freshmen like myself. By the time we got to the
counter there were only junior and senior level courses left to be
taken. So it was that I found myself with a course load that included
one basic course in economics, but an upper level class in 19th
century American History, and a course in International Law.
We
were on quarters then, classes lasted for a mere 10 weeks, and some
History classes would have as many as 5 textbooks and require a major
paper, sometimes two. At the time the institution had not yet
received certification, and the demands of the classes were daunting.
Needless to say this was a formidable challenge made all the more
compelling by the fact that my History professor was none other that
John Tevebaugh. To understand what that meant one needs to watch a
few episodes of “Paper Chase”, in which John Houseman plays a law
professor who is a demanding old curmudgeon. I think this role must
have been inspired by John Tevebaugh. Tevebaugh was the chairman of
the History department and such a task-master that seniors were known
to schedule writing their thesis around John’s sabbaticals. In any
case I was quickly up to my eyebrows in books as I found myself,
along with Steve Peckich and Dick Merrick charged with researching
and writing two 50 page papers covering the political history of 19th
century America. The experience proved to be, in spite of the ordeal,
one of the most rewarding classes I would take, for I was introduced
to the colorful and ribald political world of New York’s Tammany
Hall, the machine politics of Philadelphia and other cities, the
study of such splinter groups as the ‘Barnburners’ and the
‘Mugwumps’; and began my understanding of Jacksonian Democracy as
well as the later Greenback and Progressive movements.
Additionally
I was up to my eyebrows in the study of International Law,
researching a major paper for Dr. Junn which included the readings of
jurist Hugo Grotius among many others. This was a great period, one
of those seminal times in one’s life in which one is confronted
with great challenge, in which one works hard not to let the grade
point average suffer too greatly, but nevertheless produces quantum
leaps in ability and confidence. After this experience I knew that I
could handle whatever the college could throw at me, and I was off to
the races.
In
addition I was working two jobs, on weekends and some evenings at the
old W.T. Grant department store in Grand Haven unloading trucks and
stocking shelves, and on weekends at the old Starlight Drive-In
Theatre between Holland and Saugatuck, as a projectionist. It was a
full load to be sure. Then I got a call from the Kennedy campaign
asking if I would make the journey south to Indiana and join the
cause. Of course I would. I made arrangements to take some time from
work, skipped some classes, and made my way to the ‘big city’ to
meet the bus.
We
gathered very early on Friday morning at about this time of the month
and made the long bus trip down to Kokomo, Indiana where we were
split up into two groups. I went along with the group that was sent
on to Marion and arrived at the campaign headquarters located across
from the courthouse on the town square in a scene that looked very
much like the town in the film “Back to the Future”. We found our
way down to the campaign headquarters; an old store-front rented for
the occasion, and were introduced to the campaign organizers. We were
given a list of registered voters and addresses, some brief
instruction, and sent out to canvass the neighborhoods door-to-door.
Indiana, in those days, presented a bit of culture shock to those of
us who were still, figuratively speaking, babes-in-arms. I remember
Mark Henges, a friend of mine who had likewise joined the campaign,
relating the story of a lynching that had occurred a few decades
earlier in the square across the street from the campaign’s
headquarters. Nothing like that had ever occurred from where we came
from and such tales seemed exotic and somewhat frightening. Years
later I would tune in to PBS and see an account of it and recognize
immediately the incident being retold. Further we were up against the
political forces of the Governor, Roger Brannigan, who was originally
a stand-in for Lyndon Johnson but now a stalking-horse for Hubert
Humphrey. The governor had the full power of patronage on his side
with state workers taking time to openly campaign for him in the
primary, leaving the streets to be patrolled by packs of dogs that
freely roamed the city. The campaign was worried that Brannigan, a
popular Democratic governor, would win the votes of the party
regulars leaving Kennedy and McCarthy to split the ‘peace’ vote.
Victory was not seen then as anything like a foregone conclusion.
We
went out into the neighborhoods and worked until dark, long hours
going door-to-door, engaging the bewildered Hoosiers who were
surprised to find people coming from so far away to elicit their
support. We asked questions, we engaged in conversations, we wrote
down their responses. At the end of a long day, as the sun was
setting, we headed back to headquarters where we met with campaign
organizers and relayed the information we had gathered. My friend
Henges and his friend Larry Baker —who would transfer from Grand
Rapids Junior College to Grand Valley later in the year— and
Baker’s friend Keith Wakefield, suggested we get a motel room and
do some serious drinking. I asked if we had any booze, and Baker,
with a grin, simply gave a silent nod. We asked one of the campaign
organizers, a local union official, if he knew of a good motel.
Sensing that we were up to no good, and that he was looking in the
face of a possible major campaign scandal—since we were all
underage—if we were left unattended, he seized upon the idea and
told us that he knew just the place. He then promptly drove us to a
local motel on the outskirts of town. When we got there we were
surprised to learn that we would be staying with the family that
owned the establishment and would remain with them in their living
quarters. With the much desired beer warming in Brother Baker’s
suitcase, the outlook appeared grim indeed.
The
four of us sat about a small table playing a game of penny-ante poker
as their young teenage son sat on a small couch engaging us in
conversation. With the evening winding down and the beer getting
warmer, Baker suddenly turned to the lad and asked, “Would your
parents mind if we all had some beer”? “I don’t think they’d
mind if you had a beer”, replied the lad, adding “why, you don’t
have any do you?” At that Brother Baker got up and walked over to
his suitcase, opened it up and proceeded to produce several cans. He
had several such containers packed full. The boys eyes lit up and he
went down the hall and, explaining to his parents that we would be
undressing and getting ready to retire, arranged to have the area of
the house closed off.
The
party began in earnest at that point. To keep our cover we continued
the poker game as each of us would temporarily leave the table,
guzzle down a can, and then return. Over the next few hours hands
were played, and coins changed hands with an ever diminishing
understanding of whose hand one was playing and whose coins one was
risking. What I remember mostly was the difficulty of getting the
soap from my body as I showered before finally retiring in a drunken
stupor. I slept like a rock, and woke up fully refreshed and ready to
go.
“Those
were the days my friend
We
thought they’d never end
We’d
sing and dance, forever and a day
We’d
live a life we choose
We’d
fight and never lose
Those
were the days
Ah,
yes those were the days” ----Mary Hopkin “Those were the Days”
(1)
Those
were the days, my friend, drink like a fish and no hang-over. We
awoke, our gracious hosts none the wiser served us a splendid
breakfast. We were then off to campaign headquarters for a repeat of
the previous day’s labor and, at the end of another long day, we
boarded the bus and headed back home. Sometime early Sunday morning
we returned to Grand Rapids, found our cars and made the long drive
back arriving safely home as the sun was rising.
As
I reflect on that time now so long ago a few more memories play upon
my mind. One is the image of my friend Mark standing in the middle of
an intersection surrounded by a pack of dogs, the other is the
remarks of a local Marion union leader who told us that we would
always remember these days; that this was a time that we would always
carry with us; a time that would forever define who we are. So it
was.
_______________
1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Were_The_Days_(song)
No comments:
Post a Comment