It was hot. So hot that when you took a breath, you choked. I was
walking the mile and half from my upstairs apartment to my mid-morning
class. No clouds and the sun was climbing. Humidity was near 90%. The
headache and thirst didn’t help things. I was trying to make up for the
classes I dropped last year by doing the summer quarter.
I
allowed enough time to stop at the Dairy Queen to sit for a while at the
shaded picnic table to cool off and have a smoke. I would pick a
flower off of a petunia stem and marvel again at the seductive beauty of
destruction while I watched the colors of the petals make drastic
changes by burning them with the the glow of my cigarette.
Being
born of the stuff from the violently destructive forces of the universe,
our nature appreciates the beauty of annihilation, whether it be stars,
galaxies, structures,ideas, or petunia petals. The entropy of human
nature, held back precariously only by Man’s need to build, is the fifth
force. The young become tempted by this mesmerizing beauty of
destruction. Without the benefit of maturity, some people age but never
grow out of it - they grow up to be anarchists or pyrotechnic
engineers.
My college education was somewhat spread out. I was
beyond the four year deal I made with Dad. Dad would send enough money
for tuition, books, rent and food for four years. I would come home
summers and earn enough to make up for any other expenses. The four
years were up a year ago and I had been on my own since then.
That
meant working. This first summer on my own I worked for the State of
Illinois cleaning the empty dorms for a few bucks an hour. The
following fall, I got a job at a car wash, and found other work to get
me through to a required graduation. I had no choice.
I had to
graduate. I knew myself well enough to know that if I didn’t finish
this, I would never finish anything, so the pressure then was applied to
my future.
It was 1970 and the left was going crazy around town
protesting the evasion of Cambodia. Tires were being burned in the
streets and the National Guard showed up one weekend as Marshall Law was
declared.
I had worked the afternoon at the car wash and was
tired. The events of a boring dusk to dawn lock-down caused the killing
of our last bottle of cheap bourbon. The next morning, hot, tired and
moody I headed to class.
When I approached the campus I noticed
an unusual amount of police and national guard activity and the noise of
those barbaric chants the mobs use for God knows what. I could detect a
rhythm, but couldn’t get the words.
I hated the chants - still
do. They remind me of the National Geographic Lost Tribe shows they had
on PBS before NatGeo got their own commercial network.
When I
got to the classroom building there were pickets. People were walking
back and forth in front of all the entrances to the building in an oval
pattern with signs. I saw one of my teachers in the pickets and walked
up to him to ask, “Geez, Man. How do I get in the building? I have a
class. What the hell are you doing in this parade?”
Now this was a
class that I paid for with the money I earned cleaning other peoples’
crap out of their cars. I also paid for the book and the tuition, and
some stupid activity fee that helped pay for Walt Frazier’s books,
tuition, food, girlfriends, and whatever else he needed.
My
teacher said, sounding like Dad patiently telling me not to touch the
electric fence, “Don’t try to cross the pickets. It’s mostly teachers
and professors with a spattering of students. If you ever get one of
the teachers for a class, they will remember and you will get screwed.
That is if you don’t get beat up out here.”
Getting beat up by a bunch of pacifist teachers was not likely. And I was to graduate at the end of the summer.
I
didn’t realize it at the time, but the first seed of conservatism was
planted in my psyche at that very second. I started to add to the heat
of the day by yelling - yelling a lot. Then I started swearing - a
lot. Then I started shaking my fist at these easy life simpletons. Then
I started walking in the opposite direction of the pickets, yelling and
swearing at them about my right to get the service I paid for from you
swear, swear, swear. (I actually called them “an effete corps of
impudent snobs who characterize yourselves as intellectuals.”) That
drew the cops’ attention, but they just seemed amused.
I crossed
the line, went in the door and walked up two flights of stairs to an
un-air conditioned classroom where I expected to be kept awake by an
American Lit teacher. Two other students were in the classroom talking
to each other with no teacher to be found. I gave the professor the
customary 15 minutes and left.
I slowly walked down the cupped steps of that old classroom building
feeling as ripped off and cheated as somebody who made a politician
their hero.
I left the building, crossed back through the cow path and turned
around. With my footing at parade rest I offered up a high double deuce
to Daisy and her friends.
Five years of indoctrination from
within the classroom reinforced by living in a confined sphere of
influence made me question the values, the rules, the philosophy, the
politics, the motives, the religion, the morals, the laws, the history,
the lifestyle. and everything else that traditional America held dear.
I can point to one hot, humid, head-pounding day, in the summer of 1970
that turned me around and I’ll never forget that first step I took on
my way back home.
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