BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..

Subject: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 11:28 AM

My, how time flies...

Yup it has been 40 years (and 4 days) ago that the perfect storm led to 5 Columbia Universtity buildings were taken over, its Dean held hostage, Harlem riots and burning, demands that the universtity disassociated itself from military/industrialist think tanks and demands to scrap plans to buikld a controveral gymnasium...

What came out of the 7 days take-over was a victory for the movement, the beginnings of the Weather underground and a feeling that people could make a difference...

But, hey, while I'm not tyrying set up a new/old battlefield here I'm kinda curious as to what other Catters were doing in their lives when Columbia happened and subsequest thoughts of Columbia...

(Request: Please, no trolling... Please...)

Bobertr

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 04:16 PM

Also the point at which Columbia stopped being more than a weathervane for popular political opinion. Also the day that this alumnus stopped contributing to the alumni association.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Cool Beans
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 04:26 PM

Robert Siegel of NPR's "All Things Considered" was at Columbia at the time. Wonder if he'll have anything special on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 09:04 PM

Preparing for war. My National Guard unit had been activated and eventually ended up in Vietnam (and me in Korea). Suddenly the Ossian Cycle seemed less important than simply staying alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 09:36 PM

CB, Robert Siegel did do an essay on the Columbia takeover on April 23. Here's his essay:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89886004

At the bottom of the essay, there's a link to ATC's longer piece on the event.

Should I be worried that so few of us seem to be aware that anything besides Shakespeare's birthday happened April 23 ?

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: georgeward
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 09:40 PM

Humph! Guest indeed! The above was me, Cookiless George.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 09:45 PM

Forty years ago, as I said earlier, I was doing what I could to maximize my chances of staying alive. Everyone in the unit somehow knew that we were going to end up in Vietnam and for most of us the feeling was correct.

Some of the guys went out and bought pistols: .357 was a popular caliber. My brother Tony and I couldn't afford that, so we took what money we had and we each bought a knife. Tony bought an "Air Force Survival Knife," the kind with a saw on the back of the blade. I bought a Buck "General". Tony left his knife in 'Nam; mine is on the desk as I type this.

It's seen a lot of use and abuse since Spring, 1968. I've used it as a wedge to split wood, for example. And once when I was camping I was asked "Why'd you buy such a big knife?" I gave the truthful, but unbelieved, answer, "I bought it to kill people."

The sheath is the original, although a bit scuffed up (as I am) and the 7.75 inch blade is still like a razor.

Well, Bobert, you wanted to know what I was doing back forty years ago.

Now you know.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: heric
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 10:10 PM

Best year ever. We were experimenting with illegal fireworks, shoplifting Playboys, learning to smoke. Having our little minds indoctrinated with Jimmy Hendrix, James Brown. Watching those hippies on TV burning flags.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: heric
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 10:25 PM

And now here you all are!

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Amos
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 10:33 PM

1968? Lessee...Spring of '68...jeeze...huh...musta been what's her name, or that gal...no, that was later..hmmmmm.......What year? Huh,,,lessee...




A

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: heric
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 10:40 PM

sort of!

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 03:10 AM

Hitch-hiking across the US with 2 other buddies. We were on our way to San Francisco by way of LA & the beaches of Santa Monica first. We were a yr late for the summer of love but we didn't care, we got there experienced the Haight & Ashbury scene, the love-ins, the drug-ins & the Filmore (don't remember who we saw though). Had to spend a weekend in lock-up in Needles, Arizona cause we were vagrants with not enough money & hitch-hikers to boot, dangerous teenagers we were.
The next yr I spent running guns & selling them to the Black Panthers & dodging the draft, finally convinced them to declear me 4F, not fit for military duty.
My brother was serving as a seal, no need for 2 of us to not come home whole.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 03:48 AM

I was fifteen and still loved my horse..hadn't discovered boys, yet.:-) I went to summer music camp that year as I'd won a first prize all expenses paid scholarship for my violin playing. I know I was aware that things were happening, kind of like what heric says, but I was too young and western Colorado too isolated to be really aware, so to speak.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:52 AM

On May 13 my brother and I were sworn into "up to two years federal active duty" and on the 14th got a pass to go see my other brother off to the Air Farce. In less than 36 hours my mother went from a household of five to one consisting of just herself and my sister.

It wasn't planned that way, believe me. AF brother eventually was stationed at Ft. Meyer, VA so he could learn Vietnamese and managed to wrangle a pass so he and some AF buddies could go to Woodstock.

My other brother and myself managed to wrangle a pass every now and then, but really had nowhere much to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Cool Beans
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:32 AM

Georgeward, thanks for the link! I was at Syracuse University. There was no campus takeover but there was a big (peaceful) march downtown via Erie Boulevard or Genesee Street to protest the war. I marched wearing a three-piece suit so the news reports wouldn't say that everyone looked like hippies.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:20 AM

As fir me, '68 was a blur and I don't know how I did everything that I did but started off the year "Clean of Gene" (MCCarthy), then jumped ship to Bobby Kennedy's campaign, ended up reluctantly knocking on doors for Humphrey...

According to my college transcript I also must have taken a dew classes because I accumulated 28 credit hours that year while also playing in a loud rock 'n roll band???

By the night of the election I was well on my way toward having my consciousness jacked up, the "CDlean for Gene" look had long passed as the hair was growing down my back and I had become purdy radicalized and by Decemeber was voted "rector" of the Radical Student Union....

What a year and, yeah, like Amos, I can joke about not remembering the specifics but I remember them very well... Like I said, what a year...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:55 AM

I was still in high school in suburban NYC. It was an integrated high school, roughly half black, half white, and we were socially pretty integrated too. I had a lot of friends of both races. Our music was Motown, indie "underground" radio, and Cousin Brucie was about all we could pick up at the Jersey or Long Island shore in summer. We didn't care much though, because the Young Rascals were our "it" hometown band, and my lifelong love affair with Laura Nyro (another NYC sweetie of the times) was in full bloom.

The realities of the draft and the civil rights movement and the summer of '67 race riots was the biggest thing going on that spring--in our high school, most of the controversies of the day were being viewed through three lenses: inter-racial dating, police brutality, and the first kid to go to Vietnam from our high school (he was a gung ho Marine when he graduated in my sister's class of 1966) coming home without legs.

The Newark riots were still very much on the radar that spring in our school community, because the police brutality against the hippie kids and the black kids was incredibly intense, and the general consensus among us kids was that the summer of 1968 wasn't going to be much better for us, which is why so many of us were planning our escapes to the Jersey and Long Island shore! It was all about the beach and boardwalk & the music, of course.

The kids protesting at Columbia? Nah, we thought they were spoiled rich kids. Because they were. A lot of kids in my high school still had very strong familial ties in Harlem. We used to go cruising down there and in the Village (I was a very naughty teenager), and we went to the discos whenever we could sneak out of the house.

The Columbia takeover wasn't even on our radar, really, despite us being in such close proximity.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:34 AM

And I have to chuckle over this one--true story.

I forgot to mention how in love with The Doors were. One of my girlfriend's dad was the art director for Electra records, and he had been working on the cover art for "Waiting for the Sun".

There had been a plan afoot for all of us (he had his daughters call all their friends with dogs) to bring our dogs to a city park for a cover photo shoot with the band. So there we all were with our dogs at the appointed hour on a Saturday morning. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting. With yelping and growling and howling growing louder by minute...it was quite a scene.

Finally, after two hours, we were all sent our merry way. Seems Mr. Morrison had been busted for some drunken behavior out on the road, and failed to make the flight.

And then there was Moondog...hehehe

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:54 AM

Oh, and it was sometime that spring that us girls were locked in the cafeteria during the last school dance of the year for wearing "granny gowns".

Anybody remember them?

We were gobsmacked, because after getting regularly pulled into the school office by the Nazi AP for our skirts being too short, we thought we had it made in the cool shade.

Except, we hadn't figured on the conformity rule.

So, off we were packed, duly guarded away from the dance, until our parents arrived to pick us up.

And people wonder why we rebelled?

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 12:40 PM

I was DEEP in classes in Philosophy in Kansas, trying to finish my long-delayed college degree and keep some bread on the table by working a part-time job. Read about the riots, and saw bits of it on TV, but didn't even have a good TV set. I don't think I realized the scope of it all for several years.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: GUEST,Fantasma
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 01:40 PM

Isn't that so strange, how different the lens is for so many of us?

The spring of '68 was when I really thought the world was starting to fall apart. The race riots the previous year, followed by political assassinations right and left, more race riots.

I remember how disillusioned I became over Vietnam as so many kids came home mangled. How betrayed by the country I felt. I grew up a very optimistic and patriotic (I thought) sort of kid.

But hell, JFK was assassinated on my Irish Catholic father's birthday--the only Democrat my father ever voted for, I might add.

My family moved to suburban Chicago at the end of the summer of '68.

I listened to "Pet Sounds" over and over and over.

Subject: RE: BS: Columbia Takeover: 40 Year Anniversary..
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:27 PM

I think I was probably learning to walk at the time.
(What can I say, I'm only 41)