http://www.courierpress.com/news/2010/apr/04/saluki-reunion-ought-be-riot/'
By Rich Davis
April 4, 2010
It was nearly bedtime when my cell phone rang. It was my friend Cathy
from San Antonio: "Riiiich, I need your help. You know that
Anti-Reunion Reunion we're having in Carbondale May 1 ..."
"Yessssss," I replied, on guard because her voice was suddenly as
sweet as honeysuckle and freshly cut clover.
"Would you write an offbeat invitation so other (former) Daily
Egyptian staffers will come?"
She let it drop our informal "reunion" of journalism majors who
covered the May 1970 anti-war riots for the campus newspaper at
Southern Illinois University might include a panel discussion at
the student center.
"Oh, no! I'm going to have fun, not to work," I protested.
"But you're so good at these things," she buzzed, like a bee circling
a bear with a jar of honey.
If there's a downside to spending your adult life in a newsroom, it's
that others including colleagues who have left the news business
depend on you to bang out quick "and make it clever" copy.
"I'll see," I replied.
The next morning I composed a 400-word ditty that robbed me of 30
minutes of bagel and coffee time at Panera. I made sure to mention
Spudnuts (a doughnut hangout) and Gus Bode, the punster whose
caricature appeared every day in the 17,000-circulation DE, as the
Daily Egyptian was known.
How could I say no?
Forty springs ago I made $1 an hour writing about campus life. During
the so-called "Eight Days in May" I dodged bricks on South Illinois
Avenue and was chased by helmeted, club-wielding police who ignored
the press pass I ridiculously waved.
It was a scary but exciting period as students left the library
stacks, high-rise dorms and comfort of Spudnuts to oppose a war or
recklessly break the law.
President Nixon gazed into the TV cameras to announce U.S. forces had
invaded Cambodia. And on May 4, 1970, a bulletin clacked into the DE
newsroom: "Four students were killed at Kent State University Monday
in a confrontation with National Guardsmen and police during an antiwar rally."
New York Mayor John Lindsey said the country was "on the verge of a
physical breakdown." Me, too, especially after foolishly driving the
DE's SIU-marked car through rock-throwing demonstrators.
Carbondale saw curfews, military convoys, building takeovers, fires,
bloody clashes and students who blocked Chicago-to-New Orleans
passenger trains by sitting on the tracks. When police lobbed tear
gas, it sparked a window-breaking rampage from downtown to campus.
SIU President Delyte Morris, architect of a school whose growth
exploded from 3,000 to 24,000 students in the 1950s and '60s,
declared: "Some are in jail, some are in the hospital, all are expelled."
Gus says, "That's an exaggeration!"
A late-night mass march May 12 ended with thousands of students
surrounding Morris' home and the SIU chancellor using a bullhorn to
announce school was closing the rest of spring quarter (six weeks).
"You have achieved your victory," he said. "Now don't lose it with
the activities of a few."
I admit, I was overjoyed. I was on the verge of failing a very
difficult genetics class (full of pre-med majors) and with school
closing we'd all get passing grades.
Eight days ... 40 years.
Gus says, "Sure hope they have beer and Spudnuts at the reunion."
.
1 comments:
I too remember 40 years ago at SIU. I had just quit the Illinois National Guard because I knew SIU was a powder keg about to blow. I also knew my infantry MOS was a one way ticket to Vietnam. Once in Vietnam I was a lrrp/ranger sniper, unquestionably one of the most dangerous jobs of the war. I've never regretted making that choice, although I don't think anyone ever appreciated the sacrifice I made not to be there those days. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times.
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