May 4, 1970

Every boomer can tell you in great detail where they were on two dates:  The day Kennedy was shot and September 11, 2001. May 4, 1970 can be added to my list.

Growing up in Tallmadge, Ohio, only five miles from Kent State University and having a sister attending at the time made it a little more personal for me. The story of May 4 has been analyzed, studied, documented and logged into the annals of time several times and by several people more qualified than me, but the following memories are from a fifteen year old mid-teen being shaped by her generation, mass media, liberal surroundings and May 4, 1970.

As soon as we got word what had happened at Kent State my BFF, Debbie and I hopped in Debbie’s boyfriend’s Caspian blue Ford Fairlane and headed for Kent. Debbie and I, best friends, dated Dane and Mick, also best friends. Since our boyfriends had wheels and licenses, the four of us spent many hours exploring trails, graveyards and hidden places to talk, laugh and play ‘kissy-face’.  I’m sure Debbie was in love with Dane, but me? Mick was fun and a lover of the outdoors, which was what we had in common, but we fought constantly.  We broke up and got back together many times. The fights were the typical teenage drama that I usually initiated. To this day I’m not sure if I was bi-polar or he was. (More on that later.)

Anyhow, Mick had wild hair, black glasses and resembled Woody Allen.  That “Woody” look could describe most of my serious relationships, including husband one and husband two.  I read once a huge explanation of why we fall in love and with whom. Picture your early years as series of random hole punches on a card tracking pleasurable experiences. As years go by and someone comes along and fills a lot of those ‘holes’, you experience love. Someone in my childhood must have had wild hair and black glasses (and probably a beard) since then and now I equate that look with dry and silly wit, along with intelligence and love.

Mick might have filled a few but not many of those holes. He did however take me to my first concert.  Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Grand Funk Railroad shared the billing in Canton, Ohio, one night and we had nosebleed seats. We were late and it was hot, humid and stuffy in that overfilled auditorium. I’m grateful for the experience, though. It was the night I discovered that hard rock was not my jam.  To this day I can’t tell you any hits these bands played nor do I want to.  My musical tastes have evolved, looped, reverted, grew and stalled but it never included hard rock.

Mick had a sentimental streak too, writing poems to me and leaving them on my car years later. I’ve always wondered what happens to sixteen year old boys who write words of love at that sensitive age and in a few short years start college and let’s face it, become assholes who chase pussy, drink 3.2 beer and smoke dope.  I don’t know if this happened to Mick but we did cross each other’s paths again in the late seventies.  He had spent time in the Peace Corps, then picked grapes across the world to return home. What an adventure that must have been! I have a special reverence for those who are willing to fall face forward into life and enjoy every minute of it.

I’m not sure what the near future had for Dane, Debbie’s boyfriend.  All I know is that they broke up soon after she started dating Ronnie who became and still is her husband. Sadly, I heard that Dane died of MS while in his thirties.

But…. before all this sadness, marriages and adventures, came a moment in time for the four of us, May 4, 1970.

As soon as we heard the news we packed into the Fairlane and headed towards Kent. Route 261, the main artery between Kent and Tallmadge, was closed, so being savvy to the back roads of our then rural area, we found our way to Route 43 to sneak our way into Kent. We were pulled over by a state trooper.

“What are you kids doing here?” he demanded as Dane stopped and manually pulled down a sometimes -sticky driver’s side window. “Don’t you know what’s happened?”

“No, sir, what?” Dane innocently replied. Is it me or do teenagers have an innate sense of playing dumb? The trooper shook his head and told us that no one was coming in or out of Kent and to “GO BACK HOME!”. 

When I did return home, my dad was glued to the news and my sister, who sensed trouble that day and didn’t go to classes, was worried about her boyfriend, Duane, who was still in Kent. Dad, a WWII vet, was visibly upset saying things like, “I don’t blame those kids. I wouldn’t go to Viet Nam either.  Why ARE we there?”

Then the doorbell rang.  It was Duane who told us his harrowing story.

As he was trying to hitchhike out of Kent, has was confronted by a man who told him to stop. He didn’t. Instead he jumped over a railing of a bridge that crossed the Cuyahoga River and swam.  He swam underwater as far as his breath would allow while being shot at by a National Guardsman.

Call it luck, bad aim or divine intervention, but Duane didn’t become the fifth victim at Kent State that day. He swam, then walked through fields and backyards to the safety of a our middle-class, blue collar household that had just gotten a first hand jolt of Viet Nam.