Kent State

Today is the 36th anniversary of the Kent State shootings. I was telling a co-worker about them (she's 37 and had never heard of them) and have been thinking about them ever since. Now that I have a 19 year old myself, I find I'm even more affected by the 4 deaths there than I was when I was 16. I can't imagine how it would feel to have my son killed by our own troops for protesting. It's like something from fiction or a third world country.

I remember the shootings and all the universities closing down early. I was dating a guy from UC and all my friends were in college and it was a very big deal. There was so much turmoil, even then without around-the-clock meaningless and information-less news coverage! It was about a year after we all marched out of class for Moratorium Day in October, 1969 (either to protest the war or to get out of class -- depending on how you felt). I walked out to get outside! Check out this site to learn about Moratorium Day and other interesting things.

We just had a protest here in a middle school (which started the conversation in the first place) over teachers' contracts -- what a contrast, illustrating how petty and self-absorbed we've become. The funny thing is that the 6th graders were punished and the 7th graders were not...

Nothing else to say about any of that -- just wanted to remind everybody of the anniversary.

Thanks for visiting!