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Alright, so today is June 1 of 2018, and this is 50 years after 1968. This is Rebecca Johnson, Melvin and John Caldwell and Diane both,

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and we're here today in reviewing glue. We are in the One Button Studio and Boris library. So I wonder if you could

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give us some background. That little bit of a brief life story up to where are you from and what brought you to Delaware and 68, right?

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Well, I'm originally from New York and was actually living in upstate New York. Moved here when I was in ninth grade, my father changed jobs.

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It was a Dr. and ended up coming down here. So the whole family came and I wasn't real impressed with Delaware and ninth and 10th grade,

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although I ended up having a pretty good time. Bose interested, Of course, as a teenager I wanted to

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get out and see the world. New York rarely was in trauma and I was hitchhiking back to New York and trying to get up there.

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And then I came to school here and 65. Probably one of the first things I remember doing this, taking part in a demonstration at

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the new art Country Club because at that time they didn't allow black people to join the country club. So I couldn't believe it.

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I thought that was just in the South. And by 1965 that was all over. I was kinda naive. And I went there,

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there was a demonstration, or probably about a dozen of us. A local paper, I think New York Post called us bearded communists.

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Only one motivation for growing a beard after that, 0, 17 at the time. So we were there talking

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to people who are going in. I think there was an alumni dinner or something at the country club. I started talking to somebody that I knew.

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They don't allow Jews in here either. I really couldn't believe that, but it was true and I felt good about doing that.

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And I made some connections and with people who became a group of SDS. So how did that group find each other, the group that protested at

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the Newark country club with these just classmates. I just remember talking to somebody and they were

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telling me about this and I was like, No, that can't be and is it well, it's gonna be a demonstration, so I showed up.

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Did you ever visit the Phoenix House? Was that where you met any of these people? I had a sort of Ishi relation with the Phoenix House,

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So I went there a few times. I'm not gonna go into all of that now. But I did spend some time there. I saw people that I already knew

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there rather than meeting new people on the whole. So tell us about 97, 68. What year were you in school?

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What were you studying? Okay. As my third year in school and studying psychology,

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what I remember most was after school was over, I ended up hitchhiking to California and hitchhiking back.

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And that put me in Chicago. I knew about the thing in Chicago, so I figured, well, if I hitchhiked there,

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I'll be able to find rides back to the East Coast. And so got to Chicago and ended up reading people there.

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I met George George wall kind. And I remember I was asked about this later on by the FBI and they said, did you see any of these people there?

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So I knew only to mention people whose names are already in the paper. I said, Yeah, I saw my friend George. What kind they got really interested,

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like what was he doing? He was eating a cheese sandwich. I mean, everybody's church ladies who are passing out sandwiches to the demonstrators.

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So he had gotten a cheese sandwich and we were standing around talking and I asked him if he was going back to Delaware trying

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to line up or ride and they weren't seems like that wasn't what they were looking for. What certainly all I was going to

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mention in that discussion. Can we back up a little bit and tell us more about the trip to California. The summer of 67. Inspire your interest

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in California or what, Where did you go and California? San Francisco first and then LA I on the map they look like,

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oh, this will be an easy headshot to stick out my thumb. 400 mi. So I think it

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was just the idea of travel in general. I mean, that California was just because you couldn't hitchhike any further.

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A lot of what impressed me was really like, I guess would now call the heartland, just the rest of the country in between, which is still to this day,

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I think pretty different area I remember on a more recent trip were coming back from western Pennsylvania. By the time we got two chambers,

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Berg was already the East Coast. But like 15 min further west, you are ready starting this vast amount of territory that stretches probably

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to the rural areas, california, small towns, farms, that kind of thing. And I sent him people

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and really all parts of the country. I mean, it was easier on the East Coast and the West Coast. They were more hippies are

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people who are at least friendly to them. But even in other parts, the vast middle of the country, I found people were really nice and I'd

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never really had a hard time for all the horror stories. You hear everything went smoothly. Sometimes you'd meet other kids your age,

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but other times it was just older people who are interested in talking. And I remember right, I got with some guy in

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Montana was an old truck. He asked me after a while if I wanted to drive and I realize that thing that too many gears,

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I really can't drive. But he had a oil like a gas, 55 gallon drums, so I helped them. That's how we put

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gases that we poured the acid and then he was going all the way to Missoula, I think. And he had never been out of Montana

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in his whole life and he was probably a little younger than I am now, probably in the sixties. The people who are, I think we're

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curious about people who, it was more common to see people hitchhiking now it's not a thing anymore. Did you travel alone?

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Part of the trip, I did part I left with a woman I knew from Delaware and we split up when we hit the West Coast and we're just friends.

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And then the whole rest of the trip, I was traveling on my own. The people that you met along the way. And some of these conversations

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where you're talking about politics or civil rights or so or the war. Some of those things would come up. I mostly was about drugs.

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I mean, to be honest. I mean, that's seemed to be a point in common. Politics came up sometimes

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what I would often wait, you know, particularly hitchhiking, see what people said before I started launching into something like that.

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So yeah, for most of your kids I met and all is more about LSD and also other things. So when you were in California,

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were you there when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated? Know I was there a little bit after that. I was staying with a house full

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of people who were originally, I guess you're not hillbillies would be determined, but they had moved out

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to California, the family, the grandparents during World War II for factory jobs. And I was hanging

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out with their kids basically in staying there. The only thing that the grandmother was almost

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busted because she had a bunch of pot plants in the garden. And when the issue was like a nice old lady and

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the officer said, I don't know, they just look nice and I didn't bother to pull him up with the weeds and maybe my grandkids may it

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to them and left her alone. But pretty typical for that time. And again, he could overestimate or if it had been one of

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the kids had been dead for curating music out there with any concerts, clubs that you remember a particular I didn't

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I was short of funds. Let's put it that way. I did like a month and we're on the road for under $100 and most of

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that when that are big chunk of it went to a fine for hitchhiking out and Ravenna, Ohio. So it wasn't like going to a concert,

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so it's going to be tops on the list. Sometimes buying food was up there, but yeah. And again, even there if I was staying with people, you get fed.

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And then of course later on when I came back here, I would do the same thing, pick up, pick up hitchhikers.

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I remember one time there was a guy who was a student. I forget the name of the college. It's a small college in Maryland and he

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got stranded at the train station. And there was no train after the time he was there, I was coming back from Philly.

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I was like 71 knows and grad school at Temple as I mentioned, and he just didn't know what to do. So it's all come on, come back

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and stay at our place and stuff. And so I think it was a lot of that both receiving being the hitchhike and we're also giving that back.

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I remember when it's coming from the university to where I lived and live again. North Wilmington picked up five people

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hitchhiking about halfway down Kirkwood highway, which was not really developed like it is now,

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somebody lived a join. So by the time I got home, dropped everyone off. I had a very pleasant trip.

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So let's get back to Chicago again. Okay. Then you hitchhiked back to Chicago, right? Specifically to attend the convention, right?

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Right. And that's sort of what happened now, again, I ended up there living on the south side and a group apartment.

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Couple of jazz musicians, guy named Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell. Well no, but some of them became well-known later on are fairly well-known.

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And bunch of other people living in this apartment and, you know, there are people always coming in and going out, that kind of thing.

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Then from there every day, I get down to the demonstration. So worked out pretty well. So why did you want to be

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there? What did you want to see? Well, basically a whole bunch of other people my age who were again, were protesting the way things are.

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It focused on who is going to run for office to some extent, but I think it was bigger than that. And certainly the UP is it

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wherever Abbie Hoffman in that group, it was much broader than a typical political protest. It was sort of like the whole system

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was being called into question. And he got arrested there for having an American flag shirt, I think because I talked

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to his wife at the time. Yeah. You just go down the street, you start talking to

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people and she was saying how your husband had just been arrested for wearing an American flag shirt and stuff and there were things like that.

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There was a lot of interaction with the police, so put it that way. I remember one time.

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Please charge down the street and people who saw it coming from ducked into restaurants or whatever.

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So I was in a restaurant looking at and it was a guy in a coat and tie and he just pointed to call guy with long hair and also in

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three other guys in suits with blackjack beat the guy into the ground. I mean, they hit them like each a couple of times.

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Just laying there and full of blood. So there were things like that that went on. Were you out there daytime and nighttime? Both. Both.

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Yeah. And how long did you stay in Chicago? It was like a week. I got arrested towards the end.

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And again, I didn't have money to bail myself out. So in the beginning they were like probably a couple of

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dozen people who were arrested with Dick Gregory eyes were all arrested together. And as soon as we got down to the station house, they took him away.

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And then the rest of us, we're all just put in cells. And as the night went on, there were three of us left.

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Myself and other guy from Delaware who were traveling together at that point back to Wilmington. And a third guy who had

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just gotten back from Vietnam. And we were all sitting there because we couldn't get bailed out. And then finally, I think it was

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Paul two wires people. He was a New York politician and he came down and when I I guess they saw their only three of us

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eight bell this all out. So that was good. I mean, I don't know much about New York politics at all, but I was real happy that that happened.

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Got us out just as day it was breaking. What was the arrest charge? There were over a dozen charges, about half felony,

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half misdemeanor, crossing state lines to incite a riot was one, and then the others. I can't even remember by the time I got into court like a month later because I came

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back to Delaware and then went back out again. It was down to a traffic ticket of basically disobeying

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a police officer's orders. The police officer was actually like an officer and the National Guard who

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told us all we couldn't cross the street. And they had paddy wagons lined up and we decided to cross the street. And the people who did were

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arrested that I remember that because I saw what happened to the guy who dragged off to the paddy wagon in front of me as they

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were getting to the paddy wagon. To cops, looked at each other, gave each other a singleton in brand is shins into

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the metal guard of the back of a paddywagon, the bumper. So I said, Okay, I know what to do now, they grabbed me and as

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soon as I got to that point, I jumped onto the bumper inside the paddy wagon, turned around and gave a peace sign.

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And my younger brothers and I saw that on TV. I thought that was you. So yeah. It was it was good the

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way people stuck together and even with, you know, all of the violence and stuff and try to help each other out. And, you know,

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it was a night in jail in some ways. So were you the oldest of your siblings? Yes. More than one?

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I have two brothers. One died back in 99, and the others still alive and well. So what was it like

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for your parents and your family? Okay. My my father died. He died actually in March of 68.

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He would not have been a fan of any of this. We are good. I came to loggerheads over that was typical of the time.

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In some ways. My mother really didn't have much to say. I mean, I said I'm going I'm going to hit Shack across the country.

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I didn't say I'll call you once a week and that's what I did. I would stop and pay phones. There were no cell phones and I

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call her and let her know how I was kinda funny. When you came back, did you share stories with your two younger brothers?

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Yeah. Sure. Sure. My my youngest brother who's like nine years younger than me, but he was always able to sort of like

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hanging out with me and my brothers, friends and stuff and probably was exposed to lots of stuff. Vote, he didn't get involved in it,

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but you could see what was going on. He knew about that. I think he was one of those kids have thought I missed the revolution kind of thing.

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But, you know, it all worked out. Alright. So when you then did you go back to UD for your senior year?

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Yes. In the fall of 68. 68 graduated in the spring of 69. Okay. So what was it

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like to come back as a senior? After having been to Chicago? Before that? To California?

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Yeah, while I realized the majority of the people here were not doing what I was doing. But there were enough people who work.

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It was like a core group of people. And it really was that as I think Diane said before, it was a mixed of politics

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and drug culture was all mixed together. If you knew somebody in one group, you knew people in the whole group kind of thing. Which was good.

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There was enough kind of support from people around that because all the people that was just like a freak show and

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I didn't know what was going on and they could care less. But again, no real over hostility from anyone.

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I never ran into much of that here. So did you share stories about what you had seen other people that I knew.

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Sure. Sure. What do you think was the most important story that he brought back? Was it about police brutality

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or Alright, well, I was on the I don't know if they call it the Chicago Transit, going back to the South side.

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And I'm there with another teenager, as it turned out, I was like 20, he was 16, not that, you know, that

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mattered to either of us. And as we're on the train going back, somebody approaches us and in a pretty demanding tone.

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So he wanted us to buy his book of poetry. And it was sort of like this is going to be easier to give the guy $0.50 to have them stand

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over us and Hector us about so I bought it and as it is, I do tend to pick up lots of leaflets. I had all sorts of leaflets

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political groups were handing out as well as church groups. Is there anybody who was handing out paper? I tended to collect it

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later on I got rid of most of it. Some of it's still here upstairs in the Special Collection. I think something from

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the seed is from that time, which was a Chicago underground newspaper. And later I met, was a Peck who was one of

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the editors, air and stuff. But anyway, we get off the train or walking along and were pulled over by two Chicago policeman.

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One black, one white. And they're like, what do you have in the knapsack, then? A bunch of papers and he wants to see him.

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So I start handing out the papers. And first ones were more political ones. It's like, Oh, you think police are pigs high.

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You want to go down to the station house and meet a bunch of paints. And I was like, I just kept quiet. And then I started

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handing out other things too, like the church pamphlets and the police, and it was kinda confused. This is the white coffee was

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started reading all this stuff. And it's what is it that he's sort of theory that down he wasn't interested.

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And then I, finally, the final one is I handed him the book of poems. And it was very much focused on race.

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And it was like the white man has a soul of winter and the black band has the sole a summer. And it goes on and on in this vein.

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And as he's reading this in a kind of mocking tone, his partner starting to get really pissed off.

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And he catches that and just throws everything back at me and says, You guys get out of here. And they originally said

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he was going to arrest me for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, which would have

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another night back in prison. But I think when he saw how his partner was reacting, it was like, alright, this is over.

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And that's the story from Chicago to remember what the pilot was? No, and I'd never saw his name again. I didn't it wasn't somebody like to

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jazz musicians knew or anything. It was just some random guy who tried with this jazz musicians. I was at Lincoln Park.

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And this is when Alan Ginsburg was they're doing and everything like that. I ran into these two girls who said, Oh, you could come stay with us at

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this apartment on the south side. So that's how, you know, it was really just making connections with people and it worked

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out like I say, hitchhiking. And there are times you sleep but outside or in the middle of a cornfield or under an overpass.

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But most of the times in those days anyway, he'd meet people and you could stay at their place. And like I said, this was

00:21:08.420 - 00:21:15.010

a pretty open place with a lot of people going in and out and the people who pay rent, some of them had locks on the doors.

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You didn't have some. But for whatever reasons they liked the two, that it was a place where a lot of people are hanging out.

00:21:22.750 - 00:21:33.690

So this project started because campus wanted to remember what happened after the assassination of Martin Luther King, right?

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Do you remember that period? In April and what it was? On campus. And then what was the reaction your family lived in Wilmington,

00:21:41.930 - 00:21:51.320

North Wilmington, right? Well, North Wilmington and everything was quiet than that. But I do remember hearing a lot about that.

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There were riots, of course, all over the country that was riots and Wilmington, the National Guard was called out.

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Now, I was on campus during that time. I didn't have a car and to go to a city to see a bunch of National Guard and scraped didn't have

00:22:09.030 - 00:22:17.120

it wasn't like there was a demonstration per se of that. Later on I got to talk to some people about things that went on there.

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For awhile. There was somebody I knew from work actually, we both work for the state. But this guy was mostly a karate expert.

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John Taylor, a famous woman, $0.10 and still get my metal whole lot of people for about a year or so that I was hanging out with

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them maybe a little more. One of whom had blown off his hand during that period building a bomb. That it was very revolutionary kind of guy.

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So that was, that was one thing from that period. Also remember, and this was later on, newer policemen as Wilmington who's dead now.

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He remembered like during that period they had a patrol the streets and they go down certain blocks and people would throw all sorts of stuff atom.

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And so he was sort of like trying to scan the rooftops to see where stuff was coming from. And also met someone

00:23:15.740 - 00:23:21.980

else who was on the rooftops. And he said they build little chimneys that are bricks. So we'd look kind of normal when

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the police went down the street. And then when the car one passed Adolf throat or Brexit, the cop car. So more fun and

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games I guess for the guy is throwing the Brixton the police. I mean, they were pretty upset obviously being

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bombarded in this way where those kids on the rooftops, kids or people who were like in their late teens, mid 20s? Yeah.

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Who was the guy that kindness hand blue, blown off. Was he an activist or yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

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Do you remember on campus that they had a teach-in shortly after, right. With what? Slur? Yeah.

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Sure. Right. Did you attend that or how do you remember anything about where it was held or remembering

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something but I have to admit I wasn't listening to speakers. It was just one of those odd events that I ran into a woman I didn't know

00:24:25.660 - 00:24:33.760

when I started talking and that was it for a teach-in as far as I was concerned. This was a woman I later

00:24:33.760 - 00:24:47.940

hitchhiked to California was. So when you came back to Delaware and your senior year, were you involved with SDS

00:24:47.940 - 00:25:00.170

or were you previously involved? I was previously as in fall, I joined SDS and 1965. And the first demonstration I went to all,

00:25:00.170 - 00:25:08.510

the first one was the one on right off campus Country Club. That was like September, October, and then October,

00:25:08.510 - 00:25:16.010

November there was a demonstration in Washington. Was someone I knew from high school and his father who was in

00:25:16.010 - 00:25:22.310

the Marines and he will Jima and wore his Marine calf and also actually, yeah, this is patriotic.

00:25:22.310 - 00:25:30.440

I was like good guy. And later on I found that other people didn't see it that way.

00:25:30.440 - 00:25:45.420

But so what were some of the activities of SDS? What did you guys do together? I am not good at

00:25:45.420 - 00:25:53.660

organizational stuff and meetings. I could show off for demonstrations, I can do stuff like that. So I never wrote for heterodox ethical voice.

00:25:53.660 - 00:26:04.340

I wasn't involved in organizing anything. I talked a lot with like Ray CC and other people from that period. I realized I was more

00:26:04.340 - 00:26:15.050

on a spiritual track was what it really was with the psychedelics than a straight marks this track. So, but there were, again,

00:26:15.050 - 00:26:23.240

there weren't any problems. There are too few people if you argue with the people who are only political, you cut off half of the people that you knew.

00:26:23.240 - 00:26:31.310

But I do remember one meeting at the student center and as a matter of fact, I think it was the same day

00:26:31.310 - 00:26:40.190

they took the photograph, a group picture of SDS. And I remember who the guy was. I won't mention his name right now,

00:26:40.190 - 00:26:46.350

but he was talking and he said like Trotsky said, at that time I was like That's it. I'm out of here.

00:26:46.350 - 00:26:53.780

I went outside, wandered out behind the student union, ran into the guy was arrested, was in Chicago.

00:26:53.780 - 00:27:00.710

So we just sat around and smoke a joint and talked and was like, yeah, it's too much talk in there. It's like No, I'd rather be

00:27:00.710 - 00:27:15.130

out here just chilling out. How important were civil rights discussions at the time to you? They were important and that was something

00:27:15.130 - 00:27:22.490

actually probably got from my mom in some way. She was active in civil rights stuff in Duchess County back when I

00:27:22.490 - 00:27:33.030

was like sixth grade, that kind of thing. And so I remember like back then East eat lobster and stuff.

00:27:33.030 - 00:27:39.740

And lobster tails were a big thing. So I remember being shopping with my mouse details. Let's get last details.

00:27:39.740 - 00:27:45.200

And she looked at was a note from South Africa. We're not getting them, but I understood why it wasn't

00:27:45.200 - 00:27:56.330

like I argued with her, I said Okay. So I mean, it was they're in the home in that way. For probably that reason when a group

00:27:56.330 - 00:28:09.680

of baboons from Nigeria we're visiting, they sent them to talk to my mom and the kids were all home then two, I guess it's a typical American family,

00:28:09.680 - 00:28:20.180

but one that they knew would be sort of open to people from Nigeria and stuff I thought was fascinating and my mom had read up about Nigeria so

00:28:20.180 - 00:28:28.470

I could give like what the major products where in the populations of the city and all the kinds of things like a kid in sixth grade would pick up on.

00:28:28.470 - 00:28:37.840

And of course, the adults were sorry. I see that. When I'm talking about adult thing. So which high school did you go to?

00:28:37.840 - 00:28:51.620

Mount Pleasant. So did you have any awareness of racial issues going on within the state, within Delaware really,

00:28:51.620 - 00:29:01.730

admission of black students to issues that were going on, then write some awareness of it. Not particularly with

00:29:01.730 - 00:29:11.050

the University of Delaware. I mean, by the time I came here, there was a black guy who was president of the college fraternity I joined.

00:29:11.050 - 00:29:20.420

It was the only black I was probably typical in those days. But yeah, I was aware of that. One thing I was aware of his Mount Pleasant

00:29:20.420 - 00:29:28.490

was not really integrated back then, but being Jewish and had a lot of friends who went to PS, which is where PSP Pont,

00:29:28.490 - 00:29:35.300

the majority of the Jewish population at that time live. And so they went to school with black people all the time.

00:29:35.300 - 00:29:42.650

And so I ended up there black people. I drank with our black people. I listened to play music. I had a friend who is still

00:29:42.650 - 00:29:51.680

a professional musician and a good musician. Always be jamming it has house and sometimes people would be black and one of them had a brother,

00:29:51.680 - 00:29:59.000

but one of the black musicians had a brother who was also a musician, but was, it was obviously was very uncomfortable around white people.

00:29:59.000 - 00:30:05.480

And it's something that we pick up on and it can sort of the other brother was cool. Yeah, there he would just hang

00:30:05.480 - 00:30:11.940

out and be interested. What are the hip young white kids listening to that kind of thing. His brother was much more

00:30:11.940 - 00:30:22.370

standoffish through things like that. I had some awareness of what was going on. Certainly not the neighborhood where I went to school and

00:30:22.370 - 00:30:31.400

the school itself at that time really had no black people there. People Eric didn't really talk about it. It P S Dupont.

00:30:31.400 - 00:30:37.340

It was, you know, it was more upfront because there was a mixture of people. But it wasn't so much

00:30:37.340 - 00:30:47.270

political was more than the people who got along with socialize together and hang out, listened to music, that kind of thing. So 1968 is when

00:30:47.270 - 00:30:56.020

the Black Student Union was established at ED, right? And women were beginning to speak up right there for us was against the curfew.

00:30:56.020 - 00:31:06.440

Be different for it. I remembered, yeah. What are your thoughts about that period for women, blacks and activism?

00:31:06.440 - 00:31:15.800

I thought it was all going in the right direction. I really thought by this point in history, a lot of those issues would be gone,

00:31:15.800 - 00:31:21.170

which is a little naive maybe as a college student, but I really thought that was all of this energy and all of

00:31:21.170 - 00:31:32.690

these pilots would have energy. Racism and sexism are going to fade and they're fading very slowly. I mean, sometimes historical factors

00:31:32.690 - 00:31:39.290

have a lot longer life than an individual person. I do remember one thing at the Student Union where I

00:31:39.290 - 00:31:45.830

spent some time hanging out getting nickel coax back then you could get a coat for Nicole and sit around and talk to your friends and

00:31:45.830 - 00:31:55.700

that somebody had a paper and it was some feminist about the myths of the literal orgasm, which became like a well-known paper.

00:31:55.700 - 00:32:05.590

Vaginal artery. Okay. Yeah. Alright. So yeah, I'm getting my body parts can choose. Sorry about that. And I remember reading and say,

00:32:05.590 - 00:32:12.470

oh, this is interesting, This is cool, but there other guys who seemed real upset about it, I wouldn't have expected that from.

00:32:12.470 - 00:32:22.290

I mean, they smoked dope, they were cool. I would so that was when I started. Oh, maybe there's a little more tension going on here tonight.

00:32:22.290 - 00:32:33.660

Had realized. So were you concerned about the draft at that time period? Yes. And I had pretty much

00:32:33.660 - 00:32:42.890

decided that I was not going to go at that point. A lot of friends were dealing with that. At that time.

00:32:42.890 - 00:32:52.050

There were different places to get counseling and New York and Philly on legitimate ways to avoid the draft, semi legitimate ways to

00:32:52.050 - 00:32:59.120

avoid the draft, that kind of thing. I knew one person from that first demonstration back at University of Delaware and

00:32:59.120 - 00:33:10.700

65 who ended up going to Canada, who was a grad student in chemistry. And at that point, yeah, I was definitely looking to

00:33:10.700 - 00:33:19.360

keep myself and as many as my friends is I could out of out of the army. I had some friends who wanted to go into the army.

00:33:19.360 - 00:33:29.850

There was a group that's not real well-known today, the American servicemen union or yeah, and there was a guy

00:33:29.850 - 00:33:41.040

round the university to Delaware. He was involved with SDS and there was an old European family that we're all leftist going back generations and stuff.

00:33:41.040 - 00:33:49.790

And this guy was like a recruiting poster kind of guy. He was blond hair, average, hyper, very muscular in a way

00:33:49.790 - 00:33:58.250

that most people back then were. So the army took it right away. And then he started organizing and trying to get people to join a union.

00:33:58.250 - 00:34:04.160

And his father had a heart attack, a mild heart attack, and recovered soon as soon as they heard his father had

00:34:04.160 - 00:34:12.510

a heart attack hardship discharge that keep them out of the IRA. So most of us are trying to get out. There were a few who are trying to get in.

00:34:20.530 - 00:34:34.580

How would you end up assessing 1968, your life? Was that a year that stood out as opposed to 67 or 69 or 607-60-8609,

00:34:34.580 - 00:34:43.770

heart and her grand together in terms of what was going on. And I certainly am particularly Delaware around 65.66,

00:34:43.770 - 00:34:55.940

it was kinda different eras, a lot quieter. I mean, I had a beard by 65 but it wasn't the trim and I had short hair. But even that was unusual.

00:34:55.940 - 00:35:03.680

I realized looking through the yearbook that the only other people had them belong to Kappa Alpha, which was the northern most chapter

00:35:03.680 - 00:35:12.800

of Confederate fraternity. And they were growing them sort of like in memory of Confederate soldiers. So very different kind of thing.

00:35:12.800 - 00:35:20.670

Most people really didn't have beards in those days. I remember Delta Store with Kappa Alpha, there was another black guy

00:35:20.670 - 00:35:26.450

who was like a non-student. You hung out with the students here and we all got together and stuff like that.

00:35:26.450 - 00:35:32.170

And we're standing there, I guess it's an STL Avenue in front of the Kappa Alpha House. And he was talking about

00:35:32.170 - 00:35:41.390

the Confederate flag and how it made them feel and that kind of thing, which is the first time I really heard that later on

00:35:41.390 - 00:35:51.980

the flag went missing an offer. And in the beginning, moving here from New York, it was like, all right, we're moving to the South.

00:35:51.980 - 00:36:00.380

Basically. It's kind of in the South. I didn't really know what to expect. So first-time were Wilmington car stops and it had

00:36:00.380 - 00:36:10.430

a confederate flag license plate like a metal license plate and added a car. Get these two big black guys with their hair shaved off except

00:36:10.430 - 00:36:18.170

on the top style, I associate with people at a basic training marines or something, but who knows who already has two black eyes.

00:36:18.170 - 00:36:28.870

They had a confederate flag, I think back then this would 65, 64. It may have been more just a regional symbol that people know you're from the South,

00:36:28.870 - 00:36:43.670

although certainly that's not what it turned into. So what would you say is the most important influence

00:36:43.670 - 00:36:52.030

on your life from that period? The spiritual, Yeah, definitely a spiritual quest and I set off by LSD,

00:36:52.030 - 00:37:01.130

but makes it no less real. And that really did affect my life and a lot of ways. For one thing, I've been

00:37:01.130 - 00:37:13.550

meditating over 40 years every day. And that comes from that time. I remember in 69 living that IV whole apartments by the train tracks.

00:37:13.550 - 00:37:20.480

I was interested in theory, but I remember trying to teach myself how to meditate on my, I'm just going to stare at this candle

00:37:20.480 - 00:37:27.840

that I didn't really have the techniques at that time or later on learn them and they'll have been doing them ever since.

00:37:27.840 - 00:37:35.480

So that's probably the biggest influence that pulls psychedelic spiritual side of things which really

00:37:35.480 - 00:37:48.180

influenced how I see the world and how I see the world today. Is there anything else you'd like to say about 1968, Delaware being here?

00:37:48.430 - 00:37:57.240

I don't know, things have changed. I get which is good. I think some of the changes are good, some not so good.

00:37:57.240 - 00:38:09.530

Certainly the social problems all there. Remember reading a quote from somebody, I'm trying to remember it. Ill Fares the Land to hastening ills

00:38:09.530 - 00:38:18.110

of prey where wealth accumulates and men decay. Thought, oh yeah, we got the Koch brothers are trillion dollars right

00:38:18.110 - 00:38:25.340

now between two brothers. And then we have people go into these free dental clinics because there's no longer dental care

00:38:25.340 - 00:38:35.570

covered on most plans. But of course there's the quote was from Oliver Goldsmith and 17 70. So I think there's certainly now the tension

00:38:35.570 - 00:38:43.700

between democracy and oligarchy is an ongoing thing. But I'm going to leave most of that to younger generations.

00:38:43.700 - 00:38:50.720

I'm already retired while I'll still pursuing the spiritual stuff. So I think all the social issues is still there

00:38:50.720 - 00:39:01.770

and we'll see how things change over the next few years. I don't know if there'll be a sixties again, but something they happen.

00:39:01.770 - 00:39:05.880

Thank you for talking to us. No, thank you.