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Push button again. Okay. Okay. It's October 24, 2018 and we're doing another voices of 1968 interview.

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Wet but studio in the basement of Morris library and with me as well noted. And our interviewee today is Richard coder, who in 1968 was

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a junior at the University of Delaware, the infamous cartoonists for the review of the University of Delaware student newspaper and

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resident of Wilmington who lived not too many blocks from the occupation of downtown Wilmington following the death of Martin Luther King Junior

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and the interests of full disclosure, I should add that didn't nearly got me kicked out of school twice. And I'll add as a final note before we

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shoot the first question at him that he was my roommate, my last year of the university. Hello, welcome Dick.

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Thank you. Joe. On January 1, 1968, you're you're halfway through your junior year.

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Tell us what you wrote to the scene at the university and just do a soft start. T. Okay. So that's junior year,

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I suppose I was January probably working on projects for in the art department recitation fall, which I just went binds still

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there once a week doing cartoon for the review. And it's turns to me, didn't you have a radio program?

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And one night we actually ate live on radio pizza. And people called it and told us to stop. I had food that's very clear. Forgotten.

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I think so. And I guess I was caught up in as much as anybody else or the revolutionary spirit

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that was on campus in the, well, the agitation against the war and other things that were happening. So That's still living

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the life of a typical junior. Nobody would confuse the University of Delaware with Columbia, or Berkeley,

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or Madison or Ann Arbor or name 20 other places where there was what you would call a full-throated student movement.

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How did those campuses compare it to sleep? You Delaware know, well, you know, you always felt that you were on the outskirts of

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Paris while the revolution was going on and didn't have the information is trickling down to us in a slow, painful way.

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It's sort of amazing anyhow. But nevertheless, you know, Still no, Pretty much what was going on. And feeling that poor little Delaware

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was being left out of all the fun and excitement. It it seemed to me that one of the few ways the outside world intruded on

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students lives was the review. And we gave it our best shot and keeping up with what was going on at the hotbed campuses.

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And with the Scholastic News Service, which had not yet been infiltrated by the CIA. We got a pretty steady diet of

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news from overseas and what students were doing there. We pretty much had to figure it out on our own.

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And you're telling us a little bit about your cartoony chores. This was something that they just usually

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spontaneously burst from your brain, not after a story conference, know, but I think we did have kind of talk. So generally we all know what a

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week we would be talking about whatever was happening. And technically the way you and I, as opposed to what I do today,

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which is almost completely digital moment to get up and go to asleep. It was basically, you know, having Bristol pad and various pieces of

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scrap paper and working with repeated graph pens are trying out all kinds of new ten points are brushes or whatever with

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ink and constantly working over a white table because I like when I had done, I had to do it over and over

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again no matter how hard I try it. So I got an idea here at the beginning of the week, I just got to get done.

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Nevertheless, would always be the last minute rushing in. Arrears, coder, We got to get a combined getting

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their photographs than what were they called this. The first black and whites that you would make.

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The photographs that would be then taken and then that will be made into a It was made into a negative. Negative, right. And then there was like

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a black and white photo print? Yeah. I can't remember the name of that. That was not either.

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Then went on there. That's that whole thing is that disappeared. So right now even though the process that you did all this blue menu deadline

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and I'd be hearing my hair out. Well, actually I had almost no here then either. And there'll be a big hole on page four.

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Bears take Where's Dave? You did not assign your cartoons, Richard coder know, I signed them. Which was a a scatological,

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a reference to biological child is shed thoughts back then, which I did do some, as I say, scatological. I can't even remember at this point,

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but it's already caught on. And the little characteristic which is based on the guest became the longest character

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and that still to this day, the lungs and the young guy, only people from many years ago. And the first thing out of the mouth is,

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no character was not an antecedent to. It was more or less parallel to my favorite political cartoons, Pat Oliphant, who, who had the little, little,

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little trippy bird who is wise cracking cartoon. And coincidentally, we were not running among cartoons.

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Pat Oliphant had made his cartoons available for free to students papers. He was just starting out at the Denver Post, recently arrived from Australia.

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And we really had a one-two punch as far as editorial cartoons between mom and at all? Yeah. He's still out there in New Mexico. Late 80s.

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I didn't see a couple of things recently phone, but I think mostly findings involved in prints and

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probably archiving his own words. Yeah, this is not very good, but yeah, he's, he's the dormi ARH. Truly magnets.

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As you came up with ideas at the beginning of that, we can fail to do anything about them until midnight.

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And for deadlines, what kind of ideas where you mostly, I guess it had to do with the draft. And remember there's three.

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That was a constant diet thing because people were always disappearing around who are getting their notices,

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are being afraid of getting their notices. Had to do with also student life. You know, what is forbidden to us. I wasn't wasn't forbidden to us.

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Why couldn't we get this? And just various grapes rousing about the whatever was happening around the seconds.

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Now it's a fool's errand to try to describe in words one of your cartoons or any cartoonists. So I'm going to skip that.

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But I do remember a cartoon that did raise hackles about the Greek Rush. Oh, yeah. You had people rushing from one end of

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the frame to another and back again and all that. And then probably your most infamous cartoon. And that was the first time I nearly

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got thrown out of school because of you. And that was governor Charles. Okay. Sitting on the skyline of whoami,

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which was a metaphor for him calling him the National Guard right here. Dr. King was assassinated and men having them occupied

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when meeting because of this nebulous plot that he had heard of through his crack intelligence services.

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There was another, I didn't get it done, but it was the idea of sodium blacked thread needs North Vietnamese soldiers running across

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the Delaware bridge attacking one volition and with a musket, right. But somebody who's in it. Now, the reason I was called

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into the Dean of Students Office and Dean who sat there for half an hour blowing score, smoke in my face.

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Was that at that time, Delaware was very, very, very closely tied to a very conservative state government

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and political establishment. Many of the members of the board of directors were from downstate Delaware and had,

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had even for that time, considerably backward political views. And the university took it as an affront that the student newspaper would

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write anything negative about it, let alone draw a cartoon as trenching is yours about McGovern. I didn't realize that, you know, I mean,

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I was just starting the DuPont faculty was pseudo somehow pointing straight to the DuPont family. Yeah, There was there

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was those folks as well. Okay. So but that eye sees that wasn't so much aware of. I mean, maybe you mentioned it to me

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but it was the second time, you know, the cartoon strip. Okay, So that really stands out in my mind because that was the infamous court cans.

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Poor cancer, powerful. I actually found the original, I have found the original cartoon strip. And isn't there a Perkins?

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Perkins was the university president in 1968, he retired and I think John Shirley was president. Okay, So I had done

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this cartoonish or basically they are making the present into a sort of foreseen that type of his super villain who

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is terrorizing the youth of this imaginary Delaware Kingdom. And it was our quest to get rid of the, the, the Kingdom of this evil influence.

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I think we got one. I'm not sure to be the one to or I think just one supposed to be a three-part series.

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I know he found the first part when I got called in and threatened with expulsion are but that one at that point was really important and he

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realized that he wasn't going to move west. And somebody probably whispered in his ear, a former army colonel. Spell these people, you're going to have

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even more trouble than well, the main thing is when I got called it, that was really when standing outstanding moments

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of my college career. I was in Razi dressed in my uniform, and I suddenly got a call that I was wanted in the Dean's office and I came

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in and worked in my uniform all nicely, press that everything had sat there and listened to the Perkins and somebody else

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might have been a lawyer for them, but they wonder, what does this name, what's the meaning of that is let's say I say Well, sir,

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you ever sir, it's not a real person. And you went back and forth like that for awhile and he said, Don't ever do this again.

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We're not going to have this anymore and such things in our newspapers, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, Is that all sorted?

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I mean, just I remember standing at attention and clicking my yields and walking out. That was deeply pose

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you tripping over the change on the mole for the April Fool's issue or was that someone else? I think that's somebody else now. Okay.

00:13:02.330 - 00:13:10.400

Basically integrated that the the proverbial also hit the fan that year when we did our annual April Fool's issue.

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And the lead story was on the toll of mamie from the steel chains that were erected. Okay. Yeah.

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The wall to prevent people from going on in gray here, yes. Yes. We pose the poor,

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hapless students fallen over the change in front of holy and that's Eric Smith? Maybe it was Eric Smith.

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I haven't filled out. I remember I remember the photograph. And that caused an enormous explosion that we would dare make fun of.

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The administrations change. Shifting to Wilmington. Dr. King was assassinated the first week in April.

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Governor Terry calls and the National Guard. And then, unlike other cities, they stay and they stay. And they stay.

00:14:01.570 - 00:14:16.330

1968 goes on. Now you were living will be charitable and say maybe 25 blocks away. What effect did the occupation

00:14:16.330 - 00:14:23.760

have on your life? Those of your friends, your mom, your sister. Okay.

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Well, first of all, night of Dr. King's assassination, I was at a flyers game up in Philadelphia and I was

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there with some friends. And one of the weirdest thing in the electricity all goes off and the ice starts melting.

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And they actually have to stop the game. And they just say, that's it. They're just announced theirs. Now, everybody goes downstairs

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and there used to be the train used to leave almost directly from the flyer stating the Broad Street. So I might say yes, I get on it.

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Again. Nobody knows what's happened now, anything it's probably there already seven 08:00 at night. I've been there for hours.

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The people when they go off and I flew down to Washington DC to visit Dave Wilson who was living down there or it

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had an apartment or something? I'm on the train again. No cell phones, no anything. Everybody is just sitting

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calmly on the train. I get off, I get to Washington station. I walk out and I suddenly walk into hell. I mean, literally across

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the street of building blows up. The fire comes out of it and I'm walking down the street. People are weird,

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strange groups are running all around the place that I'm walking. And it was in walking in this apartment was in walking distance.

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And I keep going. And I see another explosion and I see this and there's fine. There's people running with

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things on their shoulders and then what the heck is going on? And televisions. And I get to the door, knock the door, it

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opens up and all I remember, his day delay rapidly pulls me. What are you crazy? Of course, and I didn't have

00:16:06.950 - 00:16:12.620

any phone or anything. I call them earlier like a day earlier and said I was coming and, you know, back then

00:16:12.620 - 00:16:20.160

because he didn't have cell phones, you took it for granted, you recovered. But he thought that I obviously I had done until that moment.

00:16:20.160 - 00:16:25.760

You did not know? I had no idea and it wasn't until I got dragged into the house and he says, Do you know what's going

00:16:25.760 - 00:16:33.050

on out there isn't no. Watch watch it all. So that was that. And then I think I

00:16:33.050 - 00:16:43.760

stayed there for a couple of days. And when I got back, I remember my mother grumbling about what was happening and I do

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remember going downtown and seeing Jeeps with, you know, very bored national guards sitting there and just not

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really paying attention to much of anything. But specifically, I think we went back to school. I mean, I just didn't know we were in school

00:17:02.150 - 00:17:08.680

and then it was spring break was over. Yeah. And so it wasn't that I was heading going back and forth each from Wilmington.

00:17:08.680 - 00:17:18.020

And I know that, you know, what am I? The next door neighbor, Ruth Colbert, was very active in every kind of organization that

00:17:18.020 - 00:17:29.490

was more pro civil rights, was very involved in the ticketing and demonstrating. And my mother was a bunch more or less bad,

00:17:29.490 - 00:17:39.410

but was constantly grumbling and saying This is ridiculous and I didn't feel she was. Now was Joe Biden at that time he was a house or prison.

00:17:39.410 - 00:17:45.590

No. No. I know she needed to see are there was somebody that she got it, that would not happen. She would say she was on

00:17:45.590 - 00:17:52.130

the phone to somebody who is a government that say this is ridiculous. What do you guys still under? Biden says sentence he

00:17:52.130 - 00:18:02.630

did not use later. And for Sharpie or listeners of the voices of 1968 project, George Wolfe Klein talked

00:18:02.630 - 00:18:13.230

at some length about Ruth Colbert as really being a key figure in the minute anti-war movement. Know, Ruth, I went with Ruth Colbert to

00:18:13.230 - 00:18:20.690

the March on Washington, and he's 12-years-old. And there is we used to have the picture of it.

00:18:20.690 - 00:18:28.880

It was a picture of the reflecting pool looking from the monument and seeing all these people. And then the next picture is Ruth

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falling into the water because she's leaning over. You just see this little finger flick. But she was very passionate,

00:18:40.890 - 00:18:52.250

wonderful person who really, yes, it was always involved in something that was. So we return to school and things revert to,

00:18:52.250 - 00:19:01.640

as you said, like being in the suburbs of Paris during the revolution. And Washington was in flames. Newark was in flames.

00:19:01.640 - 00:19:14.870

Wilmington was in, locked down. After one or two very minute cases of arson, minor looting. And it really, really

00:19:14.870 - 00:19:23.310

a civil disturbances go a mirror pinprick, right? We all go back to class. The review is grinding out

00:19:23.310 - 00:19:33.230

story after story after story about the occupation and about the protests and riots and major cities. And yet from my perspective,

00:19:33.230 - 00:19:41.060

that seemed not even like being on the suburbs of Paris, but being on another continent. Yeah. What's your recollection?

00:19:41.060 - 00:19:47.390

Well, yeah. I mean, but what is it? There's one night when everything's sort of just the explodes,

00:19:47.390 - 00:19:57.980

isn't there? There's one. I remember this is being recitation Hall, the middling 7.8 o'clock at night. And this really weird noise.

00:19:57.980 - 00:20:04.570

And I remember somebody going up and start banging and air conditioners and what the heck is that sound? And then we look out the window

00:20:04.570 - 00:20:14.710

and there's just hundreds of people walking, running down main street chanting. And now, I don't know, to me, I wasn't the, the,

00:20:14.710 - 00:20:25.800

the the the idea there was the center of the student center. Wasn't it occupies one night. I don't recall.

00:20:25.800 - 00:20:30.380

Oh, I remember is there's this incredible thing. We we rush out of the building and all the arts students.

00:20:30.380 - 00:20:36.560

We come running down to the mall and we get to it. And I don't know if it was a war crime, but it was somebody who was making

00:20:36.560 - 00:20:45.530

a big speech there in front of the y, right? Yeah. And and again, it's getting really tense and they got really it actually got

00:20:45.530 - 00:20:52.310

fairly scary because it's pretty out of control. And I think there were very nervous guards were trying to figure out what to do.

00:20:52.310 - 00:21:01.570

And George was the ring leader of the brief and very peaceful takeover of holly ball, okay? Right.

00:21:01.570 - 00:21:12.980

In response to the election of a number of SDS members, the student government, who were all summarily expelled,

00:21:12.980 - 00:21:21.300

as well as three faculty members not having their contracts renewed because of their anti-war activists. Okay.

00:21:21.760 - 00:21:30.660

Correct me. Didn't somebody tried to typical University of Delaware didn't somewhat tried to fire bomb

00:21:30.660 - 00:21:40.110

the ROTC building behind recitation, yeah. But it never went off? Yes. Yes. Yes. It was done. And there was also

00:21:40.110 - 00:21:48.800

there was one building that supposedly the Monsanto Corporation. There was one building over on that side of the campus.

00:21:48.800 - 00:21:56.560

There was always locked up. Who are the people that made the age and aren't changing orange or Chemical, dow Chemical.

00:21:56.560 - 00:22:04.810

And it was coming and it was always locked. Remember some of the attempts students, I know we never go in there. He's allowed to go.

00:22:04.810 - 00:22:19.280

There was a nuclear reactor building. The Chemical Engineering Building, right? There wasn't yeah. So I guess it was a time

00:22:19.280 - 00:22:32.630

when everybody was anything that was any odd thing was going to send everybody off in the wild swings in. But that one demonstration

00:22:32.630 - 00:22:48.460

that everyday I remembered as being the high point of Delaware is taking it to the streets. But yeah, that's all. Yes. 68 was

00:22:48.460 - 00:22:58.190

a quick convulsive time. So I mean, that's when you were I think you have the DNA, the troublemakers.

00:22:58.190 - 00:23:07.520

So I'm not going to ask you if you were converted in 1968. But as you look back on that and look forward from

00:23:07.520 - 00:23:23.010

there to a long and rather illustrious career of being an animator, a cartoonist, and author, world traveler. How, if at all did 1968,

00:23:23.010 - 00:23:30.860

the occupation and when we tend with the grief hiccup on the Delaware campus informed rest of your life and your career?

00:23:30.860 - 00:23:50.290

Well, I think it's just gotten us well, it got us all the way to the questioning our government, questioning the motives,

00:23:50.290 - 00:24:02.090

taking a stand about what, you know, we felt that the country should be college. That along with

00:24:02.090 - 00:24:19.180

30 million baby boomers coming of age and then demanding are fair share of the country. Now, when our lives and from there on,

00:24:19.180 - 00:24:24.400

you know, I mean, I ended up that I guess that's in 68. I ended up going with Chris israeli and they've

00:24:24.400 - 00:24:37.930

Wilson on a road trip which ended up in Chicago in 1968, sitting in front of the hill hotel there. And the three days of

00:24:37.930 - 00:24:49.170

just total madness and the Democratic Convention. And then off to San Francisco and then back across the country and the light,

00:24:49.170 - 00:25:00.470

everybody just sort of like there was a time for chaos. Agitation kinda informed everything. Now no names, no names mentioned.

00:25:00.470 - 00:25:12.690

But another big, big development, as it were in 1968, was that other than a few people smoking marijuana here and there,

00:25:12.690 - 00:25:22.840

it was the introduction for some of us to psychedelics. And I recall three chaps who went to Chicago

00:25:22.840 - 00:25:33.330

and then San Francisco and came back to New are breathing oregano completely. Do.

00:25:34.120 - 00:25:42.100

Can you bring that up? Oh my God, we were so clever and rewriting away after these guys to think of everybody

00:25:42.100 - 00:25:53.580

every day seeing the vaccine going. Wow, this is just wondering what scratching your way and there's literally a cardboard box there,

00:25:53.580 - 00:26:04.790

the cargo box and fill it up with irregular though. I classic moment of really three roots from the countryside.

00:26:04.790 - 00:26:17.300

Good. I didn't have to tell the story. So can you tell us more about Chicago? Oh, what what he saw?

00:26:17.300 - 00:26:27.500

Well, we initially gone there. I remember thinking, well, who was it? We decided that we would just say on a lark, we just going to go there because

00:26:27.500 - 00:26:35.180

I think somebody said we can actually get free, stay overnight if we if we had signed up with the McCarthy people and they

00:26:35.180 - 00:26:42.960

would put us up for you someplace. So many did they actually put us with a family, if I remember correctly,

00:26:42.960 - 00:26:54.320

rather large, complicated family, lots of kids, and it was a Catholic family. And what does that subarray Al Capone came from Skokie because he got okay.

00:26:54.320 - 00:27:03.580

So a very nice people, really Catholic Worker type party people. So we just said, are we wander downtown just to see what was happening?

00:27:03.580 - 00:27:11.780

And it was astonishing. I mean, I remember coming in, getting hooked again. You were working for

00:27:11.780 - 00:27:24.190

McCarthy and he got papers or something but ended up being in the middle of downtown and just sort of going from thing to thing. I remember there was a,

00:27:24.190 - 00:27:39.110

you know, in the park, I think. Yes. Some speeches being given. This statue and there was gene, gene a, and a couple of people that,

00:27:39.110 - 00:27:46.400

but that's when the first sort of please showed up and there was dogs and suddenly we're all scattered and I think there was

00:27:46.400 - 00:27:56.420

something that a tear gas and this is what the heck is going on. And as the day progressed, eventually, we ended up somehow with

00:27:56.420 - 00:28:05.670

the Poor People's March and Ralph, Ralph Abernathy were walking along with them. Because the phase where we finished them and they meet up with another group,

00:28:05.670 - 00:28:15.800

which is I think the, the not Abbie Hoffman. And maybe it is There's that they meet. And that's when I believe the hippies. Yes, the hippies.

00:28:15.800 - 00:28:25.410

And that is actually when the police militarization starts. So that's when they, they, they, they suddenly cops comment,

00:28:25.410 - 00:28:32.360

divide the two groups and then divide it again. And then you start seeing that as those Jeeps with the barbed wire on them.

00:28:32.360 - 00:28:41.100

And then before long, there's just really chaos and it becomes so surreal. It's just, you know,

00:28:41.500 - 00:28:50.870

tear gas is going off everywhere. The two things that you absolutely remember are deemed behind a bush and

00:28:50.870 - 00:29:01.380

a guy sort of like growing next to me. And then he goes, Hey, did I meet you in Switzerland this year? We stayed in a hostel.

00:29:01.390 - 00:29:11.990

Things are sailing over us and then healing. And now you go to another bush. And the other bush is Peter, Paul, and Mary all quieted down and

00:29:11.990 - 00:29:23.990

married at that time was married to the cousin of Marco office. Your work purposes because he said, How can you be more weird than this?

00:29:23.990 - 00:29:32.150

You know, it's like, for the record, mark coalface as a University of Delaware graduate and professor of economics parameter.

00:29:32.150 - 00:29:38.120

Yes. And so then they go away and then I'm just going to sing it. I'm trying to figure out where Chris

00:29:38.120 - 00:29:44.080

and Dave are. I think they're runaways. And just watching then suddenly a bus comes by,

00:29:44.080 - 00:29:55.940

a school bus of thousands of kids. He said no power to the people. That bus is literally followed by a bus of policemen.

00:29:55.940 - 00:30:07.970

All Hayden, yes. You're just watching this stuff. And if that's the and then rubric, we came up with Chris and David again.

00:30:07.970 - 00:30:19.480

Oh, this is Chris. Is there talking with somebody and saying, Listen, I just met these guys and they really,

00:30:19.480 - 00:30:24.830

you know, I sent, you know, you've got your card here. They'd really like to go out to this farm and bringing

00:30:24.830 - 00:30:34.760

a big thousand pound cake. It's not my car, Chris is My mother's car. What are you talking about? So now we can fit the page and then

00:30:34.760 - 00:30:42.710

we can say no, not going to pay. Well, that pig was pick gases. Do you remember be gases?

00:30:42.710 - 00:30:54.250

Gases was the pay that they studied that what's his name? The hippie movement. That was the reason that those guys got,

00:30:54.250 - 00:31:02.060

the eight guys got arrested and became the Chicago because they put the pagan this flatbed truck would

00:31:02.060 - 00:31:07.010

have been my mother's car. I'm brewing in town and he got arrested for that. And that became the basis

00:31:07.010 - 00:31:18.020

of the whole trials. But I do remember then after standing there, so like, oh my god, the car, the meter,

00:31:18.020 - 00:31:25.280

run any ideas I ran behind the hotel, put money in the meter and this series is policemen coming toward me. Can't get it said, Oh, sorry

00:31:25.280 - 00:31:34.780

Officer, and that's okay. You're good this tonight, but remember, put the money in the meters, then running Docker for their hotel where

00:31:34.780 - 00:31:40.430

this whole huge demonstration is in about a half an hour later that she's phalanx of police come in and

00:31:40.430 - 00:31:51.530

there's this comp, the same copy. The middle lungs aren't going to kill. The whole thing was just weird and surreal and just

00:31:51.530 - 00:31:57.830

constantly these vignettes happening, Abbie Hoffman standing from this giving you the normal speech and then in the middle of the garden.

00:31:57.830 - 00:32:05.450

And you're not listening, who cares? And walking away. Another thing of a guy yanking everybody on

00:32:05.450 - 00:32:11.690

and then somebody saying, Hey, who are you? This guy is a provocateur. It at the moment of that the guy

00:32:11.690 - 00:32:20.800

running away and running right into the police lines and disappearing in constant time periods. And the cameraman and

00:32:20.800 - 00:32:27.980

the whole thing just chaos, just complete chaos and just catching little bits of what was happening on the inside of the convention.

00:32:27.980 - 00:32:34.320

So it's three days that just the yeah, of course. You know, you wanted to be right in the middle of it.

00:32:34.320 - 00:32:42.430

You don't want to get your head bash name but you didn't want to be. Did you feel personally at risk or might be funny in this tension?

00:32:42.430 - 00:32:52.430

I know, but that's because you're just not even young and you could still run fairly fast. And it was a whole big cat

00:32:52.430 - 00:32:57.650

and mouse thing with them. They're there wasn't any I don't think there was any shooting going on,

00:32:57.650 - 00:33:06.560

but there was lots of tear gas. And so even though it wasn't a whole controlled police riot was still had its limits back there. No, not.

00:33:06.560 - 00:33:19.460

Now, we know of a couple of other voices of 1960 interviewees who did not fare as well. Yeah, there was nowhere. Who was George and Leo got to be real, right?

00:33:19.460 - 00:33:27.540

George spent the night in jail? Yes. Surreal is your experience was you at least warn harm?

00:33:27.540 - 00:33:35.840

No. No. I mean, I took in a lot of tear gas but I don't remember. But I saw some people are really

00:33:35.840 - 00:33:44.570

fairly I mean, they were pretty brutal. They were, but they wasn't like Ferguson, Missouri or something. Later on, the Watts riots

00:33:44.570 - 00:33:53.680

are because most of us are white. That was another thing that we were all obviously the yeah, I think have a classmate a lot into that.

00:33:53.680 - 00:34:01.910

I mean, we were these intellectual upper-class kids and these were would get a blue collar working policeman.

00:34:01.910 - 00:34:07.820

But I think the whole thing had been, you know, if I remember correctly that I mean, they had gone through a big practice

00:34:07.820 - 00:34:14.870

a couple of weeks before. So it was really me was finally determined to be a police ride and it

00:34:14.870 - 00:34:23.600

was really staged benefit that did you know that George and Leo are in Chicago at this? I didn't know that George,

00:34:23.600 - 00:34:33.680

I I wasn't familiar with but didn't know that George was somehow I had known that he was there when he came back to Delaware or in

00:34:33.680 - 00:34:41.790

the fall to people who had been in Chicago, talk to each other about what they've been through? Remember that? I remember,

00:34:41.790 - 00:34:49.400

you know, kind of yeah. Again, I've never been a big joining an organization. I mean, I think I was approached by

00:34:49.400 - 00:34:57.440

SDS or various people to join things have always been loath to know because I never know if I'm going to be drawing

00:34:57.440 - 00:35:04.580

something about that later on. So yeah, I was going to ask you about your awareness of SDS and the header or

00:35:04.580 - 00:35:13.020

dot school voice and the heterodox own voice. I wasn't too involved but I don't remember who probably knew Ben and publish them.

00:35:13.020 - 00:35:24.000

Right? Yeah. No, I didn't I actually didn't get to see them until after it was God on this. But and the SDS people, again,

00:35:24.000 - 00:35:31.860

I just always shied away from everyone who lives in San Francisco. There was like a myriad

00:35:31.860 - 00:35:36.760

number of groups that were all went to the San Francisco Arts Institute after Delaware,

00:35:36.760 - 00:35:50.170

and it was way down. Now there was a hotbed of resistance and a pin drop in the atmosphere. But because the school had made a policy

00:35:50.170 - 00:35:56.200

that actually letting in men who were drafted. And it was something like 90% of the school is still up with

00:35:56.200 - 00:36:06.020

the guys that really weren't there to start yard. They were just tiny hangout and hideout. But on the night when in Ohio and

00:36:06.020 - 00:36:15.200

the four students were killed, the whole place like crazy. And I remember us all thinking Nixon may masks and reigned in

00:36:15.200 - 00:36:26.150

downtown San Francisco to May of 1970. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So no, it was catalyst. You mean that the end of

00:36:26.150 - 00:36:35.370

that six days, I guess, in so many ways, you know, affected the american politics and social life in America.

00:36:37.330 - 00:36:51.860

People have everything really crucial years. Change from Chicago, you continued your road trip with Dave? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And what were you out there?

00:36:51.860 - 00:37:00.140

What was that true? I mean, he just wanted to go and see Haight-Ashbury. We know is that the data that's already sitting

00:37:00.140 - 00:37:10.350

winding down the middle of the summer, I love reading the Summer of Love was effectively over, over because people like decoder

00:37:10.350 - 00:37:20.990

and Dave Wilson named Chris truly came to town and wrote it. Yes, that's right. Now where we just walked around and everybody was completely

00:37:20.990 - 00:37:27.090

stowed that are bumping into each other and then. There we got that crazy idea that, yeah, great.

00:37:27.090 - 00:37:32.900

I remember it takes you can make so much money off. First of all, oh, that was another thing that had almost no money left.

00:37:32.900 - 00:37:41.840

Renamed credit cards. We had $100 and we had to save that for the gas to go back. And E, We ended up driving 48 h straight.

00:37:41.840 - 00:37:49.230

We did. Each one of us was driving taking a shift because we couldn't afford to eat anything.

00:37:49.230 - 00:37:57.620

So we really and I remember my my points somewhere in wherever it was idle or wherever. I'm driving along really tired.

00:37:57.620 - 00:38:04.610

These guys are asleep and the next thing I know, I'm on a ditch and it's day is breaking. I'm looking up, a moose

00:38:04.610 - 00:38:15.110

is looking right at me. Remember, except for the booster. So it was, that was a crazy trip back. But yes, the whole idea was to buy

00:38:15.110 - 00:38:26.900

this key of marijuana and come back and sell it in the dorms and review incredibly $1,000. We come back to

00:38:26.900 - 00:38:40.490

April 68 and Martin Luther King and just the awareness at the time of civil rights and even any issues right here. New arc, such as New York Country Club,

00:38:40.490 - 00:38:51.840

leading Jewish people and just conversations about race. Yes. It's true. Events on campus.

00:38:53.230 - 00:39:05.770

I'm going to prompt you and mentioned that there was the English Department. 1968 was a skeleton of what it is today.

00:39:05.770 - 00:39:15.170

Like many academic departments at the university, it was not exactly covered in scholarly glory.

00:39:15.170 - 00:39:21.990

But there was one professor in the English department, Irving are written nerves. Oh yeah, sure.

00:39:21.990 - 00:39:33.560

Who was internationally regarded Shakespearian scholar who up and quit the university that year. And although I don't

00:39:33.560 - 00:39:41.030

believe it was ever written about, and perhaps we were unaware of it at the time. But we were to learn

00:39:41.030 - 00:39:48.890

later to what extent this is true. I don't know, but I'll keep the room or alive that he had been refused membership that

00:39:48.890 - 00:39:57.080

they knew or country club because he was a Jew. Know. That is the extent of my knowledge of anything to

00:39:57.080 - 00:40:06.410

do with ethnic or civil rights. In New York. In 1968, the colored people to use the phrase of the time,

00:40:06.410 - 00:40:21.080

we're in an enclave on race treat. And the lower end of New London road. And there were enough blacks on campus that you could maybe

00:40:21.080 - 00:40:31.910

fill all your fingers in a few of your toes. Mary Warner wrote further review. As matter of fact, we had a mock missed head for

00:40:31.910 - 00:40:40.670

the April Fool's issue and we listed her as marijuana. And other other than the occasional football player,

00:40:40.670 - 00:40:58.480

you just didn't know to people of color on campus? No, no. No. I mean, it tested. Yeah. And it wasn't a big wasn't a big issue.

00:40:58.480 - 00:41:11.540

It wasn't I mean, I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that we ever did in terms of civil rights. I mean, when I before I

00:41:11.540 - 00:41:23.870

came to college because of Mrs. Kohlberg got mixed up in various demonstrations and things, but it the university, I don't know.

00:41:23.870 - 00:41:37.550

I mean, we're all we're all saying and feeling the pain of the civil rights movement and of course, the Martin Luther King died.

00:41:37.550 - 00:41:43.790

It was a tremendous book. Me, I answered it vague. It's an interesting thing. I sort of stopped paying attention

00:41:43.790 - 00:41:53.630

to what is happening. The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War heated up. And when Martin Luther King was killed,

00:41:53.630 - 00:42:01.880

it was almost like a shock that he was still out there doing things. And then I just started remember this. Oh my God, Is he still active?

00:42:01.880 - 00:42:12.140

And it was so we were kind of like goodness, again, the Delaware in the twilight zone of now. No, not to not

00:42:12.140 - 00:42:20.280

to prompt an answer that you might not want to give. But there was a very active Greek system on campus in 1960.

00:42:20.280 - 00:42:32.710

Notice sororities and fraternities I always thought were broken down along different lines. Had Kappa Alpha up on Kent way,

00:42:32.710 - 00:42:47.610

which was the Southern bigoted, good old boy for none in 1968. And then there was Alpha Epsilon pi, the Jewish for eternity,

00:42:47.610 - 00:42:59.360

where you were a member, if not inactive, for a very brief time. The view and and there were certainly. Social awareness and a level of

00:42:59.360 - 00:43:15.150

academic achievement at a pie. And of course, that was the fraternity on campus where people were doing psychedelics. And then you had Sigma Nu and seek app,

00:43:15.150 - 00:43:21.350

and they were jock fraternities yet Theta chi, that was the animal house and so on and so forth.

00:43:21.350 - 00:43:31.160

But I think through virtue of your connections with a pie and maybe a slightly greater level of awareness at what was happening in

00:43:31.160 - 00:43:40.760

Paris as opposed to the suburbs. You were probably a little more tuned in that than most to them too. Yeah.

00:43:40.760 - 00:43:51.210

I mean, the world at large. Well, yes. I mean, I mean, I guess, you know, a lot of those guys had known from my high school and

00:43:51.210 - 00:44:01.010

from Mount Pleasant isomorphic PS25. And so and, you know, it just seemed a natural thing to join the fraternity.

00:44:01.010 - 00:44:12.020

But after a while it just again, I'm not a joiner or anything. If you admit to the head Greek parties. Yes. The one thing

00:44:12.020 - 00:44:17.510

is that it I can't say it was a good training camp. You're going to Israel because everybody who argued

00:44:17.510 - 00:44:27.260

over everything, two people, three opinions and you'd never get him through a meal without somebody saying,

00:44:27.260 - 00:44:36.140

why are we having the brisket again, why can't we have no chocolate or chocolate or on and on I just there was a continuous pinnacle

00:44:36.140 - 00:44:47.870

gave that was going on somewhere in the building all the time. But they were the fun characters really. The mark office every day not actually ended

00:44:47.870 - 00:44:57.060

up going to Israel and he was there and then he left and I stayed. But it, you know,

00:44:58.120 - 00:45:06.320

at the time I had it was it was it was a fun experience. So another experience in college, but I think that

00:45:06.320 - 00:45:15.800

the building was eventually burned down or something I didn't know existed. I think they condemned it to where it was the building.

00:45:15.800 - 00:45:28.280

It was down there, south campus. It was nearly at the corner of West Park Place and South college. And they're now is on the site,

00:45:28.280 - 00:45:39.050

I believe, a Church of Latter Day Saints. This was the site of the old, not the Odd Fellows house or the Redmond brick building somewhat

00:45:39.050 - 00:45:46.580

similar to the Deer Park? Yes. Is that correct? Yes. No, no. By the way, I always David Kreutzer, a member of this David crazy.

00:45:46.580 - 00:45:56.590

I know, but I got to tell you. I'm supposed to go after this later on the day. The Hillel house. Yeah. Where does that tell you later on?

00:45:56.590 - 00:46:05.370

Because they are big fans of my Jewish Clarkson. Who got it? I'm Susie, go over there and have

00:46:05.370 - 00:46:18.500

a chat with Dr. Schwartz. Great, Cool. One more political question in the summer. Do you remember any reaction

00:46:18.500 - 00:46:30.820

to this estimation of Bobby Kennedy? Their shock? Yes. It was just so many people were getting assassinated and it was,

00:46:30.820 - 00:46:42.500

I mean, I wonder if today what we would announce, violence is so prevalent. But yeah, I mean, you know,

00:46:42.500 - 00:46:58.480

after the convention and then Bobby deciding to run and really making some I guess we were swayed and I keep thinking that,

00:46:58.480 - 00:47:05.210

you know, we're we're cushioned in a lot of ways because information got you so much slower. And even though it was

00:47:05.210 - 00:47:15.260

shocking when it happened, I guess, it's not like today where it's almost the nanoseconds that the information comes.

00:47:15.260 - 00:47:29.130

So when it finally sunk in that he'd been killed, it I guess it was a little more of a way of cushioning it.

00:47:29.130 - 00:47:35.120

Again, of course, because his brother had been killed. Martin Luther King was killed before Bobby? Yes. Yes.

00:47:35.120 - 00:47:45.450

Yes. So that's, I guess it was in another country. I think you probably have had an armed revolution and at that point,

00:47:45.450 - 00:47:55.100

we were still so believing in this, I don't know that the system worked or how to frame the what I would consider four of

00:47:55.100 - 00:48:04.330

the major events of the year, which is Johnson announcing that he was not going to run for re-election. Dr. King's assassination a few days later.

00:48:04.330 - 00:48:14.540

Bobby, Bobby Kennedy's assassination and the Democratic convention. All of those things occurred either doing a spring recess

00:48:14.540 - 00:48:20.240

or a summer break, right? Right. Yes. Should the extent that you would get together with

00:48:20.240 - 00:48:31.220

a dorm mate or the brother and commiserate, that was not happening. That's okay. So yeah. That's right. That's probably what I

00:48:31.220 - 00:48:38.590

think about it as being okay. It happened. But I don't remember anything around it. Everybody getting the others. Oh, my God.

00:48:38.590 - 00:48:45.780

She's just here to listen. So how did you get the news and current events? Did you watch

00:48:45.780 - 00:48:56.930

Walter Cronkite pictures in Life Magazine? I get that. I really think of that, you know, I I, you know, you had three networks. You had the drawings about that,

00:48:56.930 - 00:49:06.040

about how there is elitist, one way to do things and hear things. Say you had. And they were all very similar,

00:49:06.040 - 00:49:18.590

I guess Walter Cronkite turn into that newspapers and force. The radio was pretty top 40 and was there any kind of,

00:49:18.590 - 00:49:26.420

there wasn't easy to kind of there's this news on the hour. So alright, And I'll, I'll piggyback that by

00:49:26.420 - 00:49:35.690

saying that when you were in New York in school was in session, you would trek up to the new world news stand on Main Street

00:49:35.690 - 00:49:46.880

where a fraternity brothers Simon lips team worked. And you'd pick up the Village Voice or hearts or even some edgy workers

00:49:46.880 - 00:49:56.750

world publications that they stopped. And other than that, and the three networks and the News Journal and

00:49:56.750 - 00:50:03.980

The New York Times. That was it. No, Is it yes. And you weren't done and phone calls cost money,

00:50:03.980 - 00:50:14.390

so you didn't really call up and have a long talk to somebody? Yeah. If you knew somebody there was that. So it was kinda wasn't

00:50:14.390 - 00:50:27.120

the easiest thing to get the full story or hear any kind of faculty at the time incorporate discussion of current or aids like

00:50:27.120 - 00:50:33.650

Vietnam or politics into classes in front of you. I know none. None. None in the art department.

00:50:33.650 - 00:50:45.150

They were pretty conservative group. I guess Bob's times of war, he because he was actually twisted RH. Awesome. That was kind of a,

00:50:45.150 - 00:50:59.030

you didn't stay here that but I guess premises is this Netscape was the closest to a high firebrand, Victor and Bob and

00:50:59.030 - 00:51:08.410

I knew the earth faculty because of you. I think Victor and Bob were certainly out of character for their time.

00:51:08.410 - 00:51:19.850

The rest of the art faculty, Charles row and below by name and not, not in a happy way. And the rest of the art faculty

00:51:19.850 - 00:51:32.920

could have been selling insurance or teaching English. They just happened to be art yeah, instructors and serve it.

00:51:32.920 - 00:51:40.090

We always felt we were talking about the outside of powers who were outside of Poughkeepsie everywhere.

00:51:40.090 - 00:51:49.520

We had like one pencil that we share with each other. You know, it was, you know, just be looking constantly,

00:51:49.520 - 00:51:56.490

be looking at magazines coming from New York are from England and it just seemed like can we do that?

00:51:57.850 - 00:52:03.920

Yeah, I was actually going to ask to them about the aesthetics of the time since you were an art student.

00:52:03.920 - 00:52:13.660

And one of the things that was used in the review or I mean, sorry, the blue hand. Irene practice. Yeah.

00:52:13.660 - 00:52:26.540

Extraordinary. Talked about that. You knew her then. What can you say about being as students? Students will tell me what faculty

00:52:26.540 - 00:52:38.720

showed you in the time. Okay? It looks like we have run to time. I'm sorry. Lots more to say.

00:52:38.720 - 00:52:48.440

But they generally, we got our aesthetics from magazines and what our teachers would show us, very commercially oriented.

00:52:48.440 - 00:52:59.960

So Pushkin studios, they went on the cutting edge that was not within the laser schwa, both of whom I met years later.

00:52:59.960 - 00:53:09.990

So that kind of Peter Max and this whole kind of explosion of color and the segment coming from New York.

00:53:09.990 - 00:53:16.610

We go. Thank you, Richard. Yes. Yes. Very much.

00:53:16.610 - 00:53:18.720

Thank you. Okay.