A long time ago I was working nights for free at the University of Akron
We played music
that our faculty advisors thought was terrible. Believe it or not, one song, “Blowin'
In The Wind”, was branded as a protest song. We played it, along with many
others, anyway.
I especially remember Joan Baez's beautiful rendition
playing and praying at the same time that we’d stop killing in Vietnam .
My cousin was a POW, shot down over Hanoi .
Some of my friends had enlisted because they were going to
be drafted anyway. Or, out of misplaced patriotism. Or, out of a desire to
prove themselves… to ... who? Themselves, I guess. Any way, some never came
home.
It was a time of active discontent. Students, and many
others, protested the war in Vietnam ,
the draft and racial injustice. I remember during one final exam the building
next door, Buchtel Hall, the university’s main administration building, erupted
into flames and the Ohio National Guard was called in to take back the campus
from the Black United Students (BUS) protesters.
I failed the exam. I couldn’t concentrate.
I can’t blame all of my failure on the fire or the fact that
the professor wouldn’t let us leave the building when the fire alarms went off.
No, the fact was that over the previous weeks I didn’t study
as much as I should have. I was too busy becoming a broadcaster, like my hero, Walter
Cronkite.
Besides not studying, we student broadcasters did manage to
get into trouble once in a while. For instance, someone protested our playing
Jose Feliciano’s version of the National Anthem before a U of A football game.
We were threatened with suspension if we didn’t stop playing it.
Looking back on the “life lesson”, I know that we just liked
the way he sang from his soul. We weren't participating in the times nor were
we trying to make the world a better place. Little did we know that the song
would become the center of controversy. (See below.)
Many things are bizarro … war for instance. As my dad once
said to me, when I was walking out the door to enlist with my friends, ”Just
wait, Ron. Like after all the wars, in a few years we will be selling things to
the North Vietnamese.”
Another one, back in the 1970s, the Supreme Court ruled
against same sex marriage, issuing a one sentence ruling: “The appeal is
dismissed for want of a substantial federal question.”
This week, the Supreme Court declined to confirm a Kentucky
County Clerk’s religious exemption defense for not issuing marriage licenses to
same sex couples. The justices denied her request without explanation in a one-line
order.
It’s good to remember that life does change. Sometimes even
for the better, too.
From Feliciano's website:
"Puerto Rican blind singer/guitarist Jose Feliciano
stunned the crowd at Tiger Stadium in Detroit ,
and the rest of America ,
when he strummed a slow, bluesy rendition of the national anthem before Game 5
of the World Series between Detroit and St. Louis America , and it
is generally considered the Lexington America
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