Tag: New Paltz

40 Years Ago: The crooked student government elections

Draped across the McKenna Theater was this massive banner which read: MIKE HIRSCH HAS CULTURE.

voteUnlike in high school, where I was reasonably popular (student government president, drama club, et al), I was rather uninvolved in college; getting married at 19 will do that. I didn’t hang out at the bars and drink; the age of consent was 18 then. I just went to class, and came home, did the grocery shopping and like chores, I would go bowling occasionally with guys I knew, primarily my fellow political science majors.

In the spring of 1974, a bunch of my poli sci acquaintances decided to run as a team with some other folks, who I’ll call the Party and Dance folks. They figured they would capture the beer crowd (the poli sci) and the pot folks (P&D).

But there were eleven slots, but they had only ten folks willing to run. So my buddy/classmate Richie was tasked with recruiting me. I said yes, at least partly out of guilt – I was so disconnected from extracurricular campus life – perhaps with of the idea that participation would look good on the resume.

I was to run for Cultural Chairman (sic). Five areas were in the budget, and the cultural area was to fund the arts activities and the various clubs. I recollected that there was no real competition in any race except for one, and you can guess which one. Draped across the McKenna Theater was this massive banner that read: MIKE HIRSCH HAS CULTURE. I figured I had lost the race. It’s not as though we had debates on the issues; it was a popularity contest, he had name recognition, and I did not.

But the rumor mill was rife with reports of rampant voting irregularities, with some people casting their ballots more than once. Since I was what was likely the only competitive race, I reached out to Michael Hirsch. We met somewhere for coffee or tea. He seemed like a good guy. We agreed that since we didn’t know WHO was rigging the election, that neither of us would challenge the results. As it turned out, everyone on my ticket enjoyed large majorities, except for me, who won narrowly.

Two years later, I became the election commissioner. I hired a townie (non-student) friend of mine named Anne Sergeant to sit at the ballot table. She was instructed to mark their student ID cars in the 37 square on the back. She discovered that several people came back throughout the day to vote again, but she shut them down. And since she wasn’t a student and was unknown to most of them, she couldn’t be talked into letting them vote again.

Several years ago, I thought about this incident and wondered what became of Michael Hirsch. Unfortunately, Mike Hirsch, an advocate for services to people afflicted with AIDS, died of complications of the disease in February 1989. “He was 34 years old and lived in Manhattan.”

40 Years Ago: My 1st Presidential Vote, for George McGovern

I got to see George McGovern at a rally at my college, SUNY New Paltz in the autumn of 1972.

There were a LOT of people running for the Democratic nomination for President against Richard Nixon in 1972. The general consensus early on, though, was that Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine would be the selection. He had been the Vice-Presidential nominee in 1968 and had been a credible candidate in a close race. But he was sunk early on by the crying incident, which, to this day, I find utterly bewildering, and dropped out of the race early on.

This seemed to give segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama some momentum, much to the chagrin of all right-minded people. An assassination attempt in May paralyzed him and effectively ended his campaign.

Many of the leading candidates – Muskie, and other 1968 candidates Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy – would have been OK to me. I was suspicious of the hawkish Scoop Jackson, though, especially after he later led an “Anybody but McGovern” coalition “that raised what would be known as the ‘Acid, Amnesty and Abortion’ questions” about the South Dakotan. My preferred candidate, though, was Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm of New York, the first black woman to win a primary (New Jersey), though, by the time of the June primary in New York, the race was all but over.

Still, I liked McGovern. He was one of the early opponents to the war in Vietnam and having flown nearly three dozen missions over Nazi-occupied Europe, he had a lot more credibility than today’s chicken hawks, who haven’t seen a war they don’t want to fight, or rather, would send our young men and women to fight.

Unfortunately, his Vice-Presidential pick of Thomas Eagleton proved to be a disaster, when it was revealed the junior senator from Missouri had received psychiatric care, which was bad enough in those days but also had twice been given electroshock treatments, which brought up unfair comparisons to Frankenstein’s monster. This incident reflected poorly on McGovern’s decision-making, and eventually, he forced Eagleton off the ticket, to be replaced by Kennedy in-law and former Peace Corps head Sargent Shriver.

As you can see from these not-too-great pictures, taken by me with a point-and-shoot camera, I got to see McGovern at a rally at my college, State University College at New Paltz in the autumn. That was one of the first of many times I saw Pete Seeger perform, too.

Of course, McGovern lost that election badly, carrying only one state, plus the District of Columbia. Many folks, in 1973 and 1974, during the Watergate scandal that McGovern had complained about during the campaign, had bumper stickers that read, “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts,” referring to the one-state the senator carried, whether they were or not.

George McGovern died this week at the age of 90. It seems, though, that he saw vindication of his positions in his lifetime, and never sold his soul.

For instance, from his acceptance speech for the party’s nomination:
“The tax system today does not reward hard work: it penalizes it. Inherited or invested wealth frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But wages on the assembly line or in farming the land, these hard-earned dollars are taxed to the very last penny. There is a depletion allowance for oil wells, but no depletion for the farmer who feeds us, or the worker who serves us all.”

Sounds – unfortunately – VERY Current.
***
A much wiser Arthur@AmeriNZ re: his feeling about McGovern, then and now.

40 Years Ago: The Mining of Haiphong Harbor

Did I mention I was one of those arrested?

In April and May of 1972, the Nixon administration kindled a major controversy “when the president ordered the renewal of bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong (April 16) and the mining of Haiphong Harbor as well as other harbors and inland waterways in North Vietnam” [announced the evening of Monday, May 8]. This latter act kindled student protests all across the country, and certainly at my college, the State University College at New Paltz, NY, as we felt this had escalated the VietNam conflict.

The chronology on some of this is a bit fuzzy, but I know there was a demonstration in the village. Some folks drove about 5 mph on the New York State Thruway and were leafleting other drivers until a State Police escort put a kibosh on that action. I believe that was on Tuesday.

A bunch of us took a bus to the United Nations to attend a demonstration on Thursday, but the rented vehicle was so late that we missed the action. But a demonstration near the draft board in Kingston, NY was held on Friday, and the board closed in anticipation of our arrival, though it was a peaceful protest. The next day, the front page of the newspaper, the Kingston Freeman, had a picture of me and a couple of other people sitting in front of the building. The quality (or reproduction) of the photo was so poor, though, that I didn’t even recognize myself.

The pivotal event that week was a demonstration at IBM Poughkeepsie on Wednesday, May 10, which building something called the IBM 360. In 1972, the idea of computers programmed to help kill people was quite upsetting to many folks; think an early version of today’s drones. In any case, there were about 360 people protesting – I don’t know if that were actually true or apocryphal.

At some point, we were warned if we walked past a certain point, we would be arrested. It was almost a dare, in its tone. As it turned out, twelve people were detained that day. One guy was charged with disturbing the peace, and his bail was set at $50. Everyone else was charged with fourth-degree criminal trespass, much to the chagrin of the district attorney, who was seeking a stiffer charge; 10 of the 11 got out on $25 bail. The 11th, my friend Alice, had been arrested and convicted at a previous event, was fined $48, and had not paid it. Her bail was set at $250, and she opted not to pay it, and stayed in jail until the trial, eight days later.

Did I mention I was one of those arrested?
(To be concluded on May 17)

40 Years Ago: March 5, 1972 – did not see that coming

It was a surprise birthday party for me!

In the Scudder Hall dorm, at the State University College of New Paltz, my room was B-2. I had a roommate named Ron, who was a graduate student; an odd pairing, a freshman and someone doing post-graduate work. But he was a pretty easy-going guy, and I guess I didn’t drive him too crazy.

It was surprising, though, that one day, Ron decided that we really needed to thoroughly clean the room. I didn’t think it looked that bad, but surely I would not have been the gold standard for that kind of thing.

A couple of days later, which was a Sunday, my friend Uthaclena was over at one of the dining halls playing billiards. I must admit here that 1) I love playing pool, but in spite of that, 2) I’ve never gotten very good at it.

After a time, he and I went back to my dorm room. If you have had glasses, you know how it was when it’s a bit cool out, then you walk into a room that’s a bit warmer? Right – the glasses steam up. So I walk into my room, and there are my girlfriend, the Okie (I think – I’m having trouble seeing), and our friend Alice, Ron of course, but wait? Is that my father, mother, and sisters? And who is THAT guy? (It turned out to be the quasi-boyfriend of one of my sisters.) And possibly others, though it was a small room.

It was a surprise birthday party for me! My birthday wasn’t for a couple of days, and so it caught me unawares. But it was great. I was feeling a bit melancholy, my first birthday away from home. And, more than that, they brought a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken ((back when they called it that), and there was enough left over for me to have for a couple more meals.

The event had a profound impact on me. I have subsequently helped pull off a number of surprise birthday parties over the years. Of course, I can still be surprised myself; the very next year, my parents, coordinating with the Okie, puled off another event; I think we went out to dinner. And much more recently, Uthaclena and his wife plotted with my wife to surprise me.

One last thing about the plan two score ago: my father called our dorm room one morning at 7 a.m. Ron answered the phone, and my father revealed the plan. But even as I lay on my bed half-awake, Ron never let on who he was talking to. But it DID lead to a clean dorm room.

40 Years Ago-February 2, 1972: punch

March 6 was #1 and March 7 was #2

 

When I was in college at SUNY New Paltz, the way one signed up for courses was to go through something called sectioning. You went to various tables representing the different departments, and you got an actual IBM punch card representing that class. Once the cards for a particular class were gone, it was closed out.

As a freshman, I was in the group that got the last choices. I could make up a tentative schedule of what I WANTED to take, but I wouldn’t know until I got into the gymnasium where this took place whether a particular class was closed out.

I recall that I got three courses I wanted right away, but the next two took forever, with my first (and second and third choices, et al.) unavailable to me. Ultimately, it took FIVE hours, and I ended up with some 8 a.m. anthropology course that I really didn’t want, though I ended up enjoying it.

I walked back to Scudder Hall, exhausted, and visited someone on the first floor (my room was in the basement). I had totally forgotten that the draft numbers were being picked that day. College student deferments had been ended by then, so it was possible that people could be drafted to go to Vietnam. I asked one friend what his draft number was – don’t recall now, but it was very high. I remember, though, that Fred the gnome’s draft number was 23, which was not good news. It was only then that it occurred to me to ask what MY number was; it was 2. As in 002. I think I was in shock, and too tired to think about it at the moment.

A few days later my oldest friend Karen wrote that, if I were going to get a low number, why not #1? As it turned out, March 6 was #1 and March 7 was #2, so I understood the source of the gallows’ humor.

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