November, 1969

On November 3, U.S. President Richard Nixon speaks to the nation in a televised address regarding his plan to "Vietnamize" the war. In part, Nixon says "And now I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of this Nation who are particularly concerned, and I understand why they are concerned, about this war. I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace. I want peace as much as you do."

Later in the speech, known forever after as Nixon's "Silent Majority speech, he adds "And so tonight-to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans - I ask for your support."

More than 500,000 protesters march on Washington, DC on November 15 demanding an end to the War in Vietnam. Sadly, Nixon did not appear to want peace "that" badly.

I was now becoming somewhat radicalized, albeit in a limited fashion. After several years of fence-sitting, trying to balance the patriotism that had been instilled in me as a young boy and my natural instinct that war was a terrible and senseless thing, I now firmly believed that the War in Vietnam must be stopped by any means short of violence. Or maybe some mild violence short of killing.

College and exposure to different people and ideas was beginning to change me. It was likely that I had my first (of many!) experience with marijuana that month, offered to me by my friends across the hall in my dorm. I was hesitant, but decided to take the plunge. It took several experiences before I got even a little high. One must remember that back then, a place like northern New York was virtually the last stop on the drug express, and the quality of the pot we were able to obtain was poor at best. Down to the stems and seeds again.

SUNY Potsdam still clung to many of the old college traditions, and the worst - to us - was the unequal treatment of women. Women had strict curfews; the men did not. Visitation in the dorms was limited to specific times and places. Certainly not in a "room" and certainly not with the door closed. One night, a large group of students, enraged by college policies, the war, and just about everything else, marched down to the President's house to demand change. The Potsdam police even followed us and eventually broke the demonstration up. It was a small taste of the firestorm that erupt a few months later when the Kent State killings occurred on May 4, 1970. Then, our campus, and those across the country, became engulfed in bitter protest. Most, like Potsdam State, shut down early that May.

The Rolling Stones release their landmark album Let It Bleed on November 28.



On November 1, Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds reaches #1 on the U.S. pop charts. It was his last number one hit prior to his death in 1977.

Sesame Street premiers on the then National Educational Network, the predecessor of PBS.

On November 19, the 3rd and 4th humans walk on the Moon - Charles Conrad and Alan Bean of Apollo 12.

The United States Senate votes down President Nixon's nomination of Clement Haynsworth of South Carolina to a seat on the Supreme Court. Unlike today's highly partisan Congressional politics, 17 Republican senators join 38 Democrats to reject the nomination.

John Lennon returns his MBE to the British Government in protest of the War in Vietnam.

Journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the March, 1968 massacre of civilians near My Lai in South Vietnam.

Born on November 4, American rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs. On November 18, Kennedy family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy dies.

Native American activists seize Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay with the goal of gaining deed to the island. The occupation lasts until June, 1971.

On November 30, song-duo Simon and Garfunkel present a one hour television special entitled "Songs of America" which featured anti-war and other anti-establishment themes. I remember watching it and being affected deeply. The 60s were drawing to a close.

October, 1969

The revolution starts here.

I was now into my second month of college, and the transition was shaky at best. I was truly missing home and my pre-college life, but found the various changes I was undergoing to be at least somewhat thrilling. New people, new friends, new ideas. An upperclassman, Bob Stabile, but known to most (until this day) as Professor Hokum W. Jeebs, stopped by my room to ask if I was sell the gramophone speaker I had in my window (I would not). I had joined the staff of the college radio station - WRPS - and was now a DJ. I would continue spinning records, later with WNTS (Northern Twin Colleges) , throughout my years in Potsdam.

I loved playing music from new artists - James Taylor, Carole King, Steely Dan, The Allman Brothers, Cat Stevens - there was a lot of good music back then.

My studies were not living up to my expectations. History, a subject in which I'd always excelled, was proving to be difficult and boring to me. Did I really want to be a history teacher? By then I'm sure the answer was now "no." I struggled in my other courses. In philosophy, my professor was a young radical from New York City, who did his best to indoctrinate us freshmen with leftist fervor, and I think he succeeded to some degree, though the times themselves had a lot to do with it. A paper I wrote on the 60s anti-poverty programs was greeted by him with scorn and mockery. I purposefully then wrote another paper extolling the virtues of communist reforms in Cuba on which he lavished praise and encouragement. Left, right - they were all crazy, I thought.

I have a few scattered notes from this time, and an entry in October contains a single word - confusion.

Student life was highly segrgated and divided into several groups that did not usually mingle all that much. The jocks, the fraternity/sorority greeks, the nerds, the "Crannies" - music school students, and the freaks. I was going down the route of the last group and beginning to "let my freak flag fly."

Author Jack Kerouac died on October 21 one day after being rushed with severe abdominal pain from his St. Petersburg home by ambulance.

His death, at the age of 47, resulted from an internal hemorrhage, the result of a lifetime of heavy drinking. It was a few years after his death that a became a Kerouac addict, devouring all of his writings I could get my hands on.

The first message over Arpanet, the world's first operational packet-switching network and the predecessor to the Internet, is sent from a lab at UCLA to one at Stanford.

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, is released October 24. The film went on to receive four Oscars, including one for the best original song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." I saw the film soon after it came out; it contains one my my all-time favorite scenes, when, after over-dynamiting a safe during a train robbery, Reford deadpans to Newman: "Think you used enough dynamite there Butch?"

WalMart is incorporated on October 31. This scourge plagues us until this day.

The "Days of Rage" organized by The Weather Underground take place in Chicago. On October 15, hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters take to the nation's streets.

Born on October 10 - NFL quarterback Brett Favre.

On October 5, The BBC broadcasts the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The great Paul is Dead rumor reaches us in Potsdam. Some of my friends and I spend hours and hours analyzing the "clues" and listening to part of Beatles tracks backwards. Paul is barefoot on the Abbey Road cover, "I Buried Paul" at the end of Strawberry Fields Forever, etc. etc.

Paul McCartney later comments "It is all bloody stupid."

I still have to this day a copy of the special magazine rushed out to take advantage of folks like me, pictured below.



Around that time, a friend and I got hold of a bootleg tape of The Beatles Get Back/Let It Be sessions. This provided us with ample more fuel for the fire. We went so far as to telephone the Apple Records office in London - we were after all, journalists from Radio Potsdam station WRPS. We recorded the call and convinced ourselves that a voice heard shouting in the background was the one and only John Lennon.

One good result - while we were immersed in Paul and Beatles research, we learned of the famous Butcher Block cover for the album Yesterday and Today. We took out my copy, looked it over, and though we saw something underneath.

With the help of some steam, we loosened the cover, and voila - there was the original - then, and now a collector's item. I still have that as well.

On October 24, Irish expatriate author Samuel Beckett is awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature. A few years later I would play the character Lucky in a production of Beckett's Waiting for Godot - the pinnacle of my acting career.

The "Miracle" New York Mets shock the baseball world by winning the World Series over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles.

Vice President Spiro Agnew says of war protesters "A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

I take issue with this vicious and untrue characterization. I was happy to be an impudent slob.