The second semester at Lansing Community college was more intolerable than the first. I had never imagined what a Western Civ. class could be like. A very attractive young female instructor was filling the black board with hundreds of names of foreign countries that I'd never heard of, including Mesopotamia. It reminded me of elementary school when you did something bad in class, and had to write what you would not do again five hundred times. Needless to say, I couldn't take it anymore and got myself up from my seat and walked out, saying to myself, "I can't take it anymore and this is driving me crazy!"... I'd had it with institutions, the army, the hospitals, the schools, the difficulties with finding a good job and the whole nine yards. I needed some kind of freedom from the pressure of it all, so I could do what I needed to do...
About that time, approximately 1970-71, there was a lot happening in our country regarding the war in Vietnam. It was a mixed bag as far as I was concerned. All I really wanted to hear about, after witnessing bloody massacres and atrocities committed by both the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong and American troops, was the end of the killing. I thought the peace movement at home was right about Love and Peace. The problem was that it was too closely linked with communist underground movements. On the surface it all looked fine, but the stimulating and motivating source of the 'Love and Peace' was marijuana and other hallucinogenic drugs. Keeping you stoned is a form of control, just like controlling the amount of rice you are allowed is a form of control in communist countries. Once you become turned on to drugs you kind of belong to whoever it is that's supplying them. Love and Peace, I believe, are necessary to a healthy life, but without freedom we really can't appreciate either one... I wanted to be with the friends I grew up with. They were usually smoking pot or hash, so in order to be where they were mentally, I smoked it along with them. In the process, I started buying some and doing it at home. After making it through Vietnam, I wasn't worried about it.
I started living with the one I was engaged to marry with hopes that it might help me know for sure that it was gonna work out. Meanwhile, I'd been keeping up with the news on TV about how our troops in Vietnam were doing, and the various protests across the country. For two weeks in the spring of 71', I watched Vietnam veterans in wheelchairs angrily throw their purple hearts and other combat medals that they had earned over the fence of the White House. After seeing the news coverage on it for several days, and thinking about all the death and dying that was still going on in Vietnam, I decided to participate in trying to end the war and all of the senseless killing. Watching other Vietnam veterans, especially amputees, speak out against the war helped me to see that I needed to do something about it myself. Protesters in Washington DC were going to have what they called the ' Mayday Activities' around the first of May in 1971 (to end the war in Vietnam). I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to do something constructive and went their to see what I could do...
A few months before this, I'd lost a cousin in Vietnam. Out of respect for him and his family, I persuaded my brother to go to the funeral with me. He had long hair and wore non-traditional clothes, and so I asked him to look a little more presentable, according to "traditional American standards," than he usually did during that time. I got him to wear a tie and a blue denim vest that he got for Christmas and we drove from Lansing to Grand Rapids, Michigan to attend the funeral. While sitting quietly beside my brother, about in the middle of the funeral home, a whispering voice from an older cousin of mine standing behind me, told me to tell my brother to go and sit in one of the back row seats. I was alarmed, but complied rather than create a bigger problem. I reluctantly told my brother, and he quickly got up and left. I found out later that he had hitch hiked back to Lansing. I was torn up and didn't know what I could do to make things better. Long hair suddenly became an issue. Until then, to me, long hair was simply long hair instead of short hair. This was an example of how divided families were over the issue of long hair on men and the related issue of protesters who usually had long hair that were against the war in Vietnam...
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