tao1776

Times are a changing The alarm clock signaled that it was time to get up. The clock in the kitchen said that it was time to catch the bus. Bells told you when class was over; buzzers in the hallways said that in two minutes you would be late for the next class. A siren marked the noon hour every day with one very long whine. At five the family sat for dinner. At ten-thirty or eleven we went to bed In Sisyphus fashion you knew what to expect, day in and day out. Never a surprise. The mundane can be holy; but for the restless masses, especially the young, it can feel like a waiting out a death sentence. This year however began to dole out a litany of surprises one after the other. My father was home for supper. My mother and father, my little sister and me. The phone rang and my mother answered. "Yes. This is the T******** residence. Yes, he is right here. Hold on". She covered the phone with her hand and signaled to my father that it was him". "Hello. This is Bill...

Emotions Run High Peace and Love. Good stuff. But I wasn't buying any of it. There was a feeling that the world was progressing towards something great. A Utopian order. An end to violence; a thinking and reasoning man's world filled with philosophy and enlightenment. I rode in the back of the school bus, my mind filled with disgust. Through the use of several "grub day" organized protests, the students in my high school had been successful in overturning the school's dress code policy. The days of hair above the color, side burns to mid ear, casual clothing with shirts tucked in and knee length skirts... Well, that exploded into beards and long hair, tie dye and mini-skirts. Fucking under the music stage, smoking pot in the lavatory near room five and outside of the Art room. What a progressive bunch. And I was one of them. I watched the morning news and heard of the Kent State protests and the subsequent shootings. This set the tone for my day much as that othe...