What’s a Chick Got to do to Get Service in This Joint? CANTO 5

CANTO 5   September 8, 2011

May 4, 1970, in the Ohio College system

Someone was in rehearsal for my play “Lullabye Dance”

The little blonde bitch who deigned to direct it,

Was permitted to ban me from rehearsals

And casting and set design.

So much for Ohio University’s
Quality Theatrical Training.

As I discovered later, no one knew

How Playwriting works.

I did not fight with her.

I think I met her once and was dismissed.

She always wore a little plaid hat

Trying FAR to hard to be hip.

So, I got involved in the Vietnam Peace Protest

I had gone to DC in November, 1969

Just missing the Dupont Circle Riots

Because we had a bed to sleep in

In Silver Spring, Maryland.

At OU in May, 1970, the protests were basically

Masses of us cutting classes to hang out

Wearing denim and armbands with

That damned peace symbol everywhere

Under banners, drinking red wine from Coke Bottles

So as not to be caught.

The girls provided sex and secretarial talents

To the men of the movement and were just

Starting to figure out that something wasn’t right

About this 60,000 year old arrangement.

We were starting to get together and talk.

Bread and Roses. Bread and Roses.

The Theater Department was rehearsing “The Front Page”

When we heard that Kent State had made the real front page.

And of the National Guard’s attack on the

Innocent.

My sister, the Good Daughter, was at Kent

Getting a bachelor’s in nursing

And still tries to tell me that Guard

Had to open fire with bullets

At the kids throwing rocks.

She had treated Guard Members at

The Health Center where she worked

And said that they had cuts from the rocks.

But she didn’t see the bodies of the kids.

And next, the very same Ohio National Guard

Was on it’s way to Athens….to get us under control.

I only remember the picture of crowds running through the

Streets that night, and feeling Mace in my eyes.

Not fired at us, but up from the basement of my dorm

Howard Hall. (Yes, of Scripps Howard)

Where the campus police were located

And someone had accidently set off a can.

The next day, silently, we watched the

Ohio National Guard rolled into town.

Truck after Truck, rifles at the ready.

Kids dressed in green fatigues and helmets

 As scared as we were.

They had fired in terror

And were now considered dangerous

And out-of-control.

You could feel it in the air.

The Peace Movement died that day.

The “Hippie” Movement died that day.

They shut down the college and my first production.

It would never be the same.