It was 40 years ago today, that Sargent Pepper took our lives away!

May 4, 1970. I was student at Kent State. I was on my way to an Italian language class. The Professor, a tiny Italian woman from Rome, started the class. She faced the windows with a view of the outside. In less than 10 minutes she gasped, her face lost all color and, in her broken English said, "...You should all leave!". We looked at each other and with shrug and an expression of, "what was that" on our faces, we left the classroom. I headed to my dorm to find friends or maybe they's be in the cafeteria. I had to pass the old football stadium where they had the P.A. blaring a News radio station from Cleveland. Here's what the newscaster reported: "2 National Guardsmen killed and 2 students injured on the Kent State University campus....". When I got to the dorm my head was spinning. I tried finding roommates. No one was around. I went to get my mail on the first floor. As I came downstairs I had a view of the Commons where a sea of people were sitting. The Commons is an open space where students threw Frisbees, hung out on a blanket reading or perhaps "making out". However on May 4th, the Commons was the route the National Guard took to fire into a crowd of students, taking four lives. The Guards final destination was the parking lot, behind the Architecture building, right next door to my dormitory.

I made my way through the crowd and found one of my roomies, Lew Goldberg from Fairlawn, N.J. He was visibly upset and nearly in tears. When I told Lew what the news was reporting he screamed, "They're liars! They killed 4 kids!". It was at this point that everything changed. I was 19, trying to get a college degree, but Ohio's Governor James Rhodes, who called the Guard into Kent, decided that none of us might make it. As I was trying to make sense of what was happening, a sobbing Professor was on a bullhorn urging us to disperse because the Guard's guns were loaded and they'd take more lives. Then, just minutes later, we were told that the University was closed and we were to leave. Really?! Where to? A few of us, from all over the country, got into a friends "hippie" van and headed to Pittsburgh. Trouble was that he was on fumes. We all chipped in to buy gas. We stopped at one gas station. I remember it being a Phillips 66. Closed. No problem - there's another one just down the road. Closed. As we pulled out, I looked out of the rear window and noticed a representative of every law enforcement department in Ohio on the rear bumper of the van, lights flashing, sirens blaring. We pulled over and the doors were flung open and voices screamed at us to get out with our hands up! I was just in Italian class!! This was surreal and truly an out of body experience! We were put up against the wall, in true 60s style, and frisked. The only woman with us was frisked and I could see that this sheriff, cop or whatever he was, took his time and was enjoying himself. We explained that we were students from Kent State trying to gas up and leave the city, the law enforcement representatives said that it looked like we were looking for gas to make Molotov Cocktails in this "hippie" van. Sorry but back then, these law enforcement representatives were truly pigs!

After we were let go, we decided to stop in the next town, Ravenna. Here we could gas up and get something to drink. Inside the gas station there was a woman customer and a woman behind the counter. They were discussing what happened earlier at Kent State. One said to the other that they found 2 of the students not wearing any underwear. I believe this is the very first time, in my 19 years, that I uttered, "What the fuck?". We couldn't leave any faster!

We reached Pittsburgh without further incident in the "hippie" van and we were fed and put up for the night at Chuck's parents house. (Forgive me, Chuck...I've forgotten your last name.) His parents let all of us call home to let our parents know that we were physically OK. Imagine having a kid at college, hearing about the shootings and not being able to get in touch with your kid. No cell phones, email or internet. The next day, they drove us to the airport and Lew and I flew back to New York. We had to finish our classes via mail.

It's been 40 year's and the impact on all of us, who were students at Kent State, is still with us. For me, I can never trust a politician again. After all, Governor Rhodes was running for Senate on a "law & order" plank in his platform. Kent State was an ideal way for him to prove, to his constituency, that he meant business by calling in the Ohio National Guard. The blood of 4 kids is still on his hands.