!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
During October, 1969, I felt calmer, more sedate. The campus had settled down, everyone back to work it seemed. The Faculty finally voted to condemn the war. Bev, Jeanne, and I found a domestic rhythm at 119 Oxford Street. Mike came to Cambridge nearly every weekend, while I went down to Connecticut once, to his plush four-man suite complete with individual rooms, spacious living room, and kitchen. We kept our talk focused on the present, nothing about where, or when our individual futures might diverge. Our biggest worry was whether to cut our hair. Swim season started November 1, so Mike was planning on getting shorn.
“More hydrodynamic,” he insisted. “Maybe you should try it.”
“Have you forgotten how big my head is, buddy? I’d look like that mascot on the baseball team back home, what’s his name?”
“Mr. Red. Besides, wouldn’t it be easier to take care of?”
“Right, him. I complain about it, but I’m secretly proud of my hair. And I know you like it, too.”
“The first thing I noticed about you.”
“Your hands, my hair. If nothing else, we’ve always got that.”
Early in November, at another Hillel meeting, I ran into Howard.
“Janie! “ He didn’t seem the least bit anxious about how we’d parted. In fact, he had a girl on his arm. “This is Rachel.” They seemed attached, almost affectionate. I knew Rachel, another Radcliffe junior. We each said, “Hi” demurely.
Then, remembering she ostensibly had a boyfriend, James, I said, somewhat obliquely, “Oh, I saw James had a poem published in the New Yorker. Pretty amazing for him, right?”
Not rattled at all, she admitted, “Big deal, for sure. We’re all so proud of him.”
Howard, oblivious to all this, piped up, “Look, we’re going down to DC next week, the Moratorium. Do you want to come? You and Mike, maybe?”
I frowned, remembering Chicago the summer before, and Uni Hall that spring. Howard said reassuringly, “This is going to be big. They have all the permits, they’re so many of us, they don’t want to have any trouble. Gene McCarthy, McGovern, Peter, Paul, and Mary. Pete Seeger. Even Charles Goodell. They can’t put us all in jail, can they?”
“How are you getting there?”
“My old Volvo station wagon. We’ve got room. There’s five of us so far, you and Mike can have the back all to your selves.”
“The back” meant that, while Howard drove all night, we spent six hours, huddling, cuddling really, in a space meant for several suit cases.
We piled out somewhere in the middle of the city. Howard, as usual, knew somebody who would let us all sleep that night on their floor. In anticipation of the chaos, I had first covered my hair with a stylish blue bandana, a thick knit watch cap over that. Mike wore blue jeans, a work shirt, wire rim glasses, and a fit-for-the-occasion vintage leather jacket, faded tan sporting authentic signs of wear and tear.
“That is some jacket, Mike,” Howard observed.
“My father says he bought it at a fire sale in Omaha 1938, when he started going out with my mom. Gave it to me last year.” Switching gears, he said, “Are we going to do anything before the march?”
“Like what?” Howard came back.
“Well, I’d like to see Kennedy’s grave, the Eternal Flame.”
“That’s kind of far away, across the river. We’ve really got to head over to the Monument now, all these people, it’ll take forever to get anywhere. How about we do that tomorrow, on our way home?”
We’d landed on the edge of all the consulates and diplomatic residences. All around us, a sea of people moved forward, aiming towards the Washington Monument. The streets were free of traffic, the entire downtown must have been cordoned off to accommodate us all.
Howard swept his arms around. “Look, it’s not just kids, it’s everybody!” Men in suits, women with prim handbags, permed hair and hats held down with pins, children in strollers, even young men in wheel chairs. Many carried signs, not of protest, but of expectation. To the left, passing a muted Tudor house, I saw inside a group of grey-haired men and women gathered around a sign, as if discussing how best to emphasize the message. It read “The silent majority speaks!” Laughing, I pointed at them, asking Mike, “Are they going to crash this party? What are they thinking?”
“Maybe they’re opposed to the war, too, and want to let Nixon, Agnew, Mitchell, all of them, know that even Republicans, even the establishment, wants out, now.”
The crowd moved as one down Constitution Avenue, moving slower and slower the closer we got to the monuments. A few exhausted marchers sat at the curb. Police lined the route, officiously resplendent in their long, double-breasted blue coats. No guns, no shields, no horses or armored wagons in sight. Instead of helmets, they wore peaked caps with narrow plastic brims. Whenever I looked at them, they smiled and waved back.
I felt hopeful that a peaceful march was possible, that it was no longer us against them, but simply us, finally, all of us. A sense of unity, of positive change coursed through my mind.
Mike was asking Howard, “What happened to the Young Turk, man? Looks like no more turmoil, just a peaceful protest today.”
Howard shot back, “All these people, like they suddenly woke up. ‘Oh! We’re aware now! Let’s change things!’ Well, I don’t buy it. All this energy, all these people, it’ll fade away, like it always has before.”
At some point near the towering obelisk, we simply came to a stop, along with everyone else. Although we were more than a mile from the podiums at the Lincoln Memorial, the massive speakers were powerful enough to reach us up on our little hill. We cheered lustily when Eugene McCarthy was introduced, as he thanked us for what we’d done the year before, ending the Johnson reign. He told us we could do the same with Nixon, when it came to the war. Peter, Paul, and Mary led us in a sing-along of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Mike had brought a 35 mm Pentax camera, taking candid pictures of the scene. I snuck it away from him, hoping to do the same for him.
Somewhere far in front, the mass started swaying. A wave of raised arms surged towards us, not fists today, but the “V” peace sign. The crowd around us caught the movement, and finally I heard a mumble, then a distinct repeated chant, singing actually. “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.” Over and over, not to be denied. I snapped Mike’s picture, head back, his face beatific, his hair, still long at my insistence, golden against that ragged jacket.