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One of my most vivid college memories is lying in bed listening to the radio.
It was a Tuesday night, forty years ago today. I was a 19-year-old freshman, living in the dorm and sharing a room with a guy I never saw again after the school year ended a few days later. I was never sure if he flunked out, as I suspect, or if he got a better offer, which doesn’t seem very likely, considering his work habits. He somehow got himself invited to frat parties every weekend, and he did plenty of partying during the week as well.
After watching the election returns in the dorm’s TV room that night, I’d gone to bed after the winner was declared, but before the candidates made any speeches. You had to be 21 to vote in those days, and I don’t know for sure if I would have voted for Robert Kennedy. Gene McCarthy was the chic choice among students, and had been expected to win the primary. Kennedy’s win that night probably prevented McCarthy from becoming the Democratic nominee to replace Lyndon Johnson.
My roommate burst into the room and before even flicking on the light said, “Turn on the radio. Something’s happening.”
We listened for hours, late into the early morning, hoping that the horror hadn’t been repeated. A few months before, we’d seen Martin Luther King, Jr., murdered in Memphis, and now it was another assassination in Los Angeles. As more details kept coming in, we knew the worst had happened. This wasn’t one of those news events that you hear about but don’t realize what they mean. We knew what this meant, from that first night. |
