One wet afternoon in the middle of October—it was 1969, the year I got out of the Air Force, and I'd re-entered the University five weeks previously—I was walking up 12th Street from Casey's when I met a line of marchers coming the other way. Organized by Nebraskans for Peace and the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, they were on their way to the State Capitol Building to protest the war.
Surprised at the size of the crowd, I stood aside to watch the whole rigmarole pass. The Lincoln cops were out in force, but the demonstrators didn't appear to need much policing. Their footsteps made a hushed, slicking sound on the brick pavement; they hurried along, heads down, looking miserable and embarrassed. Occasionally one of the leaders would start up a chant that died before it reached the fifth row.
Near the head of the line walked a smallish woman in a black raincoat. Though her fox-red hair hung in strings and raindrops beaded on her white-greasepainted face, she moved serenely, remote as a ghost. The rain seemed not to bother her. She looked as if she had someplace to go and wanted to get there.
I watched her back until the crowd blocked my view, then continued to my office to finish grading Freshman-Comp essays. I'd read about these demonstrations—there'd been a big one in Chicago a couple of days before, windows smashed and people arrested, one civil servant with a broken neck—but it didn't run in my family to get physical about politics; besides, for all I knew, some miffed bureaucrat could cut off my VA check. People with cameras lined the sidewalk. There were always plenty of cameras.
No arrests were made that day. The crowd was orderly. They read the names of the dead on the capitol steps. When I watched it on the news, I said a name too. Yours, Stuart, buddy. May you rest in peace.
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