Radical Stories #2–Psychedelic Catch-and-Release

~a trip down the historical rabbit-hole by Tom (tet)

So, no shit, there I was…

I was bound and determined that I was not going to miss the radical excitement this year. It was the first anniversary of the shootings at Kent State. Tuesday was one of the two days that I had arranged in the week during spring semester to have no classes, so I was going to spend it seeking out the radicals and participating in something meaningful to commemorate the fallen students.

I had seen the Daily Illini photos of the National Guardsmen in front of Murphy’s Pub. When I had come down to the university the summer before for early registration, four blocks of Champaign’s North End lay in ashes. Every ground-level window facing into the Quad had been smashed and had then been covered with a sheet of plywood. The hippies had painted upon them stirring pictures of Superhero Hippies with Omegas on their chests, their fists raised in defiance against the government and oppression.

Damn, I was pissed that I had missed the action! Not this May 4th, no way, no how. I went from room to room in Noble Hall looking for students to accompany me on my quest for radical meaning and hot, patchouli-wearing chicks in khaki. Unfortunately, the dorm was full of former farm boys, engineers and journalism majors and they had all headed for class about an hour before I had pulled myself from bed. This was going to be harder than I thought.

As I was heading back toward my room, I spotted my buddy Pat at the other end of the hall. We met in front of my room and he held out a surprise for me. Since he also had no classes on Tuesday, we often would spend the day together in varying mental states. Today, he had two doses of Window Pane in a small envelope in his hand.

Now, for those of you of the younger two generations, I have to tell you this was something very special. The effective dose of LSD was measured in hundreds of micrograms. When you took a dose that came in a tablet, you had no idea what had been mixed with it to alter its properties. However, Window Pane was clear polyethylene that had had the proper dose pipetted onto it. It was pure as was available anywhere. Pat had obtained a small treasure for us.

Now, I had never tripped during the day before, although I had quite a bit of experience of evenings under controlled situations in dorm rooms. We had both heard horror stories about students who had burned out their eyeballs staring at the sun, but a quick glance outside showed us that there was a light overcast, so we promised each other that, no matter what, we weren’t going to look up.

Down it went. Pat agreed to accompany me on my journey to find other folks interested in doing something in remembrance and we headed for the Quad and the Union. Nobody. Nothing going on–everyone was going about their business, attending classes, playing bongos on the Quad and watching the little green worms drop from the new trees that had been planted on the west side near the Administration building.

And then the Acid hit. (A few days later, Pat and I found out that each of the little poly panes contained not the usual 250, but a full 500 micrograms of the substance.) The spring colors suddenly took on hues that we hadn’t really ever seen before. The students began to exhibit more and more of the attributes of a circus parade and the leaves in the trees were forming arcane writing that you couldn’t quite decipher. There still were no radicals, no demonstration, nothing. Where the hell were they?

The Alma Mater! They always met at the Alma Mater, where someone would crawl up onto the seat with a bullhorn and speak to everyone. Quickly, we gathered enough of our loose wits to enable us to head that way.

Still nothing. Green Street, looking toward the engineering campus, was taking on the characteristics of a Van Gogh painting. The edges of the brick buildings were becoming more and more indistinct and light breezes were creating wind-chimes in our heads as the uncut grass blew in waves. This would never do. We decided after some thought that the best thing to do would be to start a demonstration ourselves, by burning our draft cards. We pulled them out of our wallets, spend a minute or two figuring out which end of a cigarette lighter was the business end and within a few minutes, the ashes blew across the grass toward the Union.

In actuality, we were about seven hours too early. By sunset, a huge crowd had gathered at the statue and were worked into a frenzy by a bullhorn toting firebrand. They marched across campus aimlessly, looking a great deal like a warband of Huns that had asked the Pope for directions to Rome. After going back and forth for an hour and a half, they decided that the proper thing to do was to pillage Follett’s Bookstore. Evidently, someone had told them that Nixon was planning on filling the bays of B-52 bombers with overpriced textbooks.

We, of course, were still puzzling over the lack of action. Where could the radicals be? Finally, it dawned on us both–they were not here because the police had scared them off. This was clearly unacceptable. What to do, what to do? Aha! If the students could see the police cars coming from a long way off, they’d be able to scatter and not get caught. They’d be free to pursue their aims of free speech followed by long hours of sex afterwards. Being an engineer, my mind began going over ways to make police cars more easily visible although my analysis kept being interrupted by moments when the stoplights became hilariously funny. Suddenly, a bright light exploded in front of me (literally) and the answer became clear–if they were bright orange, they’d be visible for blocks and blocks.

At this time, there was a small hardware store about four blocks from the statue. After some discussion, we remembered which direction the store was in and headed down a street lined with trashcans that would move slightly when you were looking at them out of the corner of your eye. We were surprisingly successful in locating the store and even more fortunate in finding that there were three cans of bright, day-glo paint–(you know, the kind that are used for safety purposes). The total cost came to just over five dollars, which presented a problem, since both of us had forgotten how dollar bills were used. There ensued a short discussion with a bored manager, who finally just took all of our bills from us, did some mysterious thing with them behind the counter and returned others.

Off we went. At this time, the campus police station was located in a decrepit building on the engineering campus. It took a bit of exploration, but we spotted it at last and noticed that there were, indeed, several of the offensive police cars parked in front of the place. It began to dawn on Pat, who was a bit more massive than I and therefore had taken a relatively smaller dose that this might not be as good an idea as we had originally thought. He suggested that he watch from across the street and signal me if anyone came by.

I got right to work. It was delightful, the feel of the can in my hand was almost sensual, the orange paint coated the surfaces almost completely the first time. I had finished the right rear fender of the first car and was just starting on the door when I sensed that I was not alone. I glanced over my right shoulder and noted, indeed, that there was a rather large police officer standing behind me.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

“I am painting police cars orange so they’ll be easier to spot!”

“YOU, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!!!”

“I will not cease my actions until my mission is complete!”

“WELL THEN, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!”

I drew myself up to my full five foot, four inches, one hundred twenty-six pounds of defiance and said,

“YOU CAN’T ARREST ME, I’M INVISIBLE!”

At which point I spun upon my heel and headed off towards Green Street. Pat, watching from across the street, saw the entire exchange and watched in first horror, then amusement as the officer stared in my general direction, suddenly looked puzzled, looked on the far side of the police car and then went back into the building shaking his head and talking to himself.

By the time we had joined up again and reached Green Street, we had run across Jane, a young lady of somewhat Bohemian tastes. Since Pat and I were both eighteen years old, radical activities disappeared immediately from the plans radar. She invited us over to her apartment where we spent the remainder of the afternoon listening to Dory Previn records and trying in vain to find out what was behind Skirt #1. By evening, the dose had worn off enough that we were exhausted and I spent the evening and night on her couch.

And this, guys, is why I ended up paying full price for my Physics 107 textbook.

Tom