Monday, December 15, 2008

Greenbush Boy does Dow

Notice how clean cut everyone is. Is this 1967 or 1957? Where are the beards, the moustaches, the tie-dyed outfits, the peace beads? Don't the standing onlookers in this famous anti-war poster appear dressed for a Brothers Four concert rather than what would shortly turn out to be one of the most famous pitched battles ever to take place on a University campus?

For a full understanding of why this photograph was anything but a University of Wisconsin recruiting tool, read the superbly written account of the Dow Chemical Riots in Pulitzer Prize-winner David Maraniss's book,They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967.

I'm one of the rubber-neckers several feet away from those already fallen who within seconds will nearly have his head split open during Madison's version of the running of the bulls. I found the answer to Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

I was on the ground eating them.

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