Well one of the personal stories is great anyway. The other is
mine, and I think mine is pretty good also. I don't need to repeat
the reference for here. It is at sent
4/11/15 Melanie - Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) - YouTube [LINK]
I received this wonderful personal response from an old friend and have just now finished answering it. I wasn't thinking of sharing it with you, but hey, it's just too good not to share, and my part of it is about me, even. lol
I loved reading this email, dear [xxxx]. I have been struggling for awhile now to get to that last one I just sent a bit ago tonight. [Please act.] I am getting tired of watching all of that sort of stuff, including wars, which are not the topic of that one. But that one about the TPP I have been promising and so had to do it.
During Woodstock I was in Buffalo, living with my still-beloved first wife as "the Residents" of the mansion-type house that belonged to the Religious Society of Friends then. It was where they met and held Sunday school classes on Sunday mornings. It faced on a nice little park on the Buffalo east side, so-called. The big wading pool in the park was in our view out the front windows where we had the entire second floor. We lived there for five good years, from 1967 through 1972. For much of that time, starting late in 1968 I was first the only draft counselor and then after a bit the so-called Senior Counselor with a crew that got as high as fifty people, some full time but most part time. Part timers were required to put in a minimum of at least four hours each week plus come to law update meetings. I think law update meetings were monthly or so. I studied incoming legal update materials many or most nights after I was through seeing people. I lay beside my wife reading off the side of the bed with a little night light while she was sleeping. I rolled out of bed at 11am and went downstairs to guzzle coffee from the big urn and start my first appointment of the day. I saw people and helped the other counselors with their work in different places on the first floor and in the basement until I got through with my appointments. That could happen anywhere from 10pm to 2am. I even had two (2) actual lawyers who came in once a week at different times to help people who needed letters from "honest to God" lawyers to impress their draft boards about the draft boards' errors under the Selective Service Law (SSL), and of course some "counselees" needed that. Draft boards made lots and lots of legal errors. For one thing, draft boards were not comprised of lawyers.
That life was a rather total accident. I never looked for it. We were living peacefully in that Quaker Meetinghouse, and I was a full time student at UB. Two things coincided: 1. It was part of the job of "the Residents," whenever one of us was home, to hear the bell and open the door to those who knocked. That was part of the original deal with the Quakers. We got FREE rent, light, and heat in a very beautiful big apartment. 2. A bunch of Buffalo ministers and priests got together and decided Buffalo needed a draft counseling center. I was no part of that. Then they approached the Meeting and asked could they use some space on the first floor of the house to meet with "counselees" by appointment, rather than at different churches all over the city. The counselors would be the various ministers at different times. The Quakers said sure. And then, ...and then... guys started showing up at the front door without appointments. Since I was just past draft age and had been through my own experiences with my draft board and an Army physical--which I had "flunked" for varicose veins by the way--I got into conversations with some of those guys about what they were going through. I learned that the counselor ministers did not know what they were doing. I had a book on the Selective Service Law, Draft Law for Dummies, or something. <kidding about the title> The minister counselors hadn't bothered, I guess. With the ministers it seemed that it was just all about guys' religious agonies, which were real enough.*
So you see I had no choice but to take the place over completely except for fundraising for resources and materials, with no opposition. Very soon I had no time for classes. One teacher gave me a B in French anyway, for what I was doing at the draft counseling center. :-)
I think the awareness of Woodstock as the place to be that weekend was huge at the University of Buffalo, not just after the fact. I did not have time for reading general newspapers and so can't answer your question. I was taking a pause in my formal education, but of course I was that age, and many of the guys I was seeing were students there. So I heard about the goings-on in that social sphere. My not going to Woodstock was not due to lack of money then. Many were actually hitchhiking from Buffalo! lol I was just busy, with too many guys waiting.
I think there was some tear gas on campus at least once, but you have a proud experience that I missed. I was busy with guys that really needed me in my office. I was on the FBI interesting persons list, but they did not come at me with tear gas. They have never come at me at all, in fact, not visibly anyway.
--not to mention your proud experience with children. lol
Thank you so much for sharing more of your wonderful story, [xxxx]. :-)
------------------------------------------
love,
Larry
* 4/2415 update re: "With the ministers it seemed that it was just all about guys' religious agonies, which were real enough."
Since I said that yesterday, I have been thinking that you might have guessed that those religious agonies were about pacifism. If you did guess that, you were badly mistaken.
Half of the big problem for most of those guys, the ones with the religious agonies, including me, was that we felt, from what we knew then, or thought we knew, was that we would have gone and fought like disciplined devils in World War II.
The other half of the big problem was that we knew that the Vietnam War was nothing at all like World War II. In Vietnam the main motive of U.S. business leaders--it wasn't so global then--was to steal control from the native residents of Vietnam what was then believed to be the last big source of copper. The current Wikipedia page does not mention Vietnam specifically, and I do not know where other sources have been found. But business leaders thought that Vietnam was it for copper back then. Yes, we knew that copper is important. But there were many Americans back then who more or less--some totally--resisted the notion of going and torturing and murdering native peoples to steal their resources. More educated Americans were aware of the true motivation. Less educated Americans, like many of the soldiers who went and fought "for their country" never heard that. All they heard was the government propaganda (lying) of the time.
That was the problem. It was not pacifism. It was a religious commitment to try hard to refrain from participating in lying and stealing property that rightly belonged to others no matter how badly we thought we needed it.
That is what many guys' religious agonies were about, the lying and stealing and murdering in furtherance of stealing.
And that is what my religious agonies about most of the wars since have been about, the fact that at bottom they have been about lying and stealing and murdering in furtherance of stealing.
I trust you understand the difference, if you did not understand before. The main motive for the U.S. in the Vietnam War does not get mentioned much these days, just the social upheaval of that time with little explanation other than annoyance at being drafted. But the draft was big in World War II also, and there was not such opposition to going to war for what seemed like a good cause, i.e., rescuing people who needed rescuing.
I will always feel very badly for the foot soldiers who got duped and used in Vietnam--and one is a close buddy; but I cannot bring myself to change the story to suit them.
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid. If you are not doing it you can do it. Other people are doing it. We can learn from them, I find.
I received this wonderful personal response from an old friend and have just now finished answering it. I wasn't thinking of sharing it with you, but hey, it's just too good not to share, and my part of it is about me, even. lol
OK, where were you during Woodstock? Were you near Buffalo? Was there much in the press at the time it was occurring or did much of that publicity happen after the fact?---from Larry to Friend, April 23, 2015--------
I listened to Melanie (I always liked her) and it indeed evoked memories of the time. In August of 69 my husband and I were living in [a place in California] and we had just quit our jobs and sold the two cars and were selling everything we could in the house and was packing up to go to [a midwestern city in the U.S.] for my husband to begin work on his Masters and for me to begin mine a year later. We celebrated my daughter’s first birthday at her Grandmother’s home in [a city in another midwestern state in the U.S.] on Sept. 7 before finding housing within walking distance of the [a university] in [neighborhood name, slang]. On November 7th we celebrated my son’s third birthday and I was employed at the [University] Hospitals in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Like you I had no time nor money for Woodstock and geographically not in the right place. There was however, lots of activity and demonstrations going on around us that were typical of the late 60s and early 70s. One day with the two kids while going to buy stamps at the Post Office I got in the middle of tear gas that had been dropped into a crowd by a helicopter hovering above. The music of the time was always in the background. It delineated a time and place.
Your friend,
I loved reading this email, dear [xxxx]. I have been struggling for awhile now to get to that last one I just sent a bit ago tonight. [Please act.] I am getting tired of watching all of that sort of stuff, including wars, which are not the topic of that one. But that one about the TPP I have been promising and so had to do it.
During Woodstock I was in Buffalo, living with my still-beloved first wife as "the Residents" of the mansion-type house that belonged to the Religious Society of Friends then. It was where they met and held Sunday school classes on Sunday mornings. It faced on a nice little park on the Buffalo east side, so-called. The big wading pool in the park was in our view out the front windows where we had the entire second floor. We lived there for five good years, from 1967 through 1972. For much of that time, starting late in 1968 I was first the only draft counselor and then after a bit the so-called Senior Counselor with a crew that got as high as fifty people, some full time but most part time. Part timers were required to put in a minimum of at least four hours each week plus come to law update meetings. I think law update meetings were monthly or so. I studied incoming legal update materials many or most nights after I was through seeing people. I lay beside my wife reading off the side of the bed with a little night light while she was sleeping. I rolled out of bed at 11am and went downstairs to guzzle coffee from the big urn and start my first appointment of the day. I saw people and helped the other counselors with their work in different places on the first floor and in the basement until I got through with my appointments. That could happen anywhere from 10pm to 2am. I even had two (2) actual lawyers who came in once a week at different times to help people who needed letters from "honest to God" lawyers to impress their draft boards about the draft boards' errors under the Selective Service Law (SSL), and of course some "counselees" needed that. Draft boards made lots and lots of legal errors. For one thing, draft boards were not comprised of lawyers.
That life was a rather total accident. I never looked for it. We were living peacefully in that Quaker Meetinghouse, and I was a full time student at UB. Two things coincided: 1. It was part of the job of "the Residents," whenever one of us was home, to hear the bell and open the door to those who knocked. That was part of the original deal with the Quakers. We got FREE rent, light, and heat in a very beautiful big apartment. 2. A bunch of Buffalo ministers and priests got together and decided Buffalo needed a draft counseling center. I was no part of that. Then they approached the Meeting and asked could they use some space on the first floor of the house to meet with "counselees" by appointment, rather than at different churches all over the city. The counselors would be the various ministers at different times. The Quakers said sure. And then, ...and then... guys started showing up at the front door without appointments. Since I was just past draft age and had been through my own experiences with my draft board and an Army physical--which I had "flunked" for varicose veins by the way--I got into conversations with some of those guys about what they were going through. I learned that the counselor ministers did not know what they were doing. I had a book on the Selective Service Law, Draft Law for Dummies, or something. <kidding about the title> The minister counselors hadn't bothered, I guess. With the ministers it seemed that it was just all about guys' religious agonies, which were real enough.*
So you see I had no choice but to take the place over completely except for fundraising for resources and materials, with no opposition. Very soon I had no time for classes. One teacher gave me a B in French anyway, for what I was doing at the draft counseling center. :-)
I think the awareness of Woodstock as the place to be that weekend was huge at the University of Buffalo, not just after the fact. I did not have time for reading general newspapers and so can't answer your question. I was taking a pause in my formal education, but of course I was that age, and many of the guys I was seeing were students there. So I heard about the goings-on in that social sphere. My not going to Woodstock was not due to lack of money then. Many were actually hitchhiking from Buffalo! lol I was just busy, with too many guys waiting.
I think there was some tear gas on campus at least once, but you have a proud experience that I missed. I was busy with guys that really needed me in my office. I was on the FBI interesting persons list, but they did not come at me with tear gas. They have never come at me at all, in fact, not visibly anyway.
--not to mention your proud experience with children. lol
Thank you so much for sharing more of your wonderful story, [xxxx]. :-)
------------------------------------------
love,
Larry
* 4/2415 update re: "With the ministers it seemed that it was just all about guys' religious agonies, which were real enough."
Since I said that yesterday, I have been thinking that you might have guessed that those religious agonies were about pacifism. If you did guess that, you were badly mistaken.
Half of the big problem for most of those guys, the ones with the religious agonies, including me, was that we felt, from what we knew then, or thought we knew, was that we would have gone and fought like disciplined devils in World War II.
The other half of the big problem was that we knew that the Vietnam War was nothing at all like World War II. In Vietnam the main motive of U.S. business leaders--it wasn't so global then--was to steal control from the native residents of Vietnam what was then believed to be the last big source of copper. The current Wikipedia page does not mention Vietnam specifically, and I do not know where other sources have been found. But business leaders thought that Vietnam was it for copper back then. Yes, we knew that copper is important. But there were many Americans back then who more or less--some totally--resisted the notion of going and torturing and murdering native peoples to steal their resources. More educated Americans were aware of the true motivation. Less educated Americans, like many of the soldiers who went and fought "for their country" never heard that. All they heard was the government propaganda (lying) of the time.
That was the problem. It was not pacifism. It was a religious commitment to try hard to refrain from participating in lying and stealing property that rightly belonged to others no matter how badly we thought we needed it.
That is what many guys' religious agonies were about, the lying and stealing and murdering in furtherance of stealing.
And that is what my religious agonies about most of the wars since have been about, the fact that at bottom they have been about lying and stealing and murdering in furtherance of stealing.
I trust you understand the difference, if you did not understand before. The main motive for the U.S. in the Vietnam War does not get mentioned much these days, just the social upheaval of that time with little explanation other than annoyance at being drafted. But the draft was big in World War II also, and there was not such opposition to going to war for what seemed like a good cause, i.e., rescuing people who needed rescuing.
I will always feel very badly for the foot soldiers who got duped and used in Vietnam--and one is a close buddy; but I cannot bring myself to change the story to suit them.
--
Brother Larry/Attorney Scott archives (Larry at Blogspot) "undisclosed recipients" email message archive, no logging in, no public comments
One way or another, raise yourself up I say; do not be afraid. If you are not doing it you can do it. Other people are doing it. We can learn from them, I find.
