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c. 2024 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(5-24)
The recent anniversary of tragic events at Kent State University caused a moment of reflection for this writer. While many bowed their heads and remembered, others made online posts about the Star Wars movie franchise. Yet at my desk, the mood was somber. For many, what transpired on the campus in May of 1970 was a benchmark for the entire generation. A point reached where unarmed students met the fate of battlefield combatants. I remember a friend observing later, in New York, that he and others who were immersed in hippie culture at the time literally thought that they all might be exterminated in a similar fashion. But in my own life, the yield of this awful happening was more subdued and complex to process.
I was eight years old when William Schroeder, Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, and Sandra Lee Scheuer were felled by National Guard bullets.
In the Ice household, reading our local paper, and watching daily news broadcasts, was a family tradition. My maternal grandmother had a particular interest in staying informed. My father always caught the morning shows while having his coffee. As a young pupil in eastern Kentucky, I went to a school located in a district so poor and remote that my third-grade studies commenced each weekday in a trailer behind the actual building. I was too young to be self-conscious about this obvious token of poverty. When gunfire ripped through the air in my native Ohio, I took it as a bout of adult violence that made no sense. Hearing that kids who were busy working on their education had been struck down, had me stunned and befuddled. Being so naïve and youthful, I equated the four with members of my own class at Owingsville Elementary.
With an earnest desire to understand, I asked my father about what had occurred. He was a stout fellow with a solid education, and a calling as a Christian minister. A lifelong Republican. Someone who had voted both for Richard Nixon, and Buckeye Governor Jim Rhodes. So, my innocent query must have caused his stomach to quiver uncomfortably. I recollect that he paused thoughtfully before offering a wise assessment.
“Man may err in his beliefs or in his conduct. But God is always on his throne of grace. It is important to remember that, Rodney. At the end of time, it is his hands that will still cradle the world.”
My concept of soldiers was dictated in that gentle era by green, plastic Army men who populated our backyard when I played with friends. I was more concerned with riding my Schwinn banana-bike, and finding 45-rpm records at our local five & dime store, downtown. One of those was a single by the iconic, but largely unknown, Jim Ford. A native of the Bluegrass State who was expressive and talented, yet not destined to linger long as a figure in the world of popular music. I had so little life experience under my belt, that comprehending the conflict in Vietnam, and the unrest percolating across America, overwhelmed my budding intellect.
My mother and her side of our brood were all old-fashioned Democrats, who sprung from the soil of Appalachia. She stayed busy with the rigorous duties of running our home. But Grandma McCray, who was her own mater, had plenty of love and affection as I struggled with this dark point on the calendar. She was content to let me talk freely, and explore my nerdy sense of wonder. Then, offered assurance that I would always be protected by our benevolent creator.
“You will never be alone, child. It says that in the holy scriptures, in Matthew 28. “And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Grandma was a poet who frequently offered her humble vision of life in compositions of creative verse. She once received a letter from Eleanor Roosevelt, thanking her for material written in support of her husband, our 32nd President of the United States. I trusted her every word without question. Because, while I knew that the admonitions of others were grounded in fact and reason, I could feel what she spoke in my heart. Everything that fell from her lips resonated at my core. Her spirit and insight provided fertile soil from which I would grow, and prosper, for decades to come.
After the shootings, Neil Young’s classic ‘Ohio’ was an anthem that would strike with the force of a lightning bolt. A talisman of distant lands which I did not inhabit or tread. As a product of Columbus and the river region below, my experience had little to offer with any sophistication. I knew of our military operations overseas, and about the counterculture pushback of some who were aligned differently in social and political terms. But this awareness came through the peering eyes of a virtual baby. I watched Beatles cartoons on our TV set, a colorless receiver bought from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. I listened to vinyl platters on our hi-fi, also vended by that same noted retailer. But cultural references echoed like a screeching of anonymous birds in the treetops. I had no frame of reference. Only the radio provided a link to what awaited, beyond.
The song about Kent State had an unintended effect against this backdrop, in personal terms. It wracked me with a measure of guilt. I was after all, a son of the loam. Sprouted from a seed planted in the capital itself. I also had the lessons and platitudes of a conservative consciousness instilled into my head. My identity, my concept of existing, had been predetermined by this reality. So, how could I put those factors together, while yearning to be a fully-formed participant in our national traditions?
This conundrum would stay with me for many years that followed.
Sometimes, I stayed up late, with my transistor device hooked to its earphone. And a blanket over my head, to cover up this sin of being awake beyond designated hours. Music beckoned for me to enter this shadowy realm, at first. But eventually talk radio, like the ramblings of Herb Jepko on his syndicated ‘Nitecap’ program, opened new vistas to be sampled. I tuned in on affiliate WHAS, in Louisville. Through the tutelage of this long-distance education, I began to learn about things beyond the guardrails of my family and faith. The process was one that inspired a lively debate, at home, and within myself. A continuing process of evolution, and renewal. My Kentucky kernel of wisdom offered a bumper crop of enlightenment that I continue to harvest, even now.
It all began with the daily news, in 1970.
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