40 years ago today

National Guard shoots kills 4 at Kent State. (Thanks to those that pointed out my mistake in rushing to add that one line above the links)

http://www.ohio.com/news/may4th/91726924.html

http://www.ohio.com/news/92678894.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/36921404#36921404

 

Which was, of course, the impetus for

.

 

A professor I had in college was there and was roommates with one of the four killed. Ironically, the roommate was actually ROTC.

 

This is still a very touchy subject in the region to put it lightly.

 

They shot more than four.

 

Yeah, it was four KILLED.

Gary Pinkel and Nick Saban were both football players at Kent State back then. Here's a couple of stories about their memories of that day:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/mizzou/story/9C3ED95E527B614E862577190009514C?OpenDocument

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/2010-05-03-kent-state-shooting-anniversary_N.htm

And Joe, thanks for the links, especially the first one. I love reading first-day news accounts of big events like that.

Also FT, I remember seeing an interview with David Crosby on the 30th anniversary of Kent State. He said that a couple of days after the shooting, one of the CSNY guys came by the place they all hung out back in those days and brought the Newsweek featuring the famous Kent State photo on the cover.

Crosby said Young grabbed the magazine and his guitar, walked outside toward the woods, and came back a half-hour later with "Ohio" written.

 

I'll take a wild guess and say it'll be a touchy subject here, too.

Also among the students on the Kent State campus that day: Jack Lambert and the members of Devo.

 

I wanna say Chrissy Hynde was also a KSU student at the time.

 

Joe Walsh wasn't going to Kent State, but I believe he was living in Kent at the time.

 

Slight correction --- Pinkel was a high school senior living in nearby Akron at the time, but he had already committed to play football at Kent State at the time of the shooting.

 

As I remember it, she was talking about being on campus during half term when the shootings happened.

 

One of the most powerful images of my (long) lifetime.

I heard CSNY perform "Ohio" live for the first time about a month later at the Fillmore East.