Tales of an Urban Guerilla

Here's the thread that got me started on this blog.   I'm finally getting around to it.   I have always been a story teller for my kids.   They were particularly fond of my new left 60's adventures.    Abby got me to start writing chapters for a future book....suggested title:   Tales of an Urban Guerilla.

In 1968 as the democratic convention unrolled with  Hubert Humphrey, and Eugene McCarthy vying for the nomination (Candidate Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated in June) the feeling throughout the anti-war movement was apocalyptic.   We felt we had forced Lyndon Johnson not to run and could end the Vietnam war with people' pressure on the convention.  At the same time Mayor Daley was issuing menacing and threatening warnings for demonstrators to stay away from Chicago.

I had graduated from Bryn Mawr Social Work School and was at home in New Jersey looking for a job.  I wasn't going to go, but took Daley's threats personally, so off I went, hitting the road with my thumb out for Chicago.   After an eventful trip (that's another story) I arrived at the demonstrations.   I remember the lines of army national guard along the lake with bayonets pointed in our direction (as well as the "flower power" girls who stuck flowers in their guns.)   I still shiver at the thought and feeling of having American soldiers pointing guns and bayonets at our own people.   The nation was really tearing apart....and it was real scary.   Nobody knew how far they would go....use the bayonets?  shoot real bullets?   These were such uncharted waters.

I also remember hearing Dave Dellinger in Grant Park and having the Chicago police charge the crowd after a demonstrator pulled down an American flag.   That footage is often on television and I was standing pretty near the flag pole when he did it....which means I was right in the middle of the night stick swinging Chicago police.   Somehow the memory that sticks in my mind was how every one of them seemed fat.   Was that why we called them "pigs?"    "Today's pigs are tomorrow's bacon!" went one chant.

 Late that night I was on Lake Shore Drive with a large group of demonstrators trying to get to the convention center.  A large battalion of police started marching towards us with night sticks out.   It looked grim for us.   Sitting on the sidewalk, I saw one of those huge gas powered lights with a huge concentrating mirror used to make scenes look glamorous as in Hollywood film openings.   I jumped on the light trailer and somehow figured how to re aim the light down Lake Shore Drive at the line of police.   Like little tin solders the intense light forced them to fall to the ground and scatter.   One for the people!   Our group escaped attack.

The next day the Chicago Tribune covered the defeat of a a police column with the gas light aimed by "an unknown urban guerilla!"

So what else do I remember?   I don't have any memory of how I slept or how I got back to New Jersey.   I do remember meeting a kind of hippie guy from NYC.   He shared his food with me...which was kind of jazzed up kashe varnishkes with lots of celery and mushrooms added to make it a heartier dish. It was delicous.  He carried a pre cooked plastic bag of this all the way from NYC to sustain himself all through the demonstrations.   Wonder where he is now?