At work the other night there was a song I just could not get out of my head it was “Ohio” written By Neil Young. My #2 son had been driving together when he turned the music to an oldies station. The song “Ohio” came up and I quizzed my son about it. “Do you know what this song is about?” I said “No” was his reply and with that I gave him a history lesson about the Vietnam war protest's on college campus’s and how 4 students died at Kent State in Ohio when a protest got out of hand. I have always said that song writers are the poets and story tellers of our times. A simple song with 2 verses repeated once can have so much meaning to those of us who grew up in that time and that same music can bring to this generation a better understanding of what it was like to grow up in the 60’s and 70’s.
I explained that I was in one of the first generations to experience the visual news that came out of the TV. To watch night after night as the number of dead in Vietnam were announced. To have friends whose brothers were dead and others who wore MIA and POW bracelets. But Vietnam was not the only change that happened at that time integration was taking effect and I saw on the news each night the fighting that was taking place in the US, citizen against citizen. Reflecting back not a whole lot has changed. We still fight unpopular wars over seas and we still fight among ourselves over stupid thing’s that should not matter like the color of a person’s skin, their religion or their politics. We humans do not learn from history we keep repeating it over and over again.
lyrics by Neil Young
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Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
3 comments:
Thanks for that, Cindy - I don't have much use for Neil Young but that song is a great exception. I'm glad you shared that with your kid.
I remember talking to my grandfather about Kent State a year or two after it happened when excerpts from Michener's book were published in Reader's Digest and his callous brushing off of the deaths of the "dirty hippies" was a blow to our relationship. There's only so much you can chalk up to someone being a product of their times. I loved him, but it was harder to *like* him after that.
The important thing is that you knew what was right in your mind. Your grandfather was from the WWII generation, my country right or wrong. I'm sure there are a lot of things to "like" him for. I dont know if you have children but if you do tell them about the past, the good the bad and the ugly;its all we have to learn from.
I realized this morning that I hadn't really finished my thought last night - which was it was nice to hear that song and event used as a little generational bonding rather than as a wedge! :-D
Pop was a good old guy - he liked INDIVIDUAL people regardless of their skin color or the length of their hair. He just didn't like (or trust) GROUPS of people, like blacks or hippies or, well, pretty much anyone that wasn't part of what he considered HIS group (Southern white Baptists I guess?).
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