<Begin Segment 45>

AI: Well, to kind of put it back into the setting of the times, '69, '70, 1970 would have been Kent State shootings happened in May of 1970. So that was the time that you've just been speaking of.

RS: Right. It was the Cambodian (Invasion) that we were protesting --

AI: Yes.

RS: -- when we were walking down...

AI: And protests were happening on campuses across the country at that time.

RS: Uh-huh. But to see the, the campus up in flames and as little experience as I had on campuses at the time, I realized that I was experiencing something really unusual. And of course they had Time magazine and everything else.

AI: And at this point, too, you were just mentioning the shift, completing that shift to the opposite end of the political spectrum. Were you really conscious of that then, at that time, that you, yourself, had gone from being a very kind of gung ho, military man, and when you had been in Korea, to this really --

RS: Yeah, I was conscious of it. I didn't feel guilty about it or anything. Because it sort of felt like I arrived home. I arrived where I should be. But without question, I was aware that I had undergone these big changes -- and I used to tell my friends about it, too. I wasn't embarrassed about it. Because in some ways I sort of felt like I was born to be that person. In some ways my parents probably were more proud of me, having me at that end of the spectrum than this other one, because I remember I'd come back to Seattle, hair down to here and sandals and everything and my mom was just abhorred. She worked at Pay 'N Save down on Rainier Avenue. And I remember I walked in there with Bea and our son, thinking she'd be just delighted to see us, and her mouth fell open when she saw me. And she ended up calling me and saying, "As long as you look like that you don't have to come around," because I looked like this sort of walking cliche of everything that she was disgusted with, this hippie. And in some ways, I was going about it so honestly. I didn't even think about what I looked like. And yet, I guess part of me realized the change that I had undergone in such a short period of time, because the only other time I was back, was when my grandmother died and I flew back from Syracuse because I felt so close to her. And I came back but I hadn't made any kind of real physical changes or something. But, and then when we were up at that, after that camping trip, I think I was starting to show signs. But then when I came back afterwards, I had just sort of gone to hell as far as my parents were concerned. [Laughs] And how could I, being this college professor, how could I possibly look like that?

<End Segment 45> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.