Editor’s note: May 4 marks the 45th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State University in which four students died during a rally against the Vietnam War.

By RICHARD J. GOODMAN

It was one of those rare years in Northeastern Ohio when spring arrived ahead of schedule. That fateful morning in early May dawned clear and warm, exaggerating the greenness of the grass and the yellows, blues and reds of the flowers.

My consciousness was cluttered with those things important to a graduate student in his season, temporarily blocking out the pulsating weekend news flashes of demonstrations, armed patrols and burning buildings. As if experiencing a mental flashback to the war-torn Southeast Asia I had recently left, I found an otherwise peaceful college campus transformed into an armed encampment, complete with rifle-wielding soldiers and steel-bellied trucks.

Somehow it just didn’t seem real. The events of that horrible day were being openly mocked and challenged. At one corner, a handsome young guardsman was being teased by mini-skirted co-eds and, at another, a long-stemmed rose was being gently lowered into the bluish-gray muzzle of a riffle.

Even when I opened the communication building door, seeing for the first time the large block print of the “John Doe Warrant” taped to the window, I couldn’t fully escape my own private concerns, and as I walked across campus to my morning statistics class, all I could think about was the upcoming defense of my thesis and the start of my professional career.

Dr. Lawrence was a man driven by task. He clung to his blackboard like a tiny bird clings to its nest, simultaneously writing-lecturing-writing-lecturing, never actually aware of whether anyone else was in the room. It was somewhere during the filling up of the middle blackboard panel that it happened. The hypnotic spell was momentarily broken by a single voice, respectfully asking Dr. Lawrence to set aside what he was doing and provide the class with an opportunity to discuss the events of the day. A slight pause was his only response. Two more attempts to sidetrack Dr. Lawrence were met with similar results. It was just after his introduction to the Chi Square test that the bell rang, releasing the 50 or so souls to follow the beat of their own individual drummers.

The rumor mill was in full operation, grinding out its message of a forbidden demonstration scheduled for high noon. It was a little before 12 that the Division Director thrust his head into the entrance of my classroom, telling me to dismiss my class and follow him. Responding to the strange look on his face, I obeyed, slowly climbing a ladder to the building’s roof where I pleaded with students on the walks below to enter the safety of the lobby.

From my vantage point I could clearly see the commons, a favorite gathering place by day and love-making spot by night. Suddenly there were cheers, shouts, drum beats and finally GUNFIRE. It was at that precise moment that the normal flow of the world was temporarily interrupted. Tear gas watered the eyes, sirens drowned out all other sounds, and death hung heavy in the air.

It was about two weeks after the University had been closed that I received a letter from Dr. Lawrence. It was addressed to “Members of my morning Statistics Class” and it was asking for, of all things, our understanding and forgiveness. In a few simple words, Dr. Lawrence seemed to be questioning his career and life. He said, in part, “I will never know what might have happened had I turned from the blackboard and talked about the events of the day . . .”

Sometime later, I was told that one of the dead students was a member of our morning statistics class. Perhaps it was the student who tried to distract Dr. Lawrence.

Richard J. Goodman is a Dunkirk resident.