—The Daily Collegian Wednesday, May 9, 1979
A date with fate, Fonda
Editor's Note: The Daily Collegian Staff
Writers Patrick J. Kiger, Mary Ellen
Wright and Beth Rosenfeld, were among
the estimated 65,000 protesters who
converged upon Washington Sunday to
demonstrate against nuclear power. The
following is Kiger's impression of the
event.
By PATRICK J. KIGER
Daily Collegian Staff Writer
Early Sunday, en route to our ren
dezvous with fate, Jane , Fonda and
Ready Kilowatt, we made a pit stop for
coffee at a diner outside Maryville, Pa.
There, we encountered a busload of no
nukers from Buffalo, N.Y., who said
they had departed at the ungodly hour of
1 a:m. to get to Washington in time for
the protest.
I asked one of them, a teenage girl in a
Jackson Browne t-shirt, just what it was
that had motivated her and the others to
go to such great lengths to attend the
march. The girl was silent for a moment,
but then looked up from the rack of
psuedo-Pennsylvania Dutch souvenirs
she had been examining and said in a .
quiet-yet-intense voice, "But man, isn't ,
everybody?"
Later, as we cruised down the
Baltimore-Washington Parkway, it
occurred to me that she may well have
Those whose Gentle Thursday was ruined by rain might not have felt so cheated
had they been at the anti-nuclear rally sitting in the sun on the Capitol lawn
with an estimated 65,000 to 150,000 protesters.
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WILDERNESS AND THE AMERICAN
CHARACTER
This summer, The Behrend College, Erie, is presenting a three-credit combination
field experience and outside reading course entitled Arts and Humanistic Studies
198 A: Wilderness and the American Character. The course provides the student
with an understanding of how the close proximity of wilderness has affected Ameri
can development and the individual American's perception of himself through an
examination of the literature, philosophy, and natural history surrounding the Ameri
can wilderness.
The course format requires enrollment by May 18th to permit students to complete
the independent reading which is required as the first phase of the program. The
second phase is a seven day six night field expedition, June 10-16th, into the
Allegheny National Forest, under the direction of a faculty team (Literature and
Biological Science). During this portion of the course, backpacking, canoeing,
orienteering, and nature study skills are developed. At this time the readings are
discussed and applied to field conditions. Each student is instructed to keep a daily
journal or reactions and perceptions in relationship to the reading material. The third
phase consists of a written examination by which each student demonstrates his
assimilation of the entire program.
Participants should be in good health because of the ruggedness of the wilderness
area and the physical demands of the field experience. Participants will not be in
contact with civilization during this time.
A basic list of necessary equipment is provided to each participant at registration
Major items of equipment which the student does not have will be furnished.
Registration must be completed the week of May 14-18. Enrollment is limited to 14
students.
Fee: The total fee of $345 for Pennsylvania undergraduate residents includes the
three undergraduate credits, transportation to and from the Allegheny National
Forest, all food, required textbooks, camp sites, and camping equipment if needed.
A $lOO deposit must be made at initial registration. The total $345 fee must be paid
by June 1, 1979. Students selected for the field trip who withdraw after May 22nd will
receive a refund only for that portion of monies not committed.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION, CONTACT:
Continuing Education or Information Services
The Behrend College 501 Keller Building
Station Road University Park
Erie, PA 16563 865-6585
(814) 898-1511
been right. On all sides, we were
surrounded by an anti-nuclear armada
on wheels: Volvos, Volkswagens,
motorcycles, Winnebagos and convoys
of charter buses, with license plates
from Michigan and Ontario and lowa
most decorated with banner and bum
perstickers : "Breeders Now Mutate
Later ; " "Karen Silkwood Died For Your
Sins," and simply "No Nukes."
Impressions
We arrived in Washington around
noon, parked at the L'Enfant Plaza, and
started looking for the march, which we
assumed was already in progress, In
front of the Smithsonian's merry-go
round we saw our first wild-eyed, hippie
freak protesters. They were a gray
haired couple, probably in their late
sixties, wearing Susquehanna Alliance
buttons. They had in tow their young
granddaughter, who was clutching a
placard that said "I Don't Want To Glow
In The Dark, Grandma. . . ."
Mary Ellen Wright, our photographer,
took their picture, at which grandpa
looked a bit upset. "Don't worry, she's
not CIA," I reassured him. . . .
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It was Victor Hugo, I think, that said
nothing is more powerful than an idea
whose time has come; the old gentleman
would most likely have felt right at home
on Pennsylvania Avenue Sunday af
ternoon, in the midst of a throng of
people three lanes wide and maybe a
mile or two deep, all possessed by the
idea that they were going to grab Uncle
Nuclear Sam by his isotopic shoulder
and shake the hell out of him.
And the people who wanted to do the
shaking seemed to defy categorization.
There were scruffy Brandeis-socialist
bohemian types, wearing placards that
said things like "People Before Profits"
marching alongside grandmothers and
farmers in Cat Truck caps. The Lesbian
Alliance, who were carrying a giant two
headed baby doll labelled "Nuke Child"
stepped aside for a well-dressed, middle
aged woman carrying a placard that
read; "Pro-Life Means No Nukes."
Even Washington's mounted police,
who are accustomed to having caravans
of angry farmers on tractors turfing the
White House lawn, seemed taken aback
by the spectacle. "Christ, Fred, will ya
look at that," I heard one officer tell
another as the two-headed nuke child.
went by. • . .
When the march reached the Capitol,
it was met by teams of May 6 Coalition
staffers who used megaphones and
semaphores in their effort to herd the
ungainly crowd onto the capitol lawn
with some semblance of order. "Do not
separate from your group . . . please , . .
Harrisburg people to the right, everyone
else to the left . . ."
Surprisingly they were fairly suc
cessful in keeping the situation under
control, because in contrast to the anti
war protests I saw in the early seventies,
most of the anti-nuke protesters seemed
willing to cooperate with those who had
assumed responsibility. Ah, what a
difference a decade makes. . . .
Not being the cooperative type myself,
I quickly sought out the press table and
started hassling the staffers about
credentials. After a lot of jawboning and
a bit of subterfuge "Yeah, Time
-Magazine. You heard of it?" I was
able to gain admission to the press area,
a fenced-off pit immediately in front of
the stage on the capitol steps, where the
action was going to take place.
By the time I got there, the action was
already getting pretty heavy. John
Sebastian had just taken the stage,
accompanied by his 7-year-old son Ben.
After charming the crowd with
"Welcome Back" and a new song en
titled "Just Another Link in the Chain,"
Sebastian paused and said, "It's a great
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Actress Jane Fonda, star of the movie "The China Syn- Carter's actions concerning nuclear power and advocat
drome" and her husband Tom Hayden, addressed those ing the firing of Energy Secretary James Schlesinger.
gathered at the nuclear protest denouncing President
pleasure to be standing here before you, "One hundred thousand? That's a
at the dawn of the non-nuclear age." crock of horseshit don't quote me," he
Then he turned and summoned young answered, never taking his eyes off a
Ben to the microphone. "I don't like nearby tube-top-clad correspondent
them.. . . I wanna live," Ben said. from a local newspaper. "Anyway, most
There wasn't anything about John
Sebastian in the wire service accounts of
the protest, or on the network news
coverage. There wasn't anything about
Dr. Helen Caldicott either, who stunned
the crowd by telling them that the
Hershey kisses they were eating were
probably contaimnated with strontium
-90 released in the Three Mile Island
debacle. '
Neither was there anything about
Orville Kelly, a veteran who had been
stationed in the Marshall islands during
the H-bomb tests in the 1950 s and is now
dying of lukemia. "They're telling you
Harrisburg is safe," Kelly said. "That's
what they told me about the Marshalls.
Now they tell me I'm a statistic."
When Kelly, sallow and bloated from
cancer, got up to the podium to speak,
the people in the press pit from CBS and
NBC turned off their sound cameras.
Maybe they wanted to save their film for
Jerry Brown and Jane Fonda. Or else,
maybe Kelly just wasn't pretty enough.
One prominent CBS correspondent,
one whose name you might recognize but
whom propriety requires me to leave
anonymous, seemed quite bored
throughout the entire program par
ticularly when the musicians were
performing. I asked him what he thought
of the turnout, which the staffers
estimated at close to 100,000, and what
the impact of the protest upon the future
of nuclear power might be.
of the kids are out here because it's a
nice day and because Jane Fonda and
those rock stars are going to be here.
They don't give a fuck about nuclear
power. Don't quote me, for chrissake."
The man our correspondent and the
rest of the major media were interested
• in was Jerry Brown, who was on hand to
toss a bane to the anti-nuclear forces on
his way to Inauguration Day 1981
when he hopes to return to the Capitol
steps for a slightly different event.
During his speech, I was perched on the
rear apron of the stage, in the company
of media people' from Boston Magazine,
High Times and the Village Voice, who
had also been denied priority backstage
access and were sulking about it.
During Brown's speech, which the
straight media made out to be the day's
major event but which was actually a
rehash of Ralph Nader's remarks a half
hour earlier, some of the disen-
franchised media people got a bit rowdy.
One writer, who had been partying
rather heavily immediately beforehand,
climbed up on the backstage fence and
hurled insults at Brown. "Get that
bastard off the stage we want Linda,"
he was shouting, definitely within
earshot of the California governor.
Meanwhile, I tried to get the attention
of Jackson Browne, who I had noticed
talking to Graham Nash and some other
musicians on the other side of the fence
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jtist a few feet away. It was uselegs
trying to shout, especially to a rock star
who had had to learn to tune out onstage
noise in order to retain his sanity. What I
did was write "No More Nukes" on a
page from my notebook - in big red letters
and hold it up over the fence. Jackson
noticed the sign, looked my way, and
flashed me a smile and a peace sign.
, Later, he provided some thrills much
more electrifying than anything Jerry
Brown had to offer, by joining Joni
Mitchell, Graham Nash, John Sebastian,
former Orleans guitarist John Hall, and
Dan Fogelberg onstage for the finale, a
rendition of Fogelberg's "All the World
Loves a Gambler" "Let it shine, oh,
Let it shine' . . ." (dedicated to the sun
and solar energy). And as the other
musicians left the stage, Jackson
stayed. "You all gotta -take it back to
where you came from, all over this
country. . . . Let's hear it! No Nukes! No
Nukes! No Nukes!" he, and the entire
crowd, transfixed in frenzy, shouted in
unison for what must have been several
minutes. An idea, whose time has
come . . .
When it was all over, and we were
headed back to the car, we bumped into
a long-haired guy in an "Alabama Says
NO NUKES" shirt who was trying to
stealthily rip off some ice from one of the
vendors selling overpriced cokes on the
outskirts of the capitol. "Yeah, I'm
gonna take it back home, just like the
man said. I'm into it." He turned to show
us a sign he was wearing on his back:
"No More Rads For My Gonads."
"At that price," he said, "I damn well
gotta be."
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