WON'T YOU PLEASE COME TO CHICAGO? Iichigan Ave: By CINDY HILL " EY CINDY do you want to drive again?" A vague, blurry form peered at me from the front seat. We were on the long, winding road to Chi- cago to greet the President on this, his first venture outside the South since his 1972 "mandate." And this was the end of the 10 a.m.-to-noon driving shift. I looked up, bleary-eyed, and shook my head. Hell no. I didn't want to drive. After thoroughly permeating my system with cof- fee the night before, I had barely made it to 10 a.m. before turning the wheel over to someone else, and crashing gratefully on the back seat, sandwiched between Daily photographer Karen Kasmauski and a com- plete s'tranger. It had been a crazy and unexpected trip. Before I was completely sure what was going on, it was 6 a.m. and I was waiting, wide-eyed and stunned, with 30 others in Alice Lloyd Hall. NOT ONLY WAS I going to Chicago, but I was giving five other people lifts. The Impeach Nixon Committee had hedged on whether I'd be able to get a ride, but hap- pily accepted my offer to shoehorn f o u r other people into my rather ,rry 1961 Dodge. So here we were. A stalwart band of crazies sallying forth across three states to visit Mayor Daley country, where we were defin- itely not wanted, to see a President who definitely did not want to see us. Barrie Bennett, the rally organizer who had performed brilliantly during the trip as a combined cheerleader, father confessor and, when the occasion demanded it, general buffoon, had long since disappeared en route with his car, another car in our party, and a University van that had squash- ed in some fifteen people like sardines. Undaunted, and with the continual assur- aces of one of our companions who knew Chicago, he said, like a book, we continued. We made a final pitstop at a quickee ham- burger joint before entering "The City." "SO WHAT brings you guys to Chicago?" asked a suburban housewife in the women's john. She had curlers on, and snapped a siz- able wad of gum between her teeth as she spoke. Rumpled, weary, and travel-worn, it wasn't too hard to guess we were from out of town. And, being a stranger to these parts, I wasn't sure that saying I was a wild, hippie rabble-rouser about to besmirch the reputa- tion of their fair city by demonstrating against our president wouldn't mean that my head would be severed from my should- ers on the spot. "The President's coming to town s' I mumbled obscurely. "Honey," she said, snapping her gum again, "you could have watched that on tele- vision." I detected a distinct bitterness in her voice. It gave me courage. "Well, actually," I ventured "we'll be attending the protest." "Sweetheart," she said, "I don't athink Nixon'll care. Why bother?" WHY INDEED? This ain't the '60s, I am continually being reminded by people who have called me a "political anachronism." Effective protests where large numbers of people demonstrate, I am told, are also an anachronism. "So here we were. A stalwart band of crazies sallying forth across three states to visit Mayor Daley country, where we were definitely not want- ed, to see a President, who definitely did not want to see us." Not that the message exactly had to be beaten into my head with a hammer. I am a product of the seventies. For us, cynicism is our cross, our shield and our solace. In a world-gone-mad, perhaps it soon will be all we have left. I had 11 bucks, a party, and champagne riding that Nixon will never be impeached. Were the miracle to happen, as we were de- manding, he would be tried by men whose own scruples were dubious at best. If con- victed, President Gerald Ford would simply slip into his shoes. Our anger and disillusionment was direct- ed more at that vast, fuzzy and elusive "them" of American politics. Nixon, the black knight of American politics, was ob- viously the most immediate and convenient target. But even the black knight of American politics had made it quite clear that he would rather watch the Super Bowl on his color TV than listen to, or even look at, half a million protesters literally on his door- step. BUT HOPE springs eternal. Despite the crusty cynicism developed in my '6Gs youth, I really thought - somehow - that activism would rise like a phoenix from the ashes, and that the will of the masses would triumph.' Somehow, I think we all did. * * * "YUCH1 HOW disgusting!" announced Frank, the man at the wheel. (I still wasn't driving.) I wasn't sure upon awakening whe- ther this tour-guide appraisal of the city, my first introduction to Chicago, was direct- ed at the clouds of smog rising from the POLITICS OF LSA Six yea Falstaff brewery, or the day in general. It was, undebateably, a dismal day. There was a lot to be dismal about. It was cold, bleak and rainy - a remark- ably apt day for the occasion, Nixon's first excursion to the north. And we, the people, were there to wel- come him. Or, at least, the 3,000 or so of the people who didn't mind enduring the cold, the rain, and the hordes of confident, smiling police- men who almost, it seemed, outnumbered the protesters. (Three hundred policemen and secret service agents, I remembered ripping off the wire machines the night before, would, in turn, be on hand to greet the protesters.) NOTWITHSTANDING THE overabundance of paddy wagons and police, the crowd seem- ed to be having a good time of it. "Hell, even the police say Nixon's a jerk," grinned a youthful protester, holding a sign reading "Hail to the Thief." later enough, conversation with a write-in candi- date for Illinois senator. If activism - on this very day - were to rise like Lazarus from the dead, few cir- cumstances could have been more appro- priate. A grey day for six, grey years of presi- dency. The ominous rain. And, as a modern 'day prophetess screamed from the crowd, it was, after all, the Ides of March. But most of all: the city. That was where, for a lot of us, the hope and idealism of a nation had died - suddenly and tragically - on Michigan Avenue in 1968. And maybe, just maybe, that's where ac- tivism died too. I WAS FIFTEEN at the time, and Clean for Gene. Or rather, since I was already straight as the proverbial pin, I went Clean- er for Gene. Funny, one of my most striking impres- sions during the whole damn decade %vas sit- ting in front of the TV tube - so stunned Three men, dressed to kill in formal white shirts and black tails, played "Three Blind Mice" on a drum, trumpet and fiddle in front of the main entrance of the Hilton Hotel. "Elect Nixon President - of Standard Oil!" someone bellowed defiantly to the de- light of those within earshot. The crowd outdid themselves with attempted bon mots. IT WAS A HEYDAY for anyone with any- thing to pass out or sell. Within the space of a few short hours, I had collected several militant newspapers, a plethora of leaflets, several buttons advocating various causes, invitations to more rallies than I had attend- ed in four years, a few grimy jelly beans from a freak, and had a brief, but not brief Beating the counseling game By MARNIE HEYN MOST NEW STUDENTS first encounter University bureaucracy in the person of a randomly assigned counselor. The process of applying, contacting financial aid, arrang- ing for housing, and memorizing your social security number are behind, and all you have to do now is sign up for courses and go to class, right? Wrong. You have just begun'... If you are like most students, you care- fully read the course catalogue (boggled by the number, variety, and incomprehensibility of it all) and memorized the little map that you got in the mail. Then you arrive for what is optimistically called Orientation. However sympathetic and understanding your group leader is, you still get dragged through the campus and librar- ies until you're dizzy, told cute and super- fluous anecdotes about stone lions and the "girls" in Martha Cook, and grilled by a computerized questionnaire about all sorts of existential personal feelings at 7 am. I was sure confused; and I have the feeling I'm not alone. AFTER 10 OR 15 MINUTES for a relaxing lunch at any of the so-called restaurants that line the Diag, you present yourself at one of several offices (finding the right one is the easy part) and tell a complete stranger what you want to be when you grow up, and how you intend to get there. If you know both those things, well and good. If you have questions about life goals, pos- sible majors, and the contents of courses, you're in the wrong place, although you may not find that out for a few semesters. Admittedly, the LSA counselling program has just undergone reorganization. Admitted- ly, the Checkpoint information program seems to be very effective for an adolescent project. But, as the old Chinese proverb says, band-aids are nice, but they don't hold things together well. THE MAIN PROBLEM with LSA's coun- selling program is the same problem with LSA's teaching: the people who perform the functions, either teaching or counselling, us- ually have little or no training or feeling for the job. They are stuffed into slots as part of their academic (usually research-oriented) appointments, and they are as confused about what they should tell you as you are about what you want to know. Again, if you know what you want, they can be very helpful: they initial your course selections, drop/adds, waivers, and petitions, and smile vaguely since you are one of their quota of hundreds that they ought to be nice to. But heaven help you if you don't know what you want to major in. Is there a better way? Certainly. But the priorities of the College and University would have to be rearranged to favor students over externally-funded research, and many moons shall pass before that occurs spontaneous- ly... IN THE MEANTIME, there have been a few reforms, and there are a few helpful services: all you have to do now is find them. IF WHAT YOU NEED is course informa- tion, check with the Student Counselling Of-, fice, 1018 Angell Hall, 763-1552, or with the parallel peer-counseling service in your school or college. The people are there be- cause they want to perform the service, they have broader experience with courses and departments, they know more faculty-and don't have to stick up for them as colleagues -and advisors, and chances are they know seven times as much about red tape and how to circumvent it. In addition, they have more time to spend, and can often under- stand your personal needs, hopes, and hesi- tancies more readily than faculty members can. Talk to other students in your depart- ment or dormitory or whatever, and find out who the friendly, well-informed faculty counselors are. Then set out to develop a relationship with one of them: not only are they helpful in dealing with the computer and Waterman Gym, but some of them are damn fine human beings who ought to be rein- forced for sitting in those sensory-depriva-' tion cubicles and still being nice to students. IF YOU HAVE DECIDED that the prob- lem is more than academic, there are lots of free-to-cheap personal counselling services around. Some of them are good in addition to being inexpensive. A good place to start is with the 76-GUIDE folks (764-8433): tell them what you need, and they'll refer you to the place that's most appropriate for you. The types of programs range from consciousness raising groups to full-fledged therapy, and you as the client can choose what you want. Going the GUIDE route means that you won't have to trek around, sit in waiting rooms, and tell assorted geeks your life story, only to find out that all they handle is reading improvement (which is actually a fine service, but probably not what you need to sort out your sexuality or tensions with your parents). If you don't find what you need, go back to GUIDE and try again: you pay for the services, so you should get what you need. ONE FINAL NOTE: you are a client of this College and this University. When you get unnecessary run-around or snottiness, take your case to a department head, a dean, an orientation officer, or the President himself. GUIDE can generally refer you to the right person. The counselling you get will be only as good as you insist it be. Daily Photo by KAREN KASMAUSKI I didn't even notice I was crying - as I watched kids getting their heads busted while I sat and watched, and while Mayor Richard Daley also sat and watched, and carried the nomination for H. H. Humphrey. Things like that aren't supposed to happen when you're fifteen. Mayor Daley to this day is the first and only person I have a passionate, abiding hatred for. But this was Michigan Avenue, in Chicago, 1974. The setting was the same. The mayor was the same. Nixon, apparently, had been air dropped from a helicopter - like a god descend- ing from the clouds - on the Chicago Hilton Hotel the night before. He was scheduled to speak to businessmen there this afternoon, and would presumably leave the same way. (I remember how my heart bled in 1968 to learn that Humphrey, in the same hotel, had complained of tear gas fumes from the avenue rising to his plush hotel room.) The cops, I figured, were the same too. There couldn't, I reasoned, be .nore than a 25 per cent changeover in the intervening four years. The y had, however, changed their tune. "HEY! WHAT are you doing?" A middle- aged man - one of Mayor Daley's men in blue - trotted up to me. It was raining. "I'm trying to cross the street." "Where are you from?" he eyed me sus- piciou sly. "Ann Arbor." The braid on his uniform in- dicated he had some seniority and status with the Chicago police. "No wonder you don't know what you're doing," he chuckled, suddenly becoming very friendly. "You people are just getting cocky because you won the basketball game the other day." I didn't know anything about the game, or any form of sports whatsoever. Ile put his arm around my shoulders, and I stifled an impulse to shove an elbow in his ribs, or scream, or both. He shepherded me across the street. IN RETROSPECT, I should have taken advantage of his friendliness. He was the only policeman I met in three hours who didn't speak with a vocabulary of 17 mono- syllables and 13 grunts. The following conversation was typical. ality!" someone shouted from the crowd. But for the most part, it wasn'tnecessary. The police simply joked with each other, grinned, and kept the whole thing neatly and tightly pinned under their collective thumbs. MEANWHILE, THE entire scenario w a s being closely observed by a number of young, short-haired, neatly dressed representatives of the "National Science Teachers Associa- tion." They lounged conspicuously against the buildings at evenly spaced intervals. And the band played on. (A dirge-like, lu- gubrious rendition of "Jail to the Chief.") When the word got out that a rally was being organized in the park on the opposite side of the avenue, however, the police stop- ped smiling. Suddenly, the party was over. For a moment, mass panic reigned. There is nothing comparable to the momentary hor- ror and confusion of spinning around and finding yourself literally surrounded by sev- eral trained lines of Chicago police, stand- ing in formation with feet apart, their arms crossed, and looking like they mean business. My God, my God! were the only words that came into my mind for a full fifteen seconds. Though every connected thought in my mind had been vacuumed out, I subconsciously re- cognized the scene as a prelude. Memorabil- ia, circa 1968. Those. who had been moving toward the park were forced to churn back into the crowd. Confusion spread and multiplied like an atomic reaction. BUT THE PANIC was transitory. As tran- sitory, in fact, as the movement for a mas- sive demo. The police had logically eordonned off the crowd into smaller sections on each side of the street. There was no way to move along Michigan Avenue unless you were to walk several blocks down the street and leave the demonstration altogether. In other words, there would be nn speaker for the demonstration. There would bekno raly. Each small block of protesters tried to car- rv on, regardless. They began marching within their own, self-contained circles. From the heliocopters overhead, it must have look- ed like another, giant Chicago machine, with each cog turning. IN THE BIGGEST, most populated s e c- tion - the one opposite the Hilton Hotel, -- were a group of roughly ten people mira- culously maintaining a steadfast and misbe- gotten crusade to support the President. Line at the curb, their backs to the an- gry mob of protesters, they were sitting ducks. It was only through the most vigilant efforts they were not lynched. They hovered nervously around their sign, "National Prayer and Fast for the Presi- dent", waved their miniature American flags, and sang "God Bless America" with an un- natural vibratto in their voices. They ignored most of the questions - and comments - directed at them. But one did give a brief explanation of their cause: "We'll support him as long as he's in office," said a young man with a lobo- timized gleam in his eye. He could have passed for a vacationing member of the King family. In the entire crowd, I think, he alone did not look wet, as though he had been sprayed, head to toe, with Scotch- guard. Someone within my particular clique was desperately trying to establish himself as a leader. Pleading for militarism, he shouted something about "We ought to storm the Hlilton." Wrong decade, baby. "WHAT DO YOU mean, I've got to go around four blocks that way," a young man with frizzy black hair raged at a intransi- gent policeman. "I live that way," he fum- Doily Photo by KAREN KASMAUSKI limousine, crouching under the jeers of this motley crew? "Hey President Nixon!" a Wisconsin stu- dent bellowed," "Did you forget that the people are here to see you!" Baby, he never even knew. "Nixon's a communist conspiracy!" screamed another through the drenched, dish- water-blonde hair matted on his forehead. A factory worker, whose face bore the lines and seamus of some fifty-odd years, soke to a short, beer-bellied older man, pro- bably also a factory worker. I don't see any bullet-proo ne-ple, any bayonet-nroof people. I'm looking, but I don't see them." The short man nodded solemnly in agree- ment. "I'm saying you can't keep goading him like that," he continued. "We've got a Pre;ent who's on very friendly terms with the Pentagon. Ultimately, he could put the people under the military." Sensing that my interest was catching his attention, I simply smiled, nodded and turn- ed away. "We're not aeitated, we're irritated,' the wet b1,'nd v-i'ng man screamed. "We're the agitatees!" I'M SORRY, I coildn't hack it. Sensing the early near-deadline tremors rushing through my body - which meant I had a store to file in Ann Arbor in a few hours - I forced my way back through the c r-wrl. wTh had already diminished great- ly in numiber. ta/er Karen u,)uld tell me that the crowd tould diminish more before Nixon would emerue. A rumor went through the crowd that he would attem/t an escape through a side door, scattering the remaining protesters like chickens in the mad rush for the side d10ors. Theyi don't call him Tricky Dick for nuth- in'. Only the swiftest of the protesters caught a glimpse of the President as he ducked into a waiting limousine. But I never saw all this. I was battling my way through the rain as I walked toward the mile-long stretch of parking lot on Michigan Avenue. Chicago, however, did not miss the op= portun'ity to deliver its final opinion of me as I waited for the walking green. A car whipped past, splashing a gutter- full of water on me. My jeans were soaked - thoroughly soaked - all the way up to my knees. "Fuck you!" I screamed, furiously, n o t sure immediately whether the comment was directed to the driver, the city, Nixon, or life in general. Several, old ladies stared at me, their eyes wide with horror. I laugh- ed the rest of the way to the car. "Our anger and disillusionment was directed more at the vast, fuzzy and elusive 'them' of American politics. Nixon, the black knight of American politics, was obviously the most im- mediate and convenient target." : } . :. . .hJSXiS:.r"J: .::. .:........ .-..v-.h.". -:.v . - . a4 TODAY'S STAFF: News: Della di Pietro, Judy Ruskin, Sue Stephenson, Paul Terwilliger, Becky Warner Editorial Page: Marnie Heyn, Cindy Hill, Patricia Tepper, Sue Wilhelm Arts Page: Ken Fink, Jeff Sorenson Photo Technician: Karen Kasmauski "How many people would you estimate are here?" "I don't know, I'm bad at estimating numbers." "Were you given any particular instruc- tions in covering this demo?" "I don't know." "How many policemen were assigned to this demo?" "I don't know." "How has the attitude changed within the Chicago police department towards demon- strators changed since 1968?" "I don't know, I wasn't here in 1968." (I vas not a Nazi," snapped the hoary German, clicking his heels smartly. "I did not know what was going on, I knew noth- ing, nothing.") The lines on what was once my clean. crispi ed, pointing towards the far end of the crowd. The policeman, nonplussed, said noth- ing, but simply shook his head. Tactically, it was a brilliant move for the police, but not quite an impossible one for the individual. Always being an obnoxious sort, I man- aged to worm my way through the crowed, sweet talk my way past a policeman, and scooted to the other side of Michigan Ave- nue, where the Hilton Hotel was. For where the Hilton Hotel was, I rea- less he was, indeed, planing to take up permanent residence there. Or fly, like Icarus, from the top of the building. My predictions were accurate: the crowd on the opposite side of the street dwindled, and the police closed in on the groups un- til their numbers were so small there was S0 WHAT DID we accomplish? I directed the question to my confreres on the way back to Michigan. My feet were propped up on the seat in front of me," shoes} off. My jeans, rolled up, exposed a colorful set of argyle socks all the way up to the knee. The answers were the same as the ones ex- plained in Chicago. Somehow, I didn't ex- pect any other. "The idea isn't to get through to the Presi- dent," one protester explained, "nobody's that naive. (I remembered how Karen had explained the way the mob had flocked to the side doors to catch a glimpse of the President- or let him catch of glimpse of them.) "We're trying to get through to the peo- pIe." Another woman, a well-dressed suburban- ite, had groped for an explanation. "We've got to keep doing this, even if it's futile.' Futile,' perhaps, but necessary. Somebody, somewhere, will have to be doing this again ____ Eighty-Four Years of Editorial Freedom I