TEXA the SouthChinaseacoast,wascalledMyLai4onlyon Thuan Yen.Thehamlet,locatedintheSonMyVillagenear neighboring villagers,MyLai4hadalwaysbeenknownas U.S. Armymaps.Americans,whohadtroublewithVietnamese bearing thenamesofdeadvillagers. history isasimplestonemonument,erectedbytheVietnamese, its houses,temple,animals,andmostofpeople, in- Bravo companieslandedatitsnorthernmostedgeonthat hot, American Armymaps. In 1968thereweresixMyLaisintheSonVillageon names, founditsimplertopinpointonelargehamletandgive rebuilt. Theonlythingstandingtherenowtomarkitsplace in cluding itsfuturegenerations,hadceasedtoexist.Itwasnever muggy springmorninginMarch,1968.Bynoon,ThuanYen, its nametoothersnearby,numberingthem1,2,3andsoon. Fifteen yearslatertheytalkaboutMyLaiandits Charles Huttowasthere;JimLanehisattorney. T aftermath. —ed. August 5,1983 "It wasasmalltragedyinplace." The hamletwascenturiesoldwhenthemenofCharlieand a story, singmeasong * O THEVIETNAMESEfamilieswholivedthereandto Bill Owens' Re-Examining MyLai S By BettyBrink 13 ERVER

civilians atMyLai4,SouthVietnam — Lt.WilliamL.Calley,Jr.,1970; convicted ofmurderingVietnamese Tell me (Continued onPage4) on March16,1968.

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rnb ""'4 II I I, II 0 " II 111 is tam' 11!iv 1411 I i1' q' ; The Johnson Biographies TETx0BSERvER Having already commented publicly and in print on both Dug-

0 The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1983 ger (Journal of Southern History) and Caro (Denton Record Ronnie Dugger, Publisher Chronicle), I shall refrain from repeating myself on the con- tent of two of the books Stephen Oates reviewed in The Observer. Vol. 75, No. 15potEtz,,'"ilv August 5, 1983 Suffice it to say, I agree with his overall judgment. I would like instead to offer a speculation as to why they and Reedy Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. are what they are. EDITOR Joe Holley Central to understanding both books is a need to understand ASSOCIATE EDITOR Geoffrey Rips what LBJ did to cause the authors to dislike him so. In both EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger cases the easy answer is Vietnam, clearly LBJ's greatest blunder. STAFF REPORTER: Chan McDermott In neither case is the easy answer, in my opinion, the correct WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENTS: Amy Cunningham, Al Watkins one, although both authors suggest otherwise. SOUTHERN CORRESPONDENT: Bob Sherrill LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Alicia Daniel For Dugger and other Texas Liberals the root of the matter EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerr- is the 1950's. LBJ was not kind to them to say the least. (I should ville; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; Rupert() Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- note that I am making a distinction between liberals in Texas bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana, and Texas liberals.) I would argue that LBJ, an electoral Ill.; Molly Ivins, Dallas; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, pragmatist if nothing else, treated them with all the respect that Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Presley, Texarkana, Tx.; Susan Reid, Austin; A. R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; their political power commanded. Such a cavalier, if not in fact Fred Schmidt, Tehachapi, Cal. contemptuous, attitude left them enraged. They are still work- CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Warren Burnett, Nina Butts, Jo. Clifton, Craig ing out their revenge both in the literary world and in the Texas Clifford, John Henry Faulk. Ed Garcia, Bill Helmer, Jack Hopper, Amy Johnson, political world, the current manifestation being their enthusiastic Laurence Jolidon, Mary Lenz, Man Lyon, Greg. Moses, Rick Piltz, Susan Raleigh, Paul Sweeney, Lawrence Walsh. support of Lloyd Doggett for the U.S. Senate. I suppose the CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue, Russell Lee, Scott Van rallying cry will be "better six years of Tower than sixty years Osdol. of Krueger." Never mind the niggling fact that this re-election CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Jeff Danziger, Dan Hubig, Kevin Krenek, Ben Sargent, Gail Woods. will push Tower on to thirty years in the Senate. Small wonder that the Texas liberals have been referred to as the PLO of A journal of free voices American politics. That Caro is a tougher nut to crack is hardly surprising — We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human his book is much more subtle than Dugger's. The Eastern values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of establishment liberals were down on LBJ well before Vietnam. democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never His faults, in their eyes, were several. After November 1963, will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power- ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. the court jester or perhaps Richard III ruled in Camelot. That Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have the assassination occurred in Dallas added fuel to the fire. And not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply then he began succeeding where JFK had been deadlocked. that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. Never mind the results; it was the rhetoric that counted. Never mind the legislative substance; the man had no style. The fact Business Manager Frances Barton Assistant Alicia Daniel is that by 1966 the liberals' entire program was law. This or- Advertising, Special Projects Cliff Olofson dinarily should have had them singing hosannah, but who in their right minds could sing praises to the village buffoon? Editorial and Business Office 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 It is against this background that the strength of Reedy's book (512) 477-0746 becomes obvious. Reedy is carrying another sort of ideological The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519) is published biweekly except for a three-week interval baggage. As Oates notes, Reedy's LBJ is a multi-dimensional between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing Co., 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701, (512) 477-0746. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. figure — part "magnificent, inspiring leader" and part "insuf- Single copy (current or back issue) 75C prepaid. One year, $20; two years, $38; three years, ferable bastard." What kept Reedy and others working for LBJ $56. One year rate for MI-time students, $13. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions availahle from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, was the former. What drove them away was the latter. After Michigan 48106. 1966, when the energies of the former were being directed Copyright 1983 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission. almost exclusively to Vietnam, the two parts began to merge. POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. For people like Reedy, Moyers, and others, an "insufferable bastard" and Vietnam were more than they could suffer.

2 AUGUST 5, 1983 None of this is to say that LBJ was not flawed. He was. He tion of American politics in the years that he had power and made grievous errors. Of these perhaps the worst was to keep a victim of the myths of our society. JFK's amateurs — the Bundys, etc. — as advisors. Perhaps they Caro does not call Johnson an American Hitler, but there is would have worked had JFK lived. Perhaps had Mr. Sam lived, evidence the Johnson thought of himself as one, and bragged he could have counterbalanced them. Perhaps not. Neither about it. On page 190 of the first edition of The Path to Power, Halberstam's The Best and the The Brightest nor Wills' The Johnson is quoted as saying on a tape recording made in 1970, Kennedy Imprisonment are bullish on this matter. about something he had done forty years before: "It was my The late T. Harry Williams supposedly was at work on a first real big dictat — Hitlerized — operation, and I broke their biography of LBJ at the time of his death. Both Dugger and back good. And it stayed broke for a good long time." Caro give evidence of how great a loss to our understanding About caricature: Aren't there people who, when seen clearly, of LBJ that death was. look like caricatures of the rest of us? I recognize that a G. L. Seligmann, Jr. , Department of History, North Texas psychopath doesn't have anything I don't have. He just has a State University. lot more of some of it and a lot less of some of it, which is what a caricature is, isn't it? Is there a biographer which the empathy of Francis of Assisi who could draw an accurate word portrait of Hitler or Joe McCarthy that shows the subject's idealism and humanity? Maybe that's the biographer who could LBJ: The True Story give Mr. Oates the picture of Lyndon he wants. A "New Release" announced by Elroy Bode: Ann Adams, 4366 N. Diana Ln. , Oak Harbor, WA 98277. Just Folks: The Early Years The True Story of Lyndon B. "Bubba" Johnson Written by Stephen Oates and Published by the Norman Vincent Peale Home Enrichment Library. LBJ: Man of Action • . READ about Lyndon and Penrod and Huck smokin' Biographies are difficult to do under the best of circumstances. cornsilk Under contemporary circumstances objective biographies are . READ about clever Lyndon outwitting the crawdads virtually impossible. Author bias, dollar considerations, and • . READ about fun-loving Little Lyndon and his Outhouse fresh emotions tarnish the most honest and sincere efforts to gang recall a recent, controversial and significant life. Reedy, Dug- . READ about spunky Lyndon protecting his lemonade stand ger, and Caro represent only three of the kinds of writers in from neighborhood bullies the spectrum of biographers. Reedy was there, on the scene, inside the momentous events in LBJ's Presidency. His task as COMING SOON! press secretary was to present the events to the world. Dugger Vol. II Lyndon Coaches Little League was on the outside; an intellect; a liberal. Caro is a competent Vol. III Lyndon Enters the Ministry journalist trying to sell a book and make some money. He is Vol. IV Lyndon Visits the Holy Land similar to the song writer trying to catch the mood of the time STILL IN PREPARATION!!! and cash in on what is selling. Reedy and Dugger really care Vol. V Lyndon in Lambarene about the impact of LBJ's life on the times. Caro could not Vol. VI Lyndon and Gandhi possibly be trying to make a historical contribution with his Vol. VII Lyndon on the Cross shallow vilifications and contrived psychological analysis of Vol. VIII Lyndon Ascends LBJ. Vol. IX-X The Millennium Biographers, just as anyone else who observes and thinks about events, causes and effects, have biases, preconceived no- tions, rigid philosophies and ideas about the world, their coun- try, the Presidency, how things should have been done or how they should be done. Reedy lived very close to part of the LBJ LBJ as Rosemary's Baby? experience. Dugger and Caro only observed the events from a distance. Dugger did have the opportunity to interview LBJ Lyndon Johnson reminds me not so much of Faust as of Rose- but he heard as a liberal and he responded as a liberal. These mary's Baby. It's hard to believe he ever had a free soul to sell. writers all have had a chance to look back at the LBJ Presi- If Robert Caro abhors his subject, he does so because of what dency and political career, glean through the files and sift he found in his research. He says he went into the project ex- through the facts with the benefit of hindsight. LBJ, as Presi- pecting to like him. Ronnie Dugger, on the other hand, observed dent, had to act on what he was told by his staff, what he saw, Lyndon for over twenty years. If he abhors him also, that gives his instincts, and what he hoped to accomplish in the vast com- us abhorrence from two widely different perspectives. plexities that no human could hope to cope with, much less Isn't it much too early to tell whether either of these writers master. Moreover, Presidents have egos, biases, personal will give Lyndon the credit for good works Stephen Oates thinks philosophies, hopes and dreams that co-exist, in the context of he deserves? There are two more volumes to come in each the realities and the dynamics of a mad, mad world. LBJ had biography, and while it doesn't seem likely that Lyndon will all of this to contend with, and he had to act without benefit emerge from these volumes as an idealist who shared Martin of hindsight. He couldn't sit back and compare this event with Luther King's dream, I don't believe Dugger or Caro will try that event in history and then make a move. Hesitation was im- his present; not the yester- to make him "a scapegoat for our collective guilt over the war, possible. He had to deal with his now, and all our woes and shattered dreams that followed" either. days that writers report or comment about. On the contrary, Dugger emphasizes that Lyndon was a reflec- (Continued on Page 22)

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3 My Lai (Continued from Page 1) It has been more than fifteen years since Lt. Calley led the First Platoon of the Americal Division's Charlie Com- pany into the small, rice-farming hamlet in search of the Vietcong. Calley and his men, all young, inexperienced, scared, entered the village sometime around 7:30 (followed closely by the Second Platoon and members of Bravo Company) an- ticipating their first change to "close" with the enemy; their first face-to-face combat. They expected to find the VC 48th Battalion; what they found was a village filled with old men, women,

children and babies, but no soldiers. le They met no resistance, received no r hostile fire. be Hae Yet by noon of that day, Calley, the Ron men of Charlie and Bravo companies, by and their commanding officers had secured for themselves a dark and troub- to ling place in America's history. Pho Anywhere from 347 to over 500 unresist- "My Lai was a search and destroy mission and that's what it means. . . . " (Charles ing Vietnamese civilians of all ages were Hutto) killed at My Lai 4 and their village burned to the ground, all in a matter of a few hours. to accept during those deceptive times, Twenty months later, the news of the and for those who investigated the HARLES EDWARD HUTTO, massacre and its subsequent cover-up* by massacre it became officially an "aber- 34, of Monroe, Louisiana, was the military and the State Department ration." Charges of murder, rape, C a 19-year-old sergeant in Charlie shocked and sobered a nation already torn assault, and maiming were brought Company's Second Platoon in March, apart by Vietnam. Not only were we against thirteen men, all lower echelon 1968, who was charged, tried, and ac- shocked by the vivid, full-page spread of officers or enlisted men from the quitted of crimes committed at My Lai. pictures in Life, pictures of the blood- Americal Division's 20th Infantry, Jim Lane, of Fort Worth, was Hutto's spattered bodies of men, women, chil- Charlie and Bravo Companies — com- military defense attorney from late 1969 dren, and babies sprawled along dirt panies which had been combined in until 1971. Lane, now 39, was 24 years paths or stacked grotesquely in drainage 1967 into one unit called Task Force old when he was detailed to defend ditches, but even more unsettling for Barker. (These thirteen were all the Sergeant Hutto. Both men recently talk- Americans were the chillingly dispas- Army could find; most of the men who ed publicly for the first time since the trial sionate voices of the foot soldiers who had been at My Lai 4 were discharged by ended about My Lai and its effect on their were there, detailing the killings for us 1969 and could no longer be charged lives, both then and now. each night on the evening news. Foot with crimes committed overseas while Lane is angry and bitter, convinced the soldiers not much more than children they were on active duty. Only the country has forgotten, not only the themselves. government of South Vietnam could tragedy of the Vietnamese villagers who These were after all, our sons, not the legally bring charges against those died at My Lai, but the tragic men of Japanese at Manila or the Germans at already discharged, but, even if the Charlie and Bravo companies who killed Babi Yar; these were our very own. South Vietnamese government had them, the "walking wounded" of Who were they? How did they happen wanted to, it couldn't because the Vietnam. to do what they were accused of, indeed United States had no extradition treaty Hutto is filled with pain and grief, still what they seemed to be confessing to with South Vietnam. The South Viet- living with memories he can't escape. night after night? Was My Lai an aber- namese government never admitted that He, too, believes the country has forgot- ration? An "isolated incident" as then anything unusual happened at My Lai 4 ten, and there is a tragic irony in that for President Richard Nixon liked to call it? and censored all news reports of the in- Charlies Hutto — he wants to forget and Or was it in reality the real nature of the vestigation and subsequent trials.) can't. war in Vietnam? But for two men, one from Texas, the "He wasn't shooting babies," Lane Most Americans found the latter hard other from Louisiana, whose paths would said during the interview last summer in probably never have crossed had it not the recently restored 100-year-old home been for My Lai, the massacre was no on Fort Worth's old North Side where *High ranking military and state department of- "aberration." It was the real war, dif- ficials would stand accused by the Armed Ser- he has lived and practiced law since vices Investigating Committee in July, 1970 of ferent only, they say, in the number of 1974. "He was shooting 'gooks' and "a concerted action . . . to suppress all evidence civilians killed at one time in ground `chinks' and 'slopes.' We had of [the massacre]." combat assaults; and it was well planned. dehumanized an entire group of people, 4 AUGUST 5, 1983 people, they'renolongerentitledtothe World WarII,camehometoFortWorth have believedbackthenthatourgovern- blocked out,forgotten,theMyLais, history. We'vetotallyforgottenwhatwe massacred Indiansalloverthiscountry exactly abrandnewphilosophy.we and whenyoudehumanizeagroupof 24-year-old justoutoflawschool,"he last year. by teachingschool,butafterservingin troops." Hisfatherbeganhisworkcareer patriotic; twopeoplewhowouldnever described as"typicalmiddleclass,very Huttos, allforgotten." did totheIndians,andnowVietnamis dians, sokill'em.Butthiscountry same privilegesthat days, stayingthereuntilhisretirement as folkscalledGeneralDynamicsinthose and wenttoworkat"theBomberPlant" ment wouldspraypoisonsonitsown first oftwosonsborntoparentshe forgets, forgetseverythingaboutits grown, themoreI'vethoughtaboutit. said, "and,ifanything,myoutragehas the scapegoats." pany pulledthetriggers,yes,butthey weren't theguiltyones.Theywereonly did wegetthemtothatstateofmindand unarmed oldmen,women,andchildren they happentocomekill tions. Whowerethoseboysandhowdid with thetrials,"hecontinued,"butthat's . littleIndiansgrowuptobebigIn- the Americal'schainofcommandwith believes theentireMyLaioperationwas with MyLaicrimes.Theformercaptain the defenseoffivemencharged until 1973,aftergraduatingfromBaylor at thatsmallplacefifteenyearsago?How all. Weneveransweredtheobviousques- tories, whichhadendedinFebruary, Vietcong's recentTEToffensivevic- direct involvementoftheCIAand planned byunknownseniorofficersin University LawSchool,andassistedin General's staff(JAGCorps)from1969 why? tion Phoenix. ("After we'discovered' tion undertheCIA'sclandestine Opera- namese civilianstargetedfor assassina- called "BlackList,"whichnamed Viet- Vietnam, Lanefoundevidence ofaso- Saigon NationalPolice,inresponsetothe CIA cameknocking onmydoorandsaid, Operation Phoenix," Lanesaid,"the 1968. Lane hadgrownupinFortWorth,the "It wasahellofanexperiencefor Lane servedontheJudgeAdvocate During thedefenseinvestigations in "The pooroldgruntsofCharlieCom- "We tookcareofsomeourguilt you enjoy. That'snot hundreds of telligence gathererfortheAmericansin were toldbyTaLinhVein,anin- existed, butbythetimetrialswere Black List"document"forMyLai4 ly" totheAmericanEmbassy,thata that theVC48thBattalion,afearedand tion intheSonMyVillage. destroy thebaseofCommunists," all agencies"todestroyMyLaiin1968, also saidthathehadrecommended"to in progressthe"document"hadbeen portant factorintheTETvictories,and population, thebattalionhadbeenanim- Because ofitslocationneartheSouth the Americans,waslocatedatMyLai4. and thatafterTET,heknewthe sent totheAmericanEmbassy.TaLinh China Seaandthesupportofcivilian first againsttheFrenchandthen respected fightingforcefortwentyyears, `Boy, thereain'tnosuchthing.'") so thesmallhamlet'sfatewassealed. 1968, whosaidthathereported"direct- "government" hadplannedabigopera- "structures, people,andlivestock.to didn't happenthatway.Theseguyswere tally woundupinCharlieCompany.It carrying outordersorwehadabunch and carrieditout dreamed upanythingofthismagnitude Attorney JimLane inhisFortWorthoffice. complished justwhatitwassupposedto of crazedcriminalswhoalljustacciden- it wassupposedtohappen,andac- set up.[MyLai]happenedjusttheway "Either wehadawell-trainedmilitary But defenseinvestigatorsinVietnam Also, Americanintelligencebelieved "These kidsandCalleycouldn'thave alone," Lane said. had totally brokethewholearea'sspirit,just young soldiers,ledbyamantheyalllov- They said,'ThisisthewayAmerican country waswillingtodo. as weintended.Theyknewwhatthis more troubleinthatareaeveragain.We accomplish, becausewedidn'thaveany that ErnestMedinaknewwhatwasgo- ed andrespected,CaptainErnestMedina government isbeginningtooperate.'" ing thiswasabunchofcrazedcriminals. vation], andIknowhowfamily-oriented, politics, restorationandculturalpreser- been activeintheoldneighborhood's American NorthSide,whereLanehas Worth's predominantlyMexican loved withHispanicsforyears[onFort children-oriented, MexicanAmericans ing tohappen[atMyLai].I'velivedand My Laiandacquitted)." (charged withoverallresponsibilityfor destroy thevillage[ofMyLai4].to that hewasorderedbyhiscommanding to acceptwhathappenedtherethatday." are. I'msureMedinahasneverbeenable be nocivilianpopulace.men, what Iwastold[byBarker]therewould what todowithanycivilian[s].from and tocloseanywellsthatwemightfind destroy waterbuffalo,pigs,chickens, officer, ColonelBarker,to"burnand "I can'tbelieve—I'llnever "perfect company,theperfectset-upof . Ididnotreceiveanyinstructions Charlie Company,saysLane,wasthe "The Vietcongdidn'trunaroundsay- Medina wouldtestify,morethanonce, "And anotherthing,"Lanewenton, THE TEXAS OBSERVER

Photo by Jim Lane women, and children would be gone to they never got around to teaching them was to express her surprise at finding the market at 0700 hours . . . [and] we were anything. They just shipped them out to My Lai story, along with Charles' name, going in to completely clear the area [of Vietnam. briefly mentioned in her young son's the VC 48th Battalion] so they would not "The real guilty ones, Johnson, junior encyclopedia. have a base of operations ... " The McNamara, Nixon, Westmoreland, "It bothered Charles," she said, "but operation would begin at 7:30 instead of they've never had to answer for what it bothered me for a different reason. "first light," Medina was told, in order they did to the Huttos of this country, but We're too young to be in the history to give the women and children time to I tried to make Westmoreland answer." books. It didn't seem right somehow." leave. Lane and another enlisted man charged Charles' beginnings did seem to make Medina also testified, and transcripts with My Lai crimes, whose charges were him an unlikely candidate for the history made that day confirmed his statements, later dropped, filed murder charges books. He had grown up in Tallulah, La., that he was ordered by his battalion head- against Westmoreland during Hutto's a small farming community near the quarters to go "back into My Lai 4" and trial. The charges were dismissed, but the Mississippi border, where his father count the civilian dead, but General act itself caused Westmoreland to call a worked for wages on the Scott Plantation, Samuel Koster, the Commander of the press conference denying any respon- the second in a family of eight children. Americal Division, who was flying over sibility for the massacre. During the He dropped out of school in the eighth the operation, countermanded the order, trials, Lane continued to hammer away grade, he says, "because things was saying "Don't send them back . . . into at the fact that the commanders were not hard, real hard, back in '64 or '65, and that mess. What does [Medina] say he being held responsible for the actions of it's embarrassing to have to go to school saw?" Medina answered, "About 20 or their troops in violation of principles without shoes. My feelings was hurt real 28 dead [civilians]." Koster replied, established during World War II. "We "That sounds about right." hanged [Japanese General] Yamashita Koster, who had watched the entire [for atrocities committed by his troops as operation from his command and control the war was ending] even though he "We had a lecture on the helicopter, also sent a telegram to the proved he was totally cut off from his troops the next day which said, "Good men and had lost all communication with Geneva Conventions, about an work men. Aggressive!" And a few days them. hour was all." later, General William Westmoreland, "But go talk to Hutto. Hutto will tell Charles Hutto Supreme Commander in Vietnam, sent you, better than I can. Let him tell you a telegram congratulating Task Force how much training he had in the Geneva Barker for a "job well done." Conventions Rules of Warfare . . . how bad. I found that after I started working "Unbelievable!" Lane said, "This was it felt to be an 18-year-old drop-out on the farm, I could enjoy myself better a war where troops got telegrams, for straight from the cotton fields of Loui- . . . being away from people." He God's sake, from their commanders!" siana, plopped down in the rice fields of worked on the farm chopping cotton. That company [Charlie], that year, Vietnam, scared, homesick, trapped in "I joined the Army in January of 1967 Lane believes is a tragic example of the deadliest of deadly wars this country to get away from the situation. I'd never Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's has ever known." been out of Tallulah before and I wanted Project 100,000 (the name given to the to see what else there was in the world late 60's program that allowed certain HARLES HUTTO, who was tried . . . and the servicemen I'd seen in town, educational and other requirements for and acquitted of murder and they looked real nice in their uniforms draftees and enlistees to be overlooked). assault in 1971, was one of only and all. I wanted to get into mechanics "A great social experiment," Lane said c five men who ever stood trial for crimes and the recruiters said if we joined we angrily, "which McNamara and [Presi- committed at My Lai. Today he lives on could get what we wanted. But then they dent Lyndon] Johnson dreamed up to two acres of rural land near Monroe, said my aptitude was too low, so they gather up more boys for the war so Louisiana, with his second wife Vickie stuck me in the infantry. After I raised Johnson wouldn't have to fight the folks and his two children, one by a former my hand, I never got nothin' I wanted. who would really go vote and start marriage that ended in divorce five years By November of '67 I was in Vietnam, screaming about drafting their children. ago. just a few months shy of my 19th It would give the Army troops, and in He is a graduate electronics technician birthday." turn the Army would teach 'em how to who tinkers with solar development in his "We had a lecture on the Geneva Con- read and write and brush their teeth. But spare time. Hutto is a better-educated ventions, about an hour was all; they man that he was fifteen years ago when wasn't really stressed. It was mostly he joined the Army at 18, but he still talks jungle training [in Hawaii], and always with the slow, halting speech patterns of during the training, the Vietnamese was rural, northeastern Louisiana, very soft, referred to as 'Gooks' . . . by everybody. innys' very thoughtful. He looks closer to 24 We didn't get any training about the Viet- COPYING SERVICE than 34 — until you look into his eyes. namese people, the war, the politics, g It is hard to believe he was ever a par- nothin' . . . we just had to go fight a war. Copying • Binding ticipant in one of the worst war crimes "The first mission we went on, we ran in America's history. Printing •Color,Copying into a box ambush. That's when you've Vickie Hutto was eight years old when got the enemy on three sides and just a Graphics •Word Processing the My Lai massacre happened. She has narrow path, this time it was a bridge, no memory of it except what Charles has to get back out. Anybody who tried to Austin • Lubbock • Son Marcos only recently been able to tell her. One go back across the bridge got mowed of the first things she said when we met down. We lost seven or eight men that

6 AUGUST 5, 1983 country boy and sometimes I'd go through a village and get me some vegetables and some peppers, some rice, and fix me up a little stew. Sometimes we'd catch a duck. "Then there was the bamboo vipers to watch out for, very poisonous. A green snake, looks just like bamboo. We'd wake up with the leeches all over us .. . on our backs and you'd have to burn 'em off, or you woke up and went to check on your buddy and find his throat's been cut or he's hangin' from a tree. "Sleepin' was hard anyway, but this one night we'd wound up in a certain area where they had us boxed in, we couldn't move, and it just so happened that my position was where a Vietcong had been buried. I had one of his legs stickin' out of the ground, half rotted. I could see the bones stickin' out of his feet. I tell you I had a hard time gettin' to sleep that night . the smell .. . "The best beds we had was at the base camp, the canvas cots, that's what we called heaven. But the whole time I was over there, I might have spent one whole week, all told, in the base camp. I know I'm just 34 years old, but I feel like I'm 50. I must have walked myself to death Some of the men of Charlie Company in a rice field just outside My Lai. over there. It was rough walking, most of it in mountains or rice paddies. In the day; one in my squad got his legs blowed "I had a good friend, he got hit by a rice paddies, we had to constantly fight off. We had to call in helicopter gunships mine. It blowed both his legs off and you the leeches . . . the heat was awful . . . to cover us while we backed out one at know what he was worried about? His awful . . . then it was bad if the VC a time. testicles, 'cause he said if he didn't have caught you in the paddies — and they "That was the first time for most of them, he wanted to die. We told him he loved to catch you there cause you were us, and whenever we first got under fire, had 'em, but he didn't. He died in the exposed — couldn't run. All you could we thought we was just playing games, hospital. get behind was a little dike, and by the you know, and all of a sudden people "We'd go win a hill and lose a lot of time you hit the mud, your machine gun started falling, and it makes you mad to men doing it and then the next day we'd was clogged up and the M-16's wasn't see your buddies shot and you've been get off it and go and try and catch another worth a flip. They weren't accurate and with 'em for almost a year ... they hill, lose a lot more men and the Viet- they'd get jammed up from gettin' too come to be like brothers to you. For me, cong'd come and get the hill we just left hot. they was closer than my brothers. . . . it didn't mean nothin'. Nothin'. "Then we had to watch out for the "I've seen car wrecks, people battered "After a time over there, when we just bamboo staked pits and the booby-traps up and everything, but that's not really had three or four months left, we'd stop and the mines. Like the "Bouncin' Bet- . . . that's nothing compared to what I going out on night patrol, which was just tys. " They would be OK so long as you seen in Vietnam. You see a guy get suicide. If you walk into an ambush at had your foot on 'em, but when you blowed up and you go over to see if he's night, you just ain't comin' back. So we stepped off, they'd bounce up and ex- breathing and all you can find are a few went against our command. I'd seen plode right in your gut. So your mind is bones and some flesh here and there .. . enough killin' by then . . . seen enough. constantly used, cause if you let down, layin' all over the place . . . and that gets "We never stayed in one place. We you're gonna walk into something .. . to your mind. There was an individual were never at the base camp more than and it's gonna be over. there just a minute ago and then there a day or two. We were on the move all "By the time I'd been in Vietnam a lit- ain't nothing' there, blood, fingers, bones the time, in the jungles, in the mountains, tle while, I lost all my feelings. Just how all over the place, flesh, pieces of flesh, for as long as a month or. more. Out in to survive and help my buddies. And I and this guy used to be a human being the field we slept on the good ol' earth. didn't trust any Vietnamese whether they just like you and me. There was leeches crawling all over the was on our side or not. "When a person can see stuff like that ground at night and monsoon rains. If we "And I wanted to go home real bad. and walk out and still have his common didn't find a high spot, you'd wake up But after a while, I just decided I would sense, he's crazy. Something's wrong and be half covered in water. No tents. never see the States again, so I didn't with him. You moved too much to carry tents. You care. Life at that time wasn't worth "That's what nobody knows. What we had to carry too much ammo plus you nothin' . saw. had to carry your own food. I was a "I know 18 or 19 is too young to be

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7 drafted, cause a boy's got to grow some come out anyway . . . so I told him what the animals, and kill all the people .. . on his own . . . without constant in- happened. I was gonna get out in a [then] the village was burned. When we fluence to drive him to do certain things. month's time anyway . . . I thought." entered the village, I saw people running I was always told what to do, and then (Hutto was charged, on November 17, for cover . . . the whole company open- when I joined the service, I did what I 1969, shortly after he talked to the in- ed up on the villagers and begun to kill was told. vestigator, with murder, assault, rape and them. It was murder. We continued "I know that I'm not ever gonna go false swearing. He was exonerated of the through the village and shot at everything fight a war for whenever I come home, rape and false swearing charges, tried . . . we didn't collect any people and we everybody puts you down, or prosecutes and acquitted of murder and assault. The didn't try to capture anyone . . . I didn't you. We were fighting a war for no pur- trial extended his time in the Army until agree with the killings, but we were pose .. . there was no purpose January of 1971.) ordered to do it. We shot men, women, whatsoever. and children. We were there most of the "A war, before it gets started, should HE FOLLOWING is an excerpt morning . . . I remember we had lunch be made straight With everybody. Plus, from Hutto's 1969 statement, in- on the wood line at [its] edge. . . " if you do send men over there, don't let T troduced as evidence at his trial: The investigator asked Hutto about a 'em come home and be prosecuted for "I remember the unit's combat assault rape that other eyewitnesses had already what everybody did. on My Lai 4 . . . the night before the testified to. He at first denied seeing a "Whenever that CIA investigator mission, we had a briefing held by Cap- rape, but the next day, he gave the started asking me about My Lai, he had tain Medina . . he said everything in the following account: "Sometime during the to talk to me for three or four hours village was Communist. [It] was a middle of the village . . . I came upon before I could even remember. I had search-and-destroy mission . . . the first a but and went to the doorway to see what blanked it out of my mind. I was a human of the unit . . . I remember Capt. Medina was going on. There was a Vietnamese being again and then the CIA man said we would have our chance to get girl in the but and she was laying on the brought it all back and ruined even with the VC for some of the bed and [a soldier] was having sexual in- everything." (When I asked Hutto if he casualties the company had had (one- tercourse with her . . . she was crying didn't mean the CID, Criminal Investiga- fourth of Charlie Company's men had and resisting . . . [another soldier] was tion Division of the Army, he said, "No, been killed or wounded by then) . . . the holding her hands . . . after the one I mean CIA.") "He kept me there near impression I got was that we was to shoot finished, the other one took out his penis all day long and I wanted to go home and everyone in the village. Then on the out- he kept on and on and said I should go skirts of the village . . . an order came ahead and talk 'cause it was all gonna down to destroy all of the food, kill all "I mean how did we get these boys to this state of mind THEY CALLED THEM GREASERS and why?" Anglo Attitudes toward Jim Lane Mexicans in Texas, 1821-1900 Arnoldo De Leon and got on top of the girl . . . [she] was "A splendid book that illuminates still crying and fighting . . . at that time our present by shedding light on a I left. I didn't hear about the girl getting dark corner of the Texas past." killed until you told me yesterday. She —David J. Weber was about 20 years old. . . ." Southern Methodist University (Hutto's statements were confirmed by at least twenty other enlisted men. All For some, this book will make dis- would remember Medina's orders were turbing reading. Among its disquiet- to "kill everything in the village." ing arguments is De Leon's conten- Hutto still believes that, "Medina was tion that such Texas luminaries as the best company commander anybody Walter Prescott Webb and Eugene ever had. I think the orders for My Lai C. Barker wrote of Anglo-Mexican came from higher above Medina, from relations with evident bias and defi- the Brigade Commander is what I heard. ciencies of research, describing "Before this operation, we'd lost about without censure a society that per- twenty of our men killed for no 'reason mitted traditional violence against whatsoever. It's different to be out there its ethnic minorities as a means of in a firefight, but just to get killed from keeping them "in their place." something somebody's planted out there, At bookstores. $19.95 $8.95 Paperback to get your legs blowed off, the bottom half of your body blowed off, see your buddies get their heads blowed off. After seeing so much stuff like that, you just build up a hardness inside you . . . you University of Texas Press blank out love . . . you just have a non- Box 7819 Austin, Texas 78712 feeling about everything . . . you do what you have to do to stay alive. . . .

8 AUGUST 5, 1983 "Now I wouldn't fight a war unless we these latter conditions a man could mentality of this Army and this country was fighting for our own country. That's reasonably be expected to place more that I love so well.' . . . this country's what the Vietnamese was doing. They reliance on his commander than on his taking its young people and putting them had something to fight for . . . just a lit- conscience. . . ." in this frame of mind . . . this is the way tle piece of an acre or something, but it URING THE INTERVIEW last this war's being fought. Then I knew I was their country they was fighting for. summer, Hutto was asked if he was going to have to go to trial and at- and the Vietcong would fight anybody D had made any attempt to join a tack the Army and the Government's . . . sometimes they even fought the Vietnam veteran's group for support and conduct of this war. North . . . I respected 'em . . . I lost help. He replied that "there is nothing "As a young man with all the ideals many a night's sleep over 'em. . . . any other veterans can do for me. What I had, with the way I'd been raised, I was "And then I came home and was a happened to me was different." having a hard time every night. . . . scapegoat. " But in May, Vickie called. If she could "Going to Vietnam was the eye- Charles Hutto was wounded in Viet- make contact with a veteran in Monroe opener. When you drive through Saigon nam shortly before his tour of duty was who was counseling troubled Vietnam on a military bus with mesh on it so tight up. The man who took Hutto's place was veterans, Hutto had agreed to go. He had you can't hang a grenade on it and ask killed in a minefield a few weeks after been, as one of his friends said, a "walk- why, and they tell you to keep 'them' replacing him. ing time bomb. " And in early May he from throwing a grenade through the "It was a sneaky wound," Hutto says, finally went off. After several days of windows, and then you get on a military because it was minor, "but it got me out drinking alone in the woods near his airlift and you see 18-year-old kids with of there. And I'm not dead and I'm not home, "sleeping on the ground, not their dog-tags laced in their boots and crippled like so many of my buddies. I changing his clothes, living like an they tell you that's because 'when they feel real guilty sometimes because I'm animal," Vickie said, (or "like a soldier" blow your legs off, sir, they can get your alive . . . and whole." his friend said) he came back home and legs with your body,' it doesn't take long I asked him, then, what he might tell broke down. When his friend went by the to understand. his sons about My Lai, or advise them school to pick up Hutto's 10-year-old son, explaining to the boy that he would about the draft or war. "We were fighting a war for Hutto was silent for awhile, then he have to stay with his grandmother for a spoke slowly. "I was 19 years old that few days because his father was not feel- no purpose . . . there was no day," he said, "and I'd always been told ing well, the boy said, "It's because of purpose whatsoever." to do what the grownups told me to do. Vietnam, isn't it?" Charles Hutto I didn't see myself as an adult then, and Hutto is now seeing a counselor in Louisiana, but fifteen years of living with I did what I was ordered to do. But now "And then we tried to take depositions a nightmare is a long time. He has strong I'll tell my sons, if the government calls, from some of the survivors of My Lai to go, to serve their country, but to use support from his wife, his family, his . . . tried to get a little old lady to iden- friend, and the man who knew, after just their own judgment at times . . . to forget tify somebody from the pictures we had. one interview with him fifteen years ago, about authority . . . to use their own And through the interpreter she said, 'All that Charles Edward Hutto was not a conscience. Americans look alike.' Now you're talk- baby-killer. "I wish somebody had of told me that ing blacks, browns, and whites, but they before I went to Vietnam. I didn't know. all looked alike because they were all in HEN I FIRST MET with Now I don't think there should be even uniform and everything was blowing up 44 W Hutto," Jim Lane said a thing called war . . . cause it messes around her and she knew if you had a during the interview last up a person's mind." uniform on you were one of 'them.' She summer, "I thought I was gonna meet a Vickie Hutto has been listening to her guy about six-foot-nine with arms that didn't take time to see what color you husband talk. She is only 23 years old. hang down to the floor — a real gorilla were or if your eyes were brown or blue. Vietnam and My Lai are just now becom- — cause I couldn't believe if he did what "I learned real quick that this war was ing a part of her life. he said he'd done that he could have any "I knew things were wrong," she morals. But he was just this wonderfully Personal Service — Quality Insurance says. "I just didn't know what. I thought warm, quiet, well-mannered young man AUCE ANDERSON AGENCY it was me. Now I know. We spent most who had 'followed orders' he said. The INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE all of last night talking, knowing you perfect soldier, and that was basically his would be here today. 808A E. 46th, Austin, Texas defense. 459-6577 "He believes he's going to hell for "I kept thinking, 'he was just this or- what he did there that day," she says, dinary kid next door and if he did what very softly. he's accused of doing, what happened?' ANDERSON & COMPANY Charles Hutto leaves the room. When I mean, how did we get these boys to this COFFEE he comes back, we talk of other things. state of mind and why? I guess that's the TEA SPICES TW() JEFFERSON SQUARE On July 15, 1970, the House Armed first day I got mad, and I've been mad AUSTIN, TEXAS 7S131 Services Investigating Committee on My ever since. 512 453-1533 Lai, made the following observation: "The soldiers I was dealing with Send me your list. "At this late date, who can judge the couldn't explain it, no one could explain Name cumulative effects of the horrors, fears it to me. After I got over the shock of and frustrations which the men of "C" what I had seen on TV and the Street Company had been forced to endure photographs and realized 'this ain't no Zip prior to their action at My Lai . . . under isolated incident, no, this is basically the City THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9 not like any war these kids had ever heard never get the picture of the women and "People who don't know ask me how about. It wasn't the Sands of Iwo Jima children lined up around that tree off my I can defend some of the cases I take or even The Green Berets. Hell, John mind. The picture of the woman with the now. I just tell them, once the looking Wayne didn't know anything about it. baby in her arms just before they shot all glass is shattered, you can do anything." Their World War II mamas and daddies of them. O didn't know anything about it. The Pen- "I see it until this very day. Everytime tagon didn't know much about it and I see a young mother, a young woman, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson with a baby in her arms, I have a Betty Brink is a free-lance writer living didn't know a damn thing about it." flashback to that picture. Especially if I'm in Kountze who reported on the Coman- Lane went on to try other Vietnam-era real tired or have been across the street che Peak Nuclear Project in the last issue cases: Black Panther military trials, civil for a beer. That picture will never go of the Observer. A version of this story rights cases, desertions, drugs, hair, away in my mind . . . so how can I ever appeared in the Boston Globe Sunday riots; he covered the spectrum of the get any of it in perspective?" magazine. volatile 60's and early 70's. But My Lai 4 stayed with him, haunted him, changed him. "For two years I fought that war vicariously," he said. "Every day for those two years and every night, I re- enacted one 24-hour period in its history, My Lai. I tried in desperation to under- stand what I was doing, what Hutto had done, what my country had done. "I still don't know how I 'morally' feel about what we did at My Lai that day because I'm not just real 'morally' flat- tered with what we've been doing for the last 2000 years on this old earth. I have a hard time putting 'degrees' on killing people. We were dropping napalm and

bombs on villages all over Vietnam. No le one has yet been able to explain to me r be the difference." e Ha

He is looking at a photograph as he n Ro

talks. One of the famous My Lai

photographs. But this one is not of death, by it is of the moment before death. to Pho "All I know is," he says, "I could Pham Mot watches My Lai burn. • POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE •

v" The Austin Police Department has, use of pesticides. Now a nationwide ef- because you have expressed an interest since May of this year, been using a fort seems to be in the making. A July or because you have been suggested by cattle-prod-like device in some of its 6, 1983 memo from the International other coalition members as being the one police work. The device, called "The Agricultural and Aviation Consultants, in your community to be a focal point for Source," is manufactured by the Univer- Inc., of Washington, D.C. , outlines the coalition activity. Your safe use of effec- sal Safety Corporation of Largo, Florida, "battle plan for our first engagement of tive pesticides or your community's use and delivers a 3500-volt shock. It is cur- 1983," which has been given the code for public health concerns impacts in rently being used by police in South name "ORGAN." The memo reads, in some way on every citizen. The Anti- Africa and is similar to shock batons used part: Pesticide extremists have carefully or- against civil rights activists in the South "The response to our call to establish chestrated an impassioned fear of 'in- in the early '60's. a National Pesticide User Conference has voluntary exposure' to pesticides, not out The Austin Police Department is cur- been outstanding and the need for the of concern for their fellow citizen's rently studying this use of "the Source" coalition continues to be demonstrated in health or protection of the environment, to determine, not its safety, but its effec- the media each passing day. The time has but for the need to fill their war chests tiveness in police work. come to organize in such a way that the with cash in order to continue to insult 1/ In an attempt to counter citizen con- activities of the anti-pesticide forces can the intelligence of man and make a profit cern about the effects of pesticides on be met with an array of offensive from fear-mingering. . . . workers, consumers, and the environ- weapons backed by your concern for the "BATTLE PLAN GOAL: 'ORGAN' ment, the pesticide industry has been at- protection of the public's health and will be won when we have at least one tempting to foster its own "citizen economic well-being. member in every county or parish in the groups" in several states to defend the "You are receiving this call to action U.S. 10 AUGUST 5, 1983 "When we receive your check you will Hobby and State Comptroller Bob be sent the battle plan for the next Bullock, who make up two-thirds of the engagement which will have the code executive funding committee of the name 'GUT' ." Criminal Justice Division. In two previous trials, estimated to have cost the ✓ In response to a writ of certiorari filed with the U.S. Supreme Court by Janet state over $1 million, the prosecution of and Stanley Whisenhunt, Amarillo police Brown for the murder of Ellis Unit officers penalized for dating (prior to Warden Wallace Pack ended in a hung their marriage), the city of Amarillo has jury and later, in November 1982, in an presented an interesting line of reason- acquittal. According to defense attorney ing. Police officers Janet Shawgo and Craig Washington, the facts in the Billy Stanley Whisenhunt did not work to- Max Moore case are the same. gether or in the same division and main- Walker County Judge Ralph Davis has tained separate households prior to their indicated, however, that the county will The final marriage. The Amarillo Chief of Police re-apply for state funds after the authority assembly spent countless police hours keeping the of the executive funding committee ex- of all U.S. nu- couple under surveillance and went so far pires on September 1. With no alternative clear weapons takes as to station police personnel in an apart- funding-decision mechanism provided by place in the Texas Panhandle. Hous- ment across from Whisenhunt's to record the legislature, the decision for future ton has more oil company headquar- comings and goings. state funding of an Eroy Brown prosecu- ters than any other city in the world. In their response to the writ filed by tion will probably rest with Governor The whole state reeks of Sunbelt the Whisenhunts, the representatives of White. boosters, strident anti-unionists, po- Tireless Washington reporter Sarah litical hucksters, and new industry the city stated: ✓ and money. "One of the side effects of young McClendon, in her biweekly report, of- ladies becoming policewomen was that fers the latest wrinkle in the Carter brief- THIS IS THE LOOK OF TEXAS policemen with years of experience and ing papers intrigue. According to TODAY and the Texas Observer rank, in this case a sergeant, and the McClendon, the Reagan campaign has its independent eye on all of it. female recruits, commenced pairing off, airplane was the location for delivery of We offer the latest in corporate two-by-two, in a manner not grossly the briefing papers. The papers had to be scams and political scandals as well unlike what happened to those who passed on those planes, she reports, and as articles on those who have other, occupied Noah's Ark, save and except that narrows down considerably the list and more humane, visions of what that here only Homo Sapiens were in- of people who could have received them. our state can be. Become an Ob- volved, and they all worked for the Martin Anderson of California, former server subscriber today, order a gift Amarillo Police Department. This ob- director of the domestic policy staff of for a friend, or instruct us to enter a viously caused problems affecting the ef- the Reagan White House, is reported to library subscription under your pa- ficiency of the police department, among know where the material came from, but tronage. which are these: he has not talked publicly. Besides IBM 1. Reports had come to the chief from Anderson, others who may have been various sources and by rumor that receiving information include Ken Send the Observer to — three couples had paired off and Khachigian, Reagan's chief speech writer were living together. during the campaign; James Brady, the name 2. Wives of police officers were call- press secretary shot during the assassina- ing the chief complaining about the tion attempt on Reagan; Lyn Nofziger, situation. campaign press secretary; and Richard address Allen, former national security adviser 4. (sic) Dirty messages about the to Reagan. situation were being written on the city state zip walls of the restrooms. . . ." According to McClendon, the FBI is also investigating three secretaries who this subscription is for myself Governor Mark White has appointed ❑ ✓ worked for the Carter White House and ❑ gift subscription; send card in my name Charles Hunter, professor of sociology 0 $20 1enclosed for a one-year subscription also worked or are now working for the 0 bill me for $20 at Bishop College, and John R. Parten of Reagan administration. One is Kathy Madisonville to the Trinity River Reid, the night secretary, whose job it is My name & address (if different) — Authority Board of Directors, adding two to finish tasks left over from the day staff voices of reason to an authority long tied and who has the run of the place at night. name to the Trinity River Project boondoggle, Another secretary, McClendon reports, which John Henry Faulk once dubbed is Ann McGlinn. McClendon says she "the oldest floating crap game in Texas." doesn't know who the third one is. El address vs' Will there be another trial of Eroy Brown? That decision may be made by the legendary Governor Mark White some time this city state zip fall. When Walker County officials ap- plied for $150,000 to try Brown for the RAW DEAL murder of Ellis Unit farm manager Billy Steaks, Chops, Chicken THE TEXAS OBSERVER Max Moore, they were denied the funds open lunch and evenings 600 W. 7th, Austin, Texas 78701 on a vote by Lieutenant Governor Bill 605 Sabine, Austin No Reservations

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11 Robison said that if SMU had groups An SMU Student Looks at Life on Campus such as the Association of Black Students and Mexican-American students, there should certainly be one for the white stu- dents. He also said that no one would be TO BE YOUNG, excluded from his group. He said he had a list of 25 members, primarily from his fraternity, but when contacted, many of SMUG, AND WHITE these people denied ever being members. The group did not have a faculty advisor. By Chan McDermott Perhaps the most important thing Robison forgot when he started the group was that SMU is already an Association Austin to question or judge what went on around of White Students, with a few token black me. I can't be sure just when the disillu- and Hispanic members. It was the first ORE THAN a year ago, an sionment began to set in. Perhaps it began issue of D Magazine relatively big controversy to hit SMU in featured after being disappointed in sorority rush a cover announcing something the time that I have been there. Osten- m a second time. Perhaps it came when like this: So you want to be rich and sibly, the group met the regulations: other opportunities didn't go my way. famous in Dallas? Too bad, you should Robison said no one would be excluded, But I'd like to think that have gone to SMU. , my opinion of and its purposes, as stated by Robison, SMU isn't jaded by sour grapes — that Well, I go to SMU, and the idea that did not conflict with the university's goals there is evidence to back it up. I think that and purposes. But some people viewed the future rich and famous Dallasites will after a year of watching closely, I can see the group as simply a white supremacist all list SMU on their resumes is, to me, that, indeed, SMU's provincialism is a a little bit frightening. That is not to say movement, however carefully disguised. reality — and that it shows little signs of Heavy pressure was placed on President one can't get a good education at SMU diminishing. Shields to disband the group, but because — quite the contrary. In the past couple The little school with the big football of years, one of the best things I've seen it was in accordance with the constitution, team probably received more negative technically there was no reason to make about SMU is the increased emphasis on publicity this past year than good. It all the "academic atmosphere," a phrase the group disband. The group gave in to began with the Association of White pressure and changed the name to Students that has become almost a sorority- Students (AWS) controversy -- which is household term. for Equality; a day after the change was also when I began attending the weekly made, however Students for Equality, What scares me about the idea of many student senate meetings on a regular basis. whatever was left of it, disbanded. of my peers becoming Dallas leaders, much less Texas or United States leaders, In the fall of 1982, a student petitioned While the student senate and the is the attitude of many of my fellow to have a group, called the AWS, organizations committee cannot be students, an attitude all too often fostered recognized by the senate. The steps to faulted for the recognition of the AWS, by the administration. It is one of blithe, recognition include a hearing before the as it met the constitutional requirements, happy ignorance — an abysmal lack of senate organizations committee, which the questions remain: What kind of a compassion or concern with anything or then gives the senate a recommendation mentality comes up with an idea for an anyone not directly affecting them. If a on the organization. The proposed group, organization like this? And what was go- crossword puzzle asked me for a three- according to the SMU constitution, must ing through the mind of a senator who, letter definition of the word "provincial," do several things in order to get a positive at the time of the initial senate vote, leaned I'd say "SMU." At schools throughout recommendation from the organizations over and told another senator that he the Southwest Conference, the SMU committee: it must not be discriminatory thought such a group was a "good thing"? in any way, must not be in conflict with stereotype is well-known: an affluent, The AWS issue died slowly as the stylish, big-drinking, heavily Greek (as the goals and purposes of the university, semester progressed. Although letters and must have a faculty sponsor by the in fraternity or sorority) school. But still trickled into The Daily Campus, unlike most stereotypes, which work as end of its first semester. (The latter rule SMU's student newspaper, the event has since been changed. Groups must caricature, this vision of SMU is all too was, for all intents and purposes, forgot- now have an advisor when they go up for true. The campus is approximately 50% ten. What it really was, though, was a recognition.) A common practice has also Greek. Black and brown students are foreshadowing of things to come. been for groups to present a list of decided minorities — about 4 % of the members. student population. The cars in the stu- N EARLY March, a column ran in dent parking lot are generally very nice. The AWS had a hearing before the The Daily Campus by a student who The students are typically well-dressed, organizations committee and was includ- had written several columns before. ed in a list of organizations to be recom- I well-coiffed and well-jeweled. And they What set this column apart from the are generally intelligent. mended for recognition. After minimal others, though, was that the writer iden- debate, the group was recognized by the When I first came to SMU, I fit the tified himself as gay. As with all things senate. The furor that ensued was slow stereotype. Well enough off not to feel at SMU, the reaction was minimal and to begin, but when it finally took hold, drastically out of place, naive enough not slow — untl a few days later when an ad it involved everyone from the Dallas appeared in the paper announcing a Chan McDermott is an intern at the press to SMU President L. Donald Shields. meeting of an organization for gay Observer this summer and editor of The The group was the brainchild of senior students. The ad gave several telephone Daily Campus, SMU's student news- Jim Robison, who was concerned about numbers and promised confidentiality. It paper. what he called reverse discrimination. stated that there would be a meeting at 12 AUGUST 5, 1983 an economics professor's house for those unanimously in favor of recognition — Good books in every field interested in forming a support group. but the committee might as well have not Security was tight. Students who called JENKINS PUBLISHING CO. bothered, for it is doubtful any of the The Pemberton Press the numbers for information were inter- senators ever heard the recommendation. rogated thoroughly before directions to Of the seventeen senators who eventual- John H. Jenkins, Publisher the house were given out. Paranoia, ly voted against the recognition of the maybe, but a fear that was probably GLSSO, no one questioned the recom- Box 2085 g3I Austin 78768 necessary. mendation or the work put into it. Roughly forty students showed up at Several senators had said they would the first meeting. Officers were elected call for a secret ballot vote — an idea that .01 and Associates 502 W. 15th Street and another meeting was planned. Pro- many thought would help pull the Austin, Texas 78701 REALTOR " gress from this point was swift. The recognition of the GLSSO through. In the Cr) Representing all types of properties group, named the Gay/Lesbian Students in Austin and Central Texas last seconds before voting, however, a Interesting i1 unusual property a specialty Support Organization, began its cam- motion was presented instead for a roll 477-3651 paign to become a recognized student call vote — which probably sealed the organization — a privilege which would fate of the GLSSO. Student body presi- allow it to use "SMU" in its name, use dent Joe Dooley cast his vote first. SMU facilities for meetings, and petition Dooley, who, according to many Chuck Caldwell's for funds. Backed by a number of facul- ty members, both gay and straight, the group of students approached the organizations committee. The effect was . . . students' primary concern stunning. In a school known primarily for seems to be how much money 1731 New Hampshire Ave., N.W. its apathy, things began to happen. The their parents make and how Washington, D.C. 20009 local chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, ironically chaired by a Syrian much they will make. • Dupont Circle/Embassy area student, Saad Chehabi, began setting up • Spacious rooms • Coffee shop tables in the student center to collect • Parking • Best buy in D.C. signatures against the recognition of the senators, had been supporting recognition Present this ad when checking in and group. Almost simultaneously, the before the vote, took just a minute before receive a $10 introductory rebate. GLSSO set up a table to collect signatures he set the tone for the rest of the voting. CALL TOLL FREE - - for recognition. He voted "No." The secretary of the stu- 800 424 2463 dent body followed with another no, and The organizations committee meetings it continued through the senate until only were heated — everyone from Perkins 11 of the 28 senators present had cast a Maverick Books presents the gifts that keep on School of Theology professors to SMU yes vote. alumni to student senator Ted Brabham giving. For any special occasion or just pure en- The room erupted with shouts of joyment order from our list of fine western took a stand on the issue. Brabham, ap- books by John R. Erickson: pointed by Bill Clements to the Juvenile "Steers and queers, nowhere but UT," Hank The Cowdog $5.95 paper Justice & Delinquency Prevention Ad- applause, and laughter, while in quiet pockets around room some students cried Hank the Cowdog Tape set $19.95 visory Board, made it his purpose to Panhandle Cowboy $5.95 paper show that the GLSSO did not have a right or sat in stunned silence. Reynolds im- • Modern Cowboy $15.95 cloth to exist as a recognized student organiza- mediately cleared the gallery, but to most The Devil in Texas $5.95 paper tion. He dredged up such "evidence" as of the students, it didn't matter. What so Through Time and the Valley $7.95 paper the idea that such an organization would many people cared so passionately about, Complete autographed set $39.95. Add 5% pose a threat to the safety of the students one way or another, was over, and most sales tax for Texas residents. $1.00 postage on at SMU, either because of AIDS or simp- of SMU had had its way. single orders, 50$ per book on multiples. ly because of the nature of homosexual The GLSSO did not die a quiet death; practices. indeed, it may still breathe. The students and faculty filed an appeal with the A Ei IC Since the beginning of the year, both F highest judiciary board at SMU, level w4-", the senate and the school newspaper had 806-435-5998 16" three, but first the judicial board held a 1101 Baylor been encouraging students to attend Perryton, Texas 79070 senate meetings, to see how their hearing to determine if it would even hear "legislation" was being made. Most of the pleas were met with flat-out apathy; Autographed copies of AFTERNOON OF A FAUN students didn't care what happened in the by Shelby Hearon senate. The day of the vote, however, the chambers were packed with more than WATSON & COMPANY Name 300 students, faculty, and administrators Address to watch the four-hour proceedings. Throughout the debate, the gallery BOOKS erupted into cheers at odd moments, 604 BLANCO STREET MC/VISA # depending upon which side had scored a AUSTIN, TEXAS 78703 Exp. Date point. (512) 472-4190 The organizations committee opened $15.10 per copy, including postage, tax and handling up the debate with its recommendation —

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 the case. The end of the year was draw- The level three judiciary board finally by amending the bill to the point where ing near, and time was growing short. decided against hearing an appeal on the the original drafters would not even vote There was another complication: Daily grounds that the senate vote was not a for it. The amended bill simply requested Campus Managing Editor Mark Miller constitutional violation. The basis of their that the board of trustees and the board discovered that the Monday evening decision is questionable, since the senate of governors take a strong stand against before the senate vote, Paul Cameron, a decision seems to be a violation not only apartheid in South Africa. noted anti-gay speaker, had spoken at a of SMU's constitution but of the Bill of The senate is not the only example of dinner to which ten of the uncommitted Rights. At this point, there is no provincialism and ignorance at SMU. An senators had been invited. Cameron, on recognized support organization for gay active member of a women's interest his way to speak in Austin to a House students at SMU. group on campus once told me a story of committee hearing testimony on Bill Still another senate vote gives credence going before the Panhellenic board to ask Ceverha's sodomy bill, had called SMU to the overall provincialism at SMU. for funding for a pamphlet on sexual and offered his services. It was never Also in the spring, two special interest harassment. The Panhellenic advisor publicly revealed who decided to invite senators, George White, the black vetoed the idea by saying that, since she only specific senators or who paid for the senator, and Arif Virji, the international had never heard of any cases of harass- meal, but senators who attended were senator, drafted a bill calling for the ment at SMU, it must not be a problem. under the impression that the Office of divestment of SMU's $15 million funds Student Life had arranged for and fi- in South Africa. In divesting, SMU Even more frightening, SMU is not nanced the dinner. To most of them, it would have been following in the steps alone in its attitudes. Of six of the didn't matter, for they were so repulsed of the university it claims to emulate — Southwest Conference schools in Texas by Cameron's explicit descriptions of gay Harvard, which divested $50 million. contacted, only two, Rice and UT, had relations and bathhouses that they could organizations for homosexual students. Typical of the attitude that prevails, the not eat. Baylor, TCU, and SMU did not, and at senate voted not to take any direct action Texas A&M a legal suit concerning the presence of such a group has been in court since 1976. Greg Franzwa, a philosophy professor Life Insurance and Annuities at TCU, says that he sees a trade school Martin Elfant, CLU approach to the university at TCU — 4223 Richmond, Suite 213, Houston, TX 77027 Siv,11.ifeo students' primary concern seems to be (713) 621-0415 how much money their parents make and how much they will make. "My general sense of it is that TCU is not radically different than most places in that regard," PLAIN FACTS ABOUT Franzwa said. "Far and away, a lot of SIMPLE FUNERALS students would ignore it [issues like homosexuality, white supremacy, and Isn't it time we started to stress the spiritual aspects of funerals apartheid] and go get their hair done." rather than the material? Many people spend more on funerals than the deceased would wish because they do not realize their options I once thought SMU was alone in the or they are afraid of "what people will think." void, but the further I look, the worse it At Reveley Memorial S ervices we explain your choices, and let you seems to be. In a recent "Soap Box" col- know we are in agreement with your desire for simplicity. No umn in The Daily Texan, two of the three pressure is brought upon you. Many times all arrangements can students interviewed couldn't name the be completed at your residence. student body president. Granted UT- Reveley Memorial Services offers you the following possibilities: Austin is a big place, and granted, it's A service at the location of your choice, with or without the summer, but this pervasive apathy is casket present • Graveside Services in the cemetery of your unbelievable. choice • Cremation • Donation to medical science • Shipping More and more it appears that SMU We have a selection of caskets, including a cremation receptacle, and other universities are becoming a plain pine coffin, cloth covered woods, or metals. We can travel cloistered — and cloistering ignorance. anywhere, and serve a 100 mile radius of San Antonio at no addi- They are not given to looking beyond tional fee. their borders. How closely they look We believe that money lavished on funerals should be spent on within their borders is suspect. And they your family, your church, or your favorite charity. Discuss this with persist in making those "outsiders" who your family now, while you can. Call us for pre-need planning, or venture in feel unwelcome. any information you may need. To me, this situation is disturbing because there is so much wasted poten- REVELEY MEMORIAL tial around me. I know that many of my classmates will go on to control large companies and hold political offices. And SERVICES I also know that, unless these students are of San Antonio enlightened somewhere along the line, we will be condemned to the same 533-8141 Austin/441-7500 San Antonio Simple Funerals Information xenophobic leadership under which we alM•10•111111•11111. already suffer. ❑ 14 AUGUST 5, 1983 •BOOKS AND THE CULTURE •

Traveling Texas With Bill Owens

William A. Owens, Pin Hook, Texas native and for many years Professor of English trained, were going through lines at Columbia University, is the author of This Stubborn Soil and A Season of Weather- memorized by rote, through movements ing. Following are excerpts from his third volume of autobiographical writings, Tell unpolished but convincing. As the play me a story, sing me a song, an account of his travels throughout Texas in the 1930s progressed we and the men and women collecting stories and songs. around us allowed ourselves to be led into a reality created for the moment, a reali- ty of time and place in which only the Becoming a professional collector — Wagon"; to stay with the Will Hallibur- themes of love and laughter had a con- if being paid makes one a professional — tons, in the room that had been my room. stant kinship with Tigertown. was for me the result of a series of three There was no play-party, the Hallibur- Later, toward midnight, we walked a accidents, or at least of turnings in direc- tons told us when we arrived, but there path that wound through hawthorn trees tions I had not calculated or envisioned. was a close-of-school play at Tigertown, in full bloom. The whiteness of Without these, what became an enduring down the road toward Red River. She moonlight through the whiteness of need to know more, to understand more, would have supper ready for us flowers cast a pale glow around us. The to record more about the folk mind might "toreckly," Mrs. Halliburton said, in air was warm, and musty sweet with the have developed into nothing more than scent of hawthorn. Contemplatively, a pleasant hobby. Henry talked about the play and the peo- The first came in the fall of 1930 ple we had seen in Tigertown. The play when, as an undergraduate at Southern TELL ME A STORY, was not much, he admitted, but that was Methodist University, I took a course in SING ME A SONG .. . not what mattered. It was the need for a writing taught by Henry Nash Smith. A TEXAS CHRONICLE play in a place like Tigertown, the need for people to cast themselves for a time Though a year younger than I, he was Austin: University of Texas Press already established as scholar, critic, and $25 (hardcover), $12.50 (paperback) in a world of make-believe, and for other people to join them in it. editor. To him, writing was important, A Sing Me a Song cassette is also the substance of writing more important. available from UT Press. The second turning came in the sum- He soon knew my poverty of substance mer of 1937 at the State University of in all areas except one: my memory of Iowa, in Iowa City, where, after I had songs and speech and ways I had known failed to qualify at the University of in the country. Slowly he made me see time for us to go. After talk of old times Texas, I had gone in search of a route to over a country supper, we went. value in what he called my original the Ph.D. sources. While I was trying to overcome The play was in the big room and as Again I was directed by a professor of an embarrassment of ignorance (like call- we went in we could see shadowy shapes English, Edwin Ford Piper, whose name ing the University of Bologna "the of people between us and the reddish I had first encountered in Carl Sand- University of baloney" in class), he had glow of coal oil torches on the stage. We burg's The American Songbag. He had me writing down what I could remember found room on a bench at the back and answered my feeler letter not with ques- about my people and their ways. I had settled down, to wait for the white sheet tions about my academic qualifications gone to school determined to rid myself curtains to open, to listen to the country but with suggestions of what I might of "country," of being ashamed because talk of country people — talk of whose study in folklore and writing, all in a tone I was from the country. Before the year children were in the play, of prices of positive and welcoming. eggs and butter, of "the droops" in was over I had been brought to a kind of In our first meeting I knew I had made young turkeys. middle ground in myself, where I was a good choice. He was a Nebraskan but ashamed not of being country but of The play was a comedy with a love in- many of the ballads he sang for me in his country traces that made me appear terest, the actors the big boys and girls Philosophy Hall office were Anglo-Saxon crude, ignorant. in school. The lights were dim and ballads I had learned in East Texas, At the end of the year, eager to see a flickering, but from time to time in their though his words were sometimes wide- way of life he had heard about chiefly flickering they caught the brown of a ly different and the tunes rarely the same. from me, he went to the country with me, country cheek, the flash of an eye. Before He sang in a flat nasal Midwestern voice; to Forest Hill, to find, if we could, a the end of the first act I looked at Henry. I sang my versions in what has been play-party, to join boys and girls who had "This is good," he said softly. called my East Texas whang. There was been my pupils in singing and dancing From then on I was watching him a meeting of minds if not of sounds. "The Girl I Left Behind Me" and "Lead watch the play, pleased with his visible Henry Nash Smith had urged me to Her Up and Down Your Little Brass response to young people who, un- collect play-party games. By the time I

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15 met Piper the collection had been printed boy was as true for folk music as for records I had made to their library. The as Swing and Turn Texas Play-Party anything else. To me, as a collector, an doctorate was almost in my hand; the Games. Piper thought it was a good English ballad was an English ballad university wanted no part of the record- beginning, but only a beginning. He had whether sung by a Dallas streetcar con- ings, as I had hoped. On January 1, 1941, in mind a work of broader scope. He ductor or a sawmill hand in the piney I was back in Texas, starting a career as wanted to create a library of folk songs woods. It was the singer who lent folklorist for the University of Texas. My at the University of Iowa, a library the authenticity. territory was vast — the whole of Texas; university would finance and I would col- Four years later I came to a third turn- . my instructions at times nebulous, at lect. I was easily convinced; the univer- ing. Edwin Ford Piper had been dead two times conflicting. As an employee of the sity was not. At the end of the summer years. The University of Iowa had no in- university I was to further the work of he was able to advance seventy-five terest in adding the three or four hundred the Extension Division by setting up folk dollars out of his own pocket, enough to begin the collection, if I would contribute my time and expenses. I agreed and agreed to track down songs wherever people sang, whether at home or sing- "No Hiding Place ings, in church or honkytonk, in cotton patch or kitchen. Go after the song, he advised me. To him, not the singer but Down Here . . ." the song alone mattered. On a Saturday afternoon I stopped Back in Texas, I went to a new job, "If a man be's good and work at a small Negro church in the Trini- hard here below," he said, "he guina teaching English at the Texas ty River bottoms, a few miles from Agricultural and Mechanical College. It git his reward in heab'n." the town of Trinity, curious to know He talked about the rewards. He was a lucky change — much better than why it was newly painted and well the job I left, teaching English in the could just lean back, shut his eyes, kept when so many of the churches and see the gates of gold, the streets Robert E. Lee High School in Goose I went to sagged and slanted and Creek. It was more centrally located, for of gold, just like the Bible say. This leaked. Finding the door shut but not he believed; this he preached. The collecting. My Aggie students, many of locked I went in. The altar and bench them farm boys, knew singers, and were landlord was partial to his sermons. pews had been cleaned for Sunday. Some Sundays he sat on his horse eager to send me to them, or to go with I touched a coal oil torch near the me as guide and helper. outside the church and listened. altar. It was filled and ready for Sometimes they talked about "uppity With Piper's seventy-five dollars I lighting. There was a piano but no niggers." There was no place for bought a second-hand Vibromaster re- songbooks. them around there. cording machine, already an antique. It At a house nearer the river I asked I asked about the singing. embossed rather than cut on aluminum about the pastor. discs. The quality of sound was not the "They sings good. They sung in "He live in town," a woman said. town one time. White folks axed best but the records were durable, as long Her husband was a deacon and could as they were played with a bamboo or them." tell me about the church but he was cactus needle — a cactus thorn picked working way off somewhere. She I left him and went back to the beside the road would do. With twenty- did not expect him home till toward deacon's house down by the river. five blank discs ordered from New York sundown or maybe "first dark." It was first dark and he was sitting at thirty-three cents each I started out. In "You c'n come back then." barefoot on the porch — he called it town, where possibly two homes out of the gallery. I asked if I could sit with three had a radio, the recordings were a I found the pastor resting on his porch in the Negro section. He was him and talk awhile. He gave me his novelty; in the country, where there chair and sat on the floor with his what they called "an ole timey might not be a radio within twenty miles back against a post. The woman preacher," in the black suit and or more, they were often regarded as a stood in the door. miracle. white shirt he wore, in his servile at- titude toward white folks, in his "I ain't lit no lamp," she said, My trips began at College Station, and praise for the white man who owned "hit draws too many 'skeetuhs." extended out farther and farther as I the land where his church stood. Not saved up travel time and expense money. There were no screens and I asked many landowners left like him, he about the mosquitoes. Within a year I had recorded in Negro told me. Not many landowners churches in the Brazos River bottoms, would give the land, build the "I don't hardly pay them no Anglo-Texan settlements in the Big church, and give money to the mind," the man said. Thicket, Cajun French communities in preacher. Not many would take so He was not talkative, either about Southeast Texas and Southwest Loui- much interest in a darky preacher's siana. Folk music had from the beginning the church or himself. It was not that sermons or what he said to the he distrusted me or thought I should of cities been regarded as rural, "coun- members of his church. try," but it persisted among country peo- not be there. His attitude was that ple who moved to town in the prosperous We talked about his religion and white folks has got rights and they Twenties, and went with them again what he preached. He could read the could come around when they when, to keep from starving, they moved Bible all right but he did not under- wanted to. He did let me know that back to the country in the Depression of stand much about it except the prom- I could not sell him anything. He had the Thirties. You can take the boy out of ises. He was certain about the prom- to buy all his furnishings at the com- the country but not the country out of the ises. missary and pay up at picking time.

16 AUGUST 5, 1983 festivals wherever communities showed ings behind me, I had had no training in knowledge of Texas geography and interest. At the same time I was to record either anthropology or sociology, no ad- Texas people, his intimate knowledge of for the university a collection of songs vice about collecting systematically, no Texas bird life and natural history in and tunes of all the ethnic groups in the engineering skill in recording sound. I general, his profound interest in the lore state. As to the first, I felt less than com- did have the interest and encouragement and customs of people wherever he met petent, and uncertain whether folk songs of Roy Bedichek, to whose office I was them. He welcomed me; I gratefully and folk singers could remain authentic assigned, and the resources of the responded. Years before, in his late under the artificial circumstances of put- University Interscholastic League, of youth, he had himself been a collector of ting on a show for festival crowds. As which he was director. folk songs. Unable to pursue the interest, to the second, I was a paid amateur. Quietly, unassumingly, Roy Bedichek he had given what he had to John Avery Though I had four years of field record- moved into my life with his broad Lomax and urged him to collect the songs of Texas cowboys. He thought I could do He was not complaining. When he testimonies and gave something to for other kinds of songs what Lomax had felt like complaining going to church the man who went out to him dur- done for the cowboy. He talked of in- got it off his mind. A man down the ing the offering. He seemed to listen troducing me to Lomax, but I had met road a piece had gone to town to intently as the preacher went into a him several years before in Dallas. As work and was no better off. sermon in which he talked about the he seemed less interested in me as a col- The lamp was not lit but the mos- weariness of this world and the lector, more interested in my giving him quitoes came anyway, faster than I heavenly rest at last. If he saw the what I had collected, I declined. Bedichek could slap them away. I thanked him man on horseback he gave no sign. understood and advised me to make for talking to me and went back to He went ahead, lifting their spirits whatever I found my own. He bought town. with pictures of the glories of recording equipment for me and gave me The next morning I sat in my car heaven, threatening them with the freedom to roam where I would and outside the church and watched the horrors of hell. record what I would. Whatever was not people coming across cotton fields, "You want to go to heaven?" he recorded, he was certain and I believed walking, the men in white shirts and shouted. him, would soon be forgotten and lost. dark pants, some of the women — "Yas, Lawd." He laid the task on me. the sanctified — all in white, others He told them how. Be good, hum- Quietly, unassumingly, Bedichek in red and yellow and blue dresses ble, peaceful. Work hard. Love the brought me close to his closest friends: with flowered hats or bright ban- Lord. That was the way to store up J. Frank Dobie and Walter Prescott danas. Some of them glared at me treasures in heaven. "Yas, suh, Webb. The three were instrumental in as they passed. To them I was the brother, yas, suh, sister." The man creating my job and getting me appointed man, the white man, a "pecker- had to be obeyed, up there, down to it. The three became my unofficial ad- wood," and "oe-fay ," foe in pig here. visers, not only out of their knowledge Latin. I could see the question in of Texas and Texans but also out of their their faces: what's a peckerwood The sermon ended, the white man own need to shuck academic routines and here for? The law? turned his horse back to the road and go to the people. All three were generous went on his way. Why he was there When the singing started I sat on with their help, but it was Bedichek that was clear. He paid the preacher to I relied on day by day. In a dozen dif- a back bench and listened, after a tell them "to be good niggers and not too-friendly welcome from the ferent ways he let me know his regard stir up no trouble." The sermon was for me and the work I had entered upon, pastor. At times a woman was the to a word what he had paid for. leader, at times the preacher. No one often in talk as close as those of teacher The preacher started another song touched the piano. The woman to student, closer, I assumed, than that but I left, with my eyes opened to seemed flustered till she started a of father to son. many things I had passed by, song to the beat of a jumpup. The Thus the recordings I had made on my unseeing. people joined her, clapping and own were added to, under advice from stomping: I drove straight to the Brazos bot- Bedichek to get everything I could from toms, and to the home of a Negro Oh, there's no hiding place any singer I found, bring the records back down here, who worked for the county for safekeeping, and let what they had to agricultural agent. It was not the first Oh, there's no hiding place say sink into my mind. He did not say time I had gone to see him. He was down here. it, nor did anyone else to me, but I even- the one who had told me that to a Oh, I went to the rock to hide tually came to know that the people had my face, growing number of blacks any white as great, perhaps greater, need to lose And the rock said, man was a peckerwood. I told him themselves in an old ballad as they had about the black man preaching in- "This ain't no hiding place." in a school play, and that the songs they side, the white man listening outside. Oh, there's no hiding place treasured were as much as anything else It was nothing new to him. Too down here. a key to understanding who they were many preachers were Uncle Toms and what they were. The realization was Not in the presence of the man — the or, as he called them, "handkerchief slow in coming but it came: if I wanted Man up above, the man down below. heads." There was a reason why. to know the people I had to work from While they were singing I "It's not easy to be black in inside out, beginning with songs and watched a white man on horseback America, anywhere in America," he stories deeply embedded in their minds. turn off the road and stop outside the said, and there was neither rancor LJ window. The owner, I thought. He nor bitterness in his voice — only sat patiently through songs and sadness.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER Hiding Out at the Kerrville Festival

By Lyman Grant

Kerrville Quiet Valley, a fifty-acre ranch nine festival to make money. Because of what E WERE SOMEWHERE be- miles south of Kerrville on Highway 16, the festival came to mean to him, in 1974 tween Fredericksburg and is owned by Rod and Nancylee Kennedy. he cashed in all his assets from his Austin W Kerrville whirring past peach There each year on the two weekends radio and producing businesses and stands and clusters of Mexican hat, surrounding Memorial Day, they present bought the ranch and persevered through golden wave, and firewheels. The Hill the Kerrville Folk Festival, now in its the difficulties of 1975-1977, when six Country was sucking us in as it did the twelfth year as one of the best folk of nine concerts received two to ten Johnsons, the Buntons, and everybody festivals in the United States. Each year inches of rain and put him a couple of since. "You know, white boys can't con- Kerrville, as we usually call it, features hundred thousand dollars in debt. In trol it," Boy George and Culture Club nationally known folk singers, popular 1972, a month after the first festival, crooned on the tape. "You know, white Texas performers, and unknown, fledg- Kennedy was quoted as saying, "I think boys never hold it." I thought of settlers ling singers and songwriters. This year people need to get the rust out of their bolting into this country across the among over sixty acts, the Kennedys pipes. This festival did that for a lot of ninety-eighth meridian. "These were presented Peter Yarrow, Bob Gibson, people. I learned to love and accept peo- men who fled the furnishing merchant," Utah Phillips, and Rosalie Sorrels along ple through being with great artists like Robert Caro has written, "who furnished with Texas favorites Alvin Crow, Gary these who try to express their feelings in the farmer with supplies and clothing for P. Nunn, Marcia Ball, Ray Wylie Hub- their work. . . . The sharing and the love the year on credit, and the crop lien, bard, and Guy Clark. In other years . . . brought about the beginning of some which the merchant took on the farmer's Odetta, Jimmy Driftwood, Mance genuine human relationships." cotton to make sure he 'paid out' the Lipscomb, Willis Allen Ramsey, Rusty debt. And they fled the eroded, gullied, Weir, B. W. Stevenson, Michael Mur- worn-out, used-up land of the Old phey, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Willie NCE IN THE GATE I headed South." In the Hill Country they found Nelson have played. straight to last year's campsite, lush meadows of stirrup high grass and At the center of the festival is what O high on the hillside, in the rocks, low mountains rising into a clear, clean, Rod Kennedy calls his "Kerrville Fami- the mesquite, the blooming Texas this- sapphire blue sky. ly." This family of friends has been with tle, all of which prevent other campers Kerrville for most of its twelve years, from crowding too close, from criss- The lies in your eyes, crossing tent stakes. It was a choice spot, the depth of your lust many of them going back even further. Included in the family are Yarrow, Nunn, but two young women from Houston had Is more than distraction .. . already claimed it. We reconciled You know I'm not crazy. Murphey, Stevenson, along with Bobby Bridger, Allen Damron, Bill and Bonnie ourselves to a pretty area further up the We sped through Kerrville, deeper into Hearne, Nanci Griffith, Steve Fromholz, hill, and, claiming as much ground as the seductive hills and valleys. Then the Carolyn Hester, David Amram, and possible, we pitched our tent and ten feet highway narrowed and rolled off one of several others with less familiar names. away tied our tarp in a cluster of the hills, flattening out straight as if in It also includes scores of volunteers, who mesquite. a river valley, and we were there. I pulled year after year donate their time to off onto the dirt road entrance of Quiet It wasn't long before the music of everything from building fences and sell- Valley Ranch. The 4 o'clock sun still Catsby Jones, the first performer, began ing ice to providing and operating the burned high and hot in the cloudless sky. mixing with the rhythm of tent stakes be- sound system. And though the ranch had opened only ing coerced into the rocky soil. Another six hours earlier, already the hills and However, it is not only for music that two performers would play before we valley were patched with multi-colored people come to Kerrville. They may, could cook our tacos on the camp stove, tents of various shapes and thermo- having become city dwellers, be trying clean up, and walk the five or so acres dynamic theories. I hit the stop button to return to their roots or simply are to the stage. This was a practice we and cut off Boy George mid-sentence: searching for peace and quiet and corn- would continue for the remaining seven raderie. They are probably reaffirming evening concerts, only two of which How am I supposed to throw would I see in their entirely. Most often questions I cannot answer? certain neglected values. For instance, Sue Ferguson of Kerrville, a short, gray- I would miss the first performer, who . . . I'll be gone before you know. began in the blazing six o'clock heat and If I cry to be told, give me .. . haired nurse, comes because the festival is one place that unabashedly proclaims the seventh and final performer who often its idealistic view of a world where peo- walked on stage after one o'clock. Lyman Grant teaches English at Austin ple can be warm, intimate, and When one praises Kerrville, one might Community College and is editing with compassionate. go on about the Hill Country's natural William A. Owens the collected letters of Almost everyone who attends becomes beauty and the pure sensual pleasure of Roy Bedichek. a convert, even Kennedy, who began the guzzling beer in the ninety-plus sun; 18 AUGUST 5, 1983 however, Kerrville is really a nocturnal night. Allen Damron appeared and bacon, eggs, and coffee cooked on an world. It is in the black of night around Williams asked him to sing. Damron bor- open fire, there is cool and there is quiet. two sources of light that Kerrville's sense rowed a guitar and sang a Mexican song With over half of the campers staying up of comraderie grows and its belief that, everyone knew. It was a song from his past 2, mornings begin slowly and last as Kennedy likes to repeat, music "tears act and he sang it as if he were singing long. There is music still, but it is quieter down walls and builds bridges." it to thousands, loudly, enthusiastically. and less communal. One morning I The first is the loud, amplified stage Someone else sang a song with a listened to a young man teach an older and its bright flood lights. The stage sits chorus that everyone soon learned: "I man Towne's Van Zandt's "Pancho and at the bottom of a slightly sloped hill. Ris- tried and tried to commit suicide by Lefty." Though I tired of the song with ing away from the stage and fanning out jumping off the Luckenbach bridge last the older man endlessly repeating, forget- to the sides are two rows of lawn chairs, Sunday." Then as the turn moved around ting, I enjoyed listening from a distance followed by forty or so rows of wooden again to Williams, someone with a neat- because I realized that this is about all we benches. These benches might accom- ly trimmed reddish beard and cowboy hat have left of the "folk tradition." And modate 2,000 people; the remaining low on his forehead stepped out of the perhaps this was the only way Kerrville members of the audience lie on blankets darkness, barely into the fading reaches was a folk festival. or sit in lawn chairs further up the hill of the firelight. He began talking and Not that anyone pretends this is a folk near the crafts booths that outline the singing a quiet song about bluebonnets festival in any academic sense. No one back of the amphitheater. and the Brazos River that no one listened talks of ethnic cuisine or wears native But the secret to this theater is that this to as they continued laughing and talk- clothing. You see no preservers of mass of people rolls down this slope and ing about Luckenbach. But slowly the material culture, much less a back-stoop ends, like a wave breaking on a beach, talking stopped and attention turned to the whittler. When Guy Clark finished sing- less than eighteen inches from the ground quiet singer. His song was one of those ing his popular "L.A. Freeway," he said level stage. Several nights I sat in my about an old timer talking to a younger in a quiet voice, "Bet you didn't know lawn chair with my feet resting on the man, typical in country music, but his that was a folk song?" Utah Phillips, a stage. This closeness and the energy that delivery, his lyrics, were sincere and folk singer who once rode the rails, grows from this closeness makes for per- honest. He finished to silence, quiet, as would have caught it. A week later after formances that show mere entertainment those around the fire kept singing his playing several original tunes, he said, to be a small thing. song to themselves. Finally, the young "Now I don't want to scare you, to sit For the performers, on a stage that man beside us asked across the fire, you back, but I'm going to sing a folk neither crowds nor dwarfs them, it's like "Who is that? Is that Bill Staines over song. I've been noticing that the posters playing for 6,000 friends. On several oc- there? When did you get here?" He advertise this thing in big letters as a folk casions, standing backstage, I saw per- turned to no one in particular, "Damn, festival, and I thought I ought to play one formers high-stepping off stage with that guy is good!" out of respect." broad smiles, shyly but ineffectually Other nights, we skipped the camp- Rod Kennedy knows what his festival restrained, turn to the next performer, fires, preferring to lie in the tent and fall has become. Noting the difference in this saying, "They're wonderful. God! asleep as the songs from their various year's lineup and the first year's, which They're listening to everything you do." sources rose and mingled in the cool included John Lomax, Jr., Robert Shaw, For performers, this is not just another night air. "Were you at our campfire last and Mance Lipscomb, he said, "We gig. They come here for the same reasons night?" Crow Johnson, one of the per- started as a folk festival and slowly have as the audience: to be rejuvenated, formers, asked me early one evening, become a songwriter's festival." It's not refreshed, reenergized; to be decynical- still excited eighteen hours later. "There a development that saddens • him, ized, de-New Yorked, de-L.A.ed; to must have been seventy people there, however. In 1976 he said, "There are remember why they started playing so singing, listening. It took us all night to two different types of escapism in music many years ago. go around the campfire three times." I today. One is traditional, and the other But there are those who say that the told her I wasn't. I had awakened around is drug-and booze-oriented." stage is the least important place at Kerr- dawn, however, and her voice alone was Most of Kennedy's performers would ville. Much more important are the rising out of the valley, rich and full. I agree. First, most of them play their own numerous circles of Hill Country stone didn't recognize the song but it may have compositions. Second, few of those who around which each evening campers and been her song about the Kerrville camp- play folksongs that have been passed performers gather, playing their songs fires, "Ring of Stones" : down through folk culture feel any duty around a large campfire of cedar, oak, Somewhere in the Texas hills to preserve the way they once were and mesquite. "It's the eye contact," says There's a ring of stones played. Grimalkin and Eaglebone Whis- Frank Hill, one of the regulars, who uses Burn branches of mesquite tle, for example, play traditional English his two-week vacation every year to Old as some old drifter's bones. camp and sing at Kerrville. Hill is the and Irish music. The latter also plays Somewhere in the Texas hills bluegrass. Yet Grimalkin uses electric in- writer of one of the most popular camp- The sun knows the song. struments including synthesizer, while fire songs; "Who's going to pick for the We sang it to each other Eaglebone Whistle turns even hammered plain folks?" he sings, and everyone To celebrate the dawn. dulcimer tunes into their own blend of always joins in. rock and roll, jazz, and bluegrass. Jane On several nights we visited the camp- Gillman, guitarist of Eaglebone Whistle, fires, but for me the first night was the says that she rarely tries to duplicate most memorable. The crowd was small HEN CAMPING OUT, your tunes she has heard, whether pop or tradi- and Mike Williams, a Kerrville regular, best meal is breakfast. This is tional. "You have to let the music grow," seemed to be presiding. Only a handful W especially true at Kerrville. she says. "It has to mean something to of people were daring to sing this first Aside from the usual joys of eating the performer; then it will mean THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 20 AUGUST 5, 1983 something to the audience." It is her way at Kerrville. Most understand Rod Ken- cordings by Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger or of redefining folk music as music based nedy when he says, "I resigned from maybe Woody Guthrie, none of whom on the close relationship of the performer Rotary and threw away my ties." It is a remained folk in any literal way. In and audience. Many other performers at line he likes to repeat, as if to say, "I had essence, Kerrville is two generations Kerrville indulge in the same kind of the courage. How about you?" from the folk. As William A. Owens in- redefining. Lisa Gilkyson, who played Of course, few of us will have the timates in the "Coda" to his recent Tell her punk-influenced rock on electric courage or opportunity to thumb our me a story, sing me a song, World War guitar backed by the jazz group noses at the current arbiters of culture and II marked the end of "the folk" as a Passenger, told John T. Davis of the finance. For that reason, Kerrville sociological or even political entity. Kerr- Austin Statesman that one could call her becomes all the more important. It is a ville regular Steve Fromholz notes music folk music because she considered place to gather and sing along with those something similar in his beautiful "Texas folk music to be "music that's indigenous of similar sympathies. Trilogy": to the times." There's Jimmy Gilmore singing his I wonder why it is you never Yet there are those at Kerrville, though song "Dallas": see any young folks around most are not regulars, who look upon Dallas is a rich man with a Kopperl? Seems like as soon as themselves as preservers of an old music the last day of May rolls and who learned many of their songs in death wish in his eyes. And there is the Nigel Russell song, around and all the seniors graduate, the oral (folk) tradition, sans radio, sans they go runnin' off stereo. Roy Bookbinder, for instance, "The White Collar Hollar," sung by the Canadian Stan Rogers in a rousing a to Cleburne and Fort Worth and studied under Pink Anderson and Rev. get 'em a good job, you know. Gary Davis and tries to play their songs capella, as if shouted by a chain gang: in exactly the way they played them. He And it's Ho, boys, can't you can't, of course, because his soul and ear code it, and program it right? HORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT, have been affected by contemporary, ur- Nothing ever happens in this life just as Ray Wylie Hubbard ban music, but he probably comes as of mine. s stepped on stage as the last per- close as anyone. Santiago Jimenez of San I'm hauling up the data on the former at the 1983 Kerrville Folk Antonio and a performer at many other Xerox line. Festival, we pulled out of Quiet Valley folk festivals deliberately plays conjun- And in their turn, nature and things Ranch and headed home. Having to be to in the style of his father and not in the country are praised to kingdom come. at work at 8 that morning, we drank cups more rock-influenced style of his brother Rodney Crowell sings, "On the Banks of of coffee and sped our way out of the Hill Flaco. And there is Kurt Van Sickle who the Old Bandera"; Bill Staines sings Country, passing closed-up peach stands straddles the fence, trying to remain in "Sweet Wyoming Home"; Allen and shadowy clumps of wild flowers. For both worlds. As the protege of Navasota Damron sings Michael Murphey's song, a while we tried to hold on to Kerrville, blues singer Mance Lipscomb, he is con- "A Boy From the Country." My favorite listening to Allen Damron on the ghetto sidered the best duplicater of Lipscomb's is Guy Clark's "Home-Grown blaster sing John Ims' "Two of a Kind": music, yet he also writes original songs Tomatoes," which gets to the point, if a Another midnight on the highway, and is making a career for himself with big indirectly: his own music. Houston in the distance. Home-grown tomatoes, Seems like I'm always leaving In a sense, Kerrville is a protest. It is home-grown tomatoes, love behind. a protest of the big city way of produc- What would I be without Singing along with someone whose ing music festivals. Willie Nelson takes home-grown tomatoes? soul is on the radio. full page ads in the Sunday New York Only two things that money Sounds like me and the good Times for his Fourth of July concert. The can't buy, ol' boy are two of a kind. US Festival in California attracts hun- And that's true love and We were leaving Kerrville behind un- dreds of thousands and ends in several home-grown tomatoes. til next year. In the city I wouldn't have deaths. But Rod Kennedy is determined Yet even as a protest, Kerrville is an time for eight evenings of music, early to keep the crowds small and the drunks anachronism. Kerrville's roots are in morning campfires, leisurely breakfasts, out. He requires a 3-day ticket to camp, Austin's "cosmic cowboy" movement of afternoons asleep on a river bank. Kerr- and if crowds keep growing, he will re- the early 70's, which in turn had its roots ville is a seductive Hill Country quire longer stays and raise the price. In in the Cambridge folk movement. But dreamland, but it is also a vacation, a a 1976 interview he said, "I think the now the American counter-culture is very retreat, a temporary hideout from the fur- people who aren't interested in freaking much urban, even sophisticated. As an nishing merchant. But one can't stay out have got to have some place to go, "in" protest, Kerrville has been passed there. So we passed through Johnson City and this is the only place there is." by. Its innocent belief that people can and replaced Allen Damron with the In its quiet, unpublicized, non-political "come together now" to share love, English new-wave band, A Flock of way, Kerrville also protests against the peace, and goodwill has been replaced by Seagulls, and listened to their electric cold, insincere, high-tech, urban a cynical acceptance that our lives are ir- guitars and synthesizers all the way lifestyle. And it appeals most to the revocably mechanized, computerized. home: unsettled urbanite — those of us who are And Kerrville is a schizophrenic She's an automatic always complaining about city life but anachronism, for its foundations are also He's a cosmic man .. . who haven't and probably never will buy urban and technological while it pretends Where young love's forbidden, the forty acres we've been talking about they are rural. Those performers includ- You have to keep it hidden. for so long. Yet everyone from the last ed in the Kerrville family come from Modern love is automatic. of the Austin hippies to Hill Country cities, large and small, and learned their Modern love is automatic. businessmen and ranchers finds a home "folk music" and folk styles from re- Modern love is automatic. ❑

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21

people who tell it the way they think they When was the last governor of Texas see it without analyzing themselves first. who made education his number one Dialogue Granted, much that is bad and evil comes priority, who appointed a number of de- to light because of the efforts of tough cent people on our side of the political (Continued from page 3) and aggressive reporters. Would, fence to several offices, who doesn't go however, that the media could put its into ecstasy in praising the stripmining Lyndon Johnson gave the Democratic . weakest tendencies in the proper perspec- of lignite as the key to Texas energy Party what it had been dreaming and tive when it makes noises rather than production in the future, ala Clements, fighting for, on a silver platter. He made flailing away at politicians who lay their who publicly fought utility companies, all of those social programs, dreamed heads on the chopping block of partially advocated an elected PUC, initiated the about for thirty years, reality. He gave informed, misinformed or uninformed bill which made Texas the only jursidic- the thoughts of social reform life and public opinion, everytime the poor souls tion in the world to lower consumer in- possibility. The Democratic Party pro- open their mouths. terest rates, vetoed rank special interest ceeded to fail LBJ and the programs. The Back to LBJ. The only biography that measures such as one which would have Party failed to nurture those delicate new will do justice to LBJ will be the one that turned over millions of municipal tax programs. It should have, instead of is a compilation of the theses of all the dollars to billboard operators and looking forward, looked back at what LBJ biographies. It must include the another which would have the water LBJ had done, streamlined the programs, theses of his loyalists as well as his hustlers regulating private water provided good management oversight, detractors. Contemporary biographies utilities, instead of the PUC. The list made them cost effective (and proved it only seem to give vent to strange, vin- goes on. to the people), and thus permanent (so as dictive, protective, and financial motives You will pardon this reformed cynic not to be vulnerable to the attacks Reagan on the part of the authors. Only a com- (who has voted for Mark White but one and his ilk are successfully mounting). plete compilation will serve the needs of time, in the '82 general election, and The Party did not follow up on LBJ's history and subsequent generations when who worked in Bob Armstrong's cam- great work. It just stood there, wringing the LBJ period is recalled. Maybe paign) for arguing that this is a period of its hands and wondered what it could do Stephen Oates can handle the task? hope, not of despair, as far as the White to follow LBJ's act. LBJ had done it all. administration is concerned. Incidentally, when is LBJ going to get Harley Spoon, P.O. Box 2910, Room The leadership of the black caucus in some credit for, with the help of Mr. 407 B, Austin, Texas 78769. the Legislature praises him for being in- Sam, bringing Texas out of the dark strumental in pushing the Human Rela- ages? Sure, he wheeled and dealed, but tions Commission bill through the Texas and Texans benefited. . . . special session, and you weigh-in Vietnam? Ronnie Dugger gave this against him for giving up all too easily relatively fair and insightful coverage. Huzzahs from on a good version of the workers' com- Maybe he provided a little too much un- pensation bill for farmworkers. I have a qualified psychoanalysis. Caro hollered Reformed Cynic number of other reservations, also, but, and wailed with an unprofessional, emo- The mail brought your latest issue, on balance, I think it distorted, inac- tional vilification. He certainly didn't containing the editorial despairing of curate and far too premature to evaluate provide anything of historical Gov. Mark White, on the very same day his record as you did. significance. Reedy's coverage of the that the Governor's office announced Bearing in mind that Mark White Vietnam chapter was a good bit better the appointment of Randy Parten to comes out of the Dolph Briscoe camp, than Oates' criticism. It is sad that represent Madison County on the Trini- got his start as an Assistant Attorney Presidents have to lie and hide things ty River Authority Board of Directors. General under Waggoner Carr, and has from the American people, but we have I wired Gov. White that this was the never been supported by our kind of so many professional "consciences" and greatest appointment made to a Texas folks in any primary elections, this guy idealists running around these days, mut- river authority by any governor of has, so far, shown himself to be some- tering and whining and "exposing". Texas since James V. Allred appointed one with a decent set of priorities, an Most of them have never been down in Ralph Yarborough to the original board opponent of the Reagan administration the real trenches. Hell, most of them of directors of the Lower Colorado and the Reagan philosophy on educa- never go to a real precinct convention, River Authority in 1935. Parten not tion, and someone who plays fair with much less participate in one. How can only knows how to spell the word en- those who in the past opposed him they really understand the realities of the vironment, he has the competence and politically. political world? .. . the guts to fight for it amongst the Dave Shapiro, 1108 Lavaca, Suite A President, even a state represen- Clements' yahoos, land promoters, 100, Austin, TX 78701. tative, cannot tell a writer anything in bankers and assorted utility holding total candor because it will be geared or company stooges who will now be his perverted to the point that it will be colleagues. unrecognizable (in print or on the air) to In the very same issue with your the one who said it. Many of the prob- editorial announcing, prematurely, in CAPITOL EXECUTIVE SERVICES lems of an open society, many of the my opinion, that White has reverted to SPECIALIZING IN episodes when politicians lie or hide in- his old ways, Pauline Sullivan (sic) CORPORATE CHARTER FILINGS formation, much of the misformation that writes that his leadership was essential DOCUMENT RETRIEVAL/STATE AGENCIES finally filters itself to the public can be to the success of the prison reform LEGAL BRIEF FILINGS laid at the hands of the unethical, emo- 1212 GUADALUPE, SUITE 107, AUSTIN package which CURE supported in the TEXAS 78701 (512)478-2557 tional, biased, and incompetent media Legislature. 22 AUGUST 5, 1983 ° SOCIAL CAUSE CALENDAR° Notices on upcoming events must reach ly thanks those friends who helped with the up- SOVIET . TALK dating task. the Observer at least three weeks in Corbin Lyday, Strebe Jesuit High School advance. teacher who lived as an interpreter in the HOUSTON Soviet Union, will speak on "What About ACLU, 524-5925; ACORN, 523-6989; HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI the Russians?", August 14, 11:15 a.m., Americans for Democratic Action, 669-0880; REMEMBERED First Unitarian Church, 5210 Fannin, Amnesty Intl., 626-0625; Casa Juan Diego, The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Houston. 869-7376; Centro Para Inmigrantes de Houston, 228-0091; CISPES, 524-4801; Nagasaki, August 6 and 8, 1945, will be GAY FIESTA Citizens' Anti-Nuclear Info. Team (CAN IT), commemorated by Texans at memorial ser- The 3rd Annual Texas Gay Fiesta will 522-3343; Citizens' Environmental Coalition, vices to express hope for the future and be in San Antonio, August 21, noon-8 523-3431; Citizens' Party, 434-1350; Demo. strengthen participants' commitment to p.m., La Villita Assembly Hall, with Socialists of America (DSA), 645-6522; Gay peace. Events include: music, dancing, and entertainment. $2 ad- Political Caucus, 521-1000; Harris Co. Con- cerned Women, 674-0968; Houston Anti-Draft Houston — Hiroshima-Nagasaki vance, $3 at the door. Call: Gay Switch- Remembrance Peace Rally for Our Future, Coalition, 529-4087; Houston Area Women's board (512) 733-7300 for ticket informa- Center, 528-6798; Houston Nonviolent Action, Hermann Park Pavilion Area, August 7, tion. The statewide meeting of the Texas 661-9889; Houston War Tax Resistance, 2-8:30 p.m., music, theatre, new games, Gay-Lesbian Task Force will also be in San 661-9889; Interfaith Cmte. on Central art show, and speakers including Sissy Antonio, August 20. Call the Gay Switch- America, 526-3276; Interfaith Peaceforce of Farenthold, Sharon Itaya, M.D., and Rev. board for tickets to a reception honoring Houston, 688-3803; Lesbian and Gay Demos. Ben Skyles. Call Interfaith Peaceforce of Gay-Lesbian leaders; $5. of Texas, 521-1000; Metropolitan Organiza- Houston, (713) 524-2682, for more infor- tion, 868-1429; NAACP, 526-3389; NICASOL BUSES TO D.C. mation. A fast preceding the rally will be (Nicaraguan Solidarity), 522-0619; North Har- coordinated by Paul Baer and the Houston Texans will be leaving August 23 -24 for ris Co. Demos., Box 90704, 77290; NOW, Hunger Coalition, (713) 522-3955 ext. 203, the August 27 Jobs, Peace, and Freedom 522-6673; Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, 522-2422; Park People, Inc., 741-2524; Physi- or 729-0100. March to commemorate the march on Washington at which Rev. Martin Luther cians for Social Responsibility, 669-9075; San Antonio — Peace and justice groups King, Jr. made his "I Have a Dream" Pueblo to People, 523-1197; Senate Dist. 15 will hold a dinner, film showing, and ser- Demos., 862-8431; Sierra Club, 523-3431; speech. For travel information call: Austin, vice on August 7. Call Judy Wade, (512) Southern Africa Task Force, 528-1225; Tx. 736-2587, for time and place. (512) 474-2399; San Antonio, Mario Salas, Abortion Rights Action League (TARAL), (512) 737-0195, or 224-2351; Houston, 520-0850; Tx. Coalition of Black Demos., Austin — A Floating Lantern Ceremony, (713) 521-0104; Dallas, (214) 337-5885. 674-0968; Tx. Fathers for Equal Rights, like that held annually in Hiroshima, will 960-0407; Toxic Substances Task Force, be sponsored by peace organizations on COMING ATTRACTION 523-3431; Women's Lobby Alliance, 521-0439. August 6, 8:15 p.m., Lou Neff Gazebo A statewide march in Austin on October (where Barton Creek joins Town Lake). 22 will call for a freeze and reduction of The Gagaku Group will play traditional nuclear weapons, a stop to interventionist Japanese music; Nina Butts and Roger Dun- foreign policy, and redirection of military can will speak. The Austin Peace and spending to meet human needs. Folks from Justice Coalition will have a benefit Texas interested in participating should call Japanese style picnic before the ceremony, (512) 474-2399 or 474-5877. 6 p.m., Zilker Park (signs will direct to place), $5. APJC request that picnickers fast Progressive Organizations that day. Letitia Blalock, 479-6258, has For some weeks now, the Observer has been details. updating its mailing list of progressive organiza- tions. Those groups that did not respond to our Amarillo — The Plowshares Pilgrimage mailing, or could not be reached by phone or arrives August 4 or 5 at Pantex. A vigil, mail, were dropped from the list. Please send us fast, and service will be August 6 - 9. Call the name, address, and phone number of any Fine Food and Drink located behind the Steve Schroeder at (806) 373-8668 for more group we've omitted. The list is available for a information. $5 processing fee to any group deemed pro- historic Tarpon Inn, Port Aransas. gressive in purpose. We expect to begin filling Open Daily. (512) 749.5555 PEACE LIBRARY orders for the list in June. The Observer especial- Peace groups in San Antonio have an- nounced the arrival of peace education workers John and Sharon Miller, Men- nonite Voluntary Services, who will establish a peace resource library and CHEESE reading room at the St. Paul Community Drug Store, 1156 E. Commerce, (512) 266-0636; free to the public. ti CAKE PREVENTING EUROSHIMA An organizer's guide for designing a ON THE RNERWALK local campaign against deployment of the SERVING SANDWICHES TO SEAFOOD, cruise and Pershing II missiles in Europe ael FROM 11:30 UNTIL 11:30 is now available from the Mobilization for Survival. $3 each, $2.25 each for 10 or EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK; 4kan9aroo more to MFS, 853 Broadway, Suite 2109, OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT N.Y., N.Y. 10003. IN THE METRO CENTER, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS Court

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24 AUGUST 5, 1983 Olillikutiosuemaa.