Stories From People Who Became Witnesses to History

Horror of Kent State

Dean R. Kahler, 72, retired civil servant and schoolteacher, on surviving the shootings that changed America

I started at Kent State University in the spring of 1970, at 20 years old.

I had never been to an anti-war demonstration, because if you worked on a farm or in a steel mill, as I had, there was no time for such things. I was the son of a World War II veteran, and I was involved in my church. On the night of April 30, I was in a pub in the town of Kent, listening to President Nixon’s speech. When the president announced that U.S. troops would be invading Cambodia, the pub erupted in boos. It seemed like this was going to be an expansion of the war instead of a reduction. Students were angry, me included. I went home for the weekend, and while I was gone, protesters burned an ROTC building. When I returned to campus Sunday evening, the place was like an armed camp. National Guard troops were everywhere. It was shocking, because this was rural Ohio — not exactly a hotbed of liberal thinking.

The next day, May 4, I figured I would go to the protest that was to start at noon. There were two or three thousand people gathered, shouting anti-war chants. The National Guard troops were there, putting on their gas masks and helmets. At one point, some troops came out in a Jeep with a campus police officer holding a bullhorn. If we didn’t disperse, he said, the National Guard would disperse us. That didn’t go over well. So, the National Guard troops got into formation and began firing tear gas. There was chaos. I ended up in a gravel parking lot wiping tear gas out of my eyes and nose.

I remained about 100 yards from the troops. I watched as they formed two lines, with their rifles and bayonets forward. They began to march toward a crowd of students, who cleared a path for them. The troops reached the top of a hill. I was at the bottom. They turned in unison and aimed their weapons down the hill. I thought, My God! They’re going to shoot!

I jumped down and covered my head, and all of a sudden, I heard bullets hitting the ground around me, making this zoooop sound. Then I felt something like a beesting in my back, and I felt my legs tighten up, then relax. When the shooting stopped, there was this awful silence. Then people started seeing the bodies, and the chaos resumed. Four young people were killed by National Guard troops, and many more lay heavily injured.

I ended up at Robinson Memorial Hospital, still conscious. They put me in an induced coma after surgery. When I awoke days later and learned of my fate, I was angry. But when the doctors told me what they had told my parents, I felt truly thankful to be alive. They told my parents to pray for me to survive one hour. And if I did, then to pray that I would survive two hours. And if I made it 12 hours, I would probably survive.

I have lived 52 years as a paraplegic. I have had a rewarding career, and I am a wheelchair runner currently training for my third marathon. I still feel today the way I did when I awoke in the hospital: thankful to be alive.

‘I’ve seen the promised land’

Clara Jean Ester, 74, a community organizer, on the last moments of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life

The church was packed. There were people standing in the aisles of the Mason Temple. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis, but there was a tornado watch, and he had been advised to stay at the Lorraine Motel. Ralph Abernathy would do the talking this night. There were so many people! Somebody called Dr. King and said, “The people didn’t come to hear Ralph. They came to hear you. You need to get dressed and come down here.” I was a junior at LeMoyne College in Memphis and very engaged in the movement. There was a sanitation strike going on, and Dr. King had come to lead a nonviolent protest in support of the workers. When he came to the Mason Temple that night to speak — April 3, 1968 — I was there. No one could know that this was the last speech he would ever make. He started to talk about his life story. In retrospect, it was like he was giving his own eulogy. He said he knew there had been threats on his life, but that didn’t matter. “Because I’ve been to the mountaintop,” he said, “and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” The feeling in the church when he said these words was indescribable.

The next day, Dr. King had catfish for lunch at the Lorraine Motel, and fellow organizer James Orange said that this catfish was so good, he wanted to treat everyone. I was at the Clayborn Temple, and I got in my car to drive to the Lorraine Motel, with my car full of people. When we got there, we headed for the lobby entrance. Dr. King came out of his room (just above us on a balcony), and I could see him talking to some people and smiling. Someone told him to go back and get a coat because it was going to get a little cooler at night. He turned, but Ralph Abernathy stopped him and said he would get the coat.

Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a truck backfiring and people saying, “Get down! Get down!” I took off up the stairs. Dr. King was flat on his back. I tried to grab his wrist to take his pulse. I was on the side where the wound was. He was losing a lot of blood. I could see his chest rising, so I thought, That’s a good sign. He’s still alive.

His eyes were open and looking upward. All I could think about was his speech from the night before, when he said, “I may not get there with you.” Soon police officers arrived and the ambulance got there with the stretcher. The police wouldn’t let us leave, and as we were waiting there, it came on the news that Dr. King was dead. I didn’t talk about it for a long time. I never went back to the Lorraine Motel until it became a museum. I picked up my life and kept on going. Every year, I celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday, because he was a gift from God. Every April 4, I mourn, because that gift was taken away.

‘The Giants win the pennant!’

George Hirsch, 87, founding publisher of New York magazine and chairman of New York Road Runners, on baseball’s greatest home run

On October 3, 1951, my friends and I were sitting in our homeroom class at New Rochelle High School, north of New York City — bored and frustrated 17-year-olds. That afternoon, at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan, the Brooklyn Dodgers were taking on the New York Giants in a game that would decide the National League pennant. You could not overstate how important baseball was at that time in American culture. Or how important it was to us. My buddies and I had a brainstorm. What are we doing here in class? Let’s hit the road! We snuck out of school and headed for the Polo Grounds. New York was the center of the baseball universe. All season long, the Dodgers had held a commanding lead in the standings over the Giants. But the Giants salvaged their season with a 16-game winning streak. Incredibly, the regular season ended in a dead tie. I was a Dodgers fan, and these players were my heroes — Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo.

We stood in line two hours for our tickets and paid $2 apiece. The game was so close, all 34,000-plus fans held their breath through every pitch. But in the eighth inning, Sal Maglie, the Giants’ pitcher, weakened, allowing the Dodgers to take a 4-1 lead. I’ll admit, I celebrated too early. In the bottom of the ninth, the Giants scored a run and had two men on base when Bobby Thomson came to bat. On deck stood Willie Mays, the 20-year-old rookie for whom I would later name my son. The Dodgers summoned Ralph Branca from the bullpen to replace the starter, Don “Newk” Newcombe. Branca’s first pitch was a fastball down the middle. Thomson didn’t move. The time was 3:58 p.m. In his novel Underworld, Don DeLillo describes Branca’s next pitch: “Not a good pitch to hit, up and in, but Thomson swings and tomahawks the ball and everybody, everybody watches.”

“All I can remember was the pure shock of it,” recalls my friend Steve Goddard, sitting next to me at that moment. “And then I was crying.” My friend Buster Grossman, also sitting next to me, along with our buddy Greg Dillon, recalls hearing the now-famous refrain from a nearby radio, from the announcer Russ Hodges: “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” We watched in awe as Thomson circled the bases, jumping up and down. I left the Polo Grounds that day feeling like I’d been struck by lightning, and Bobby Thomson’s home run has since become known as the shot heard round the world. Today, over 70 years later, I’m still friends with the three guys I went to see that game with. My late wife, Shay, gave me a photo autographed by Thomson and the pitcher Branca, which hangs in my office. I remember that night, when I got home, after the game. “Someday,” my father told me, “you’ll get over it.” Maybe someday I will.

‘This is the big one’

Gary Shigenaka, 68, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) emeritus scientist, on the Exxon Valdez spill

On March 24, 1989, I was working in the offices of NOAA in Seattle when I heard a commotion down the hall. People from our Hazardous Material Response Branch were scrambling, and I heard the head of that team say the words, “This is the big one.” That’s when I learned that the supertanker Exxon Valdez had run aground off the coast of Alaska. The hazmat team was dispatched as the first responders, and my scientific research group quickly followed. The federal government is not known for getting things done quickly, but in an amazingly short time, NOAA took an old mothballed hydrographic-survey ship called the Fairweather, which was outfitted to gather information for nautical charts, and turned it into a scientific-research vessel.

In May, I flew from Seattle to meet the ship in Cordova, Alaska, and our mission began. The first time I grasped the magnitude of this catastrophe was when I saw the Exxon Valdez, which had been moved from Bligh Reef, where it ran aground, to an anchorage off Naked Island. This ship was longer than three football fields.

Eleven million gallons of crude oil had been dumped into this pristine body of water. When you looked at Prince William Sound’s shoreline, you thought, How can this environment ever recover? My team began its work, moving through the sound on a launch, taking samples of water and fish. Early in our work in 1989, the crew aboard the Exxon Valdez noticed that schools of fish were swimming into a cargo space that had once held oil but had been ripped open. I was part of a team that boarded the ship to catch these fish and study them.

One of the most important things we discovered was that our cleanup methods were not what we had hoped. We needed scientific research, and I took over a program to study how the shorelines recovered not just from oil exposure but from how we remedied it. So, in effect, the Exxon Valdez determined the direction of my career for the next 20 years, studying how to respond better to spills in natural habitats. That research — not just by me, but by many others as well — changed the way first responders do their work.

I have a collection of memorabilia from the Exxon Valdez, including glasses used during the christening, with “Exxon Valdez, September 20, 1986” etched into the glass, and a jar of crude oil gathered off an Alaskan beach. When I look back, it amazes me how much the Alaskan ecosystem recovered. If you went now and kayaked off the shores of Prince William Sound, you’d never know this catastrophe happened here. The resiliency of the natural world continues to inspire me.

The Fab Four arrive in San Francisco

Jesse Bravo, 83, freelance photographer, on the day the Beatles first landed on the West Coast

I was a photojournalist, and a friend of mine was a writer at the San Mateo Times. The Beatles were coming into town for their first West Coast appearance.

“We’d like to cover the kids, the audience,” my friend told me. “It might be hard to do, but I’d love to have all four of the Beatles in one picture.”

I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

So, I got to San Francisco Airport early. Already, there were packs of girls and some boys crowded onto the tarmac there, waiting for the plane to land. This was a different era, when people could walk onto the tarmac at the airport.

The Beatles landed, and they walked out of the airplane in single file, on a set of stairs rolled up to the plane. I noticed right away that they all looked tired. I thought, How am I going to get a photo of all these guys together?

So, I had an idea.

I walked up the stairs, blocking their way down. I said, “Guys, stop.” So they did. I said, “Guys, get together.” So they did. They hadn’t even gotten their feet on the ground yet.

And the manager, in the back, said something to them. They started laughing. I had one shot. I had the camera prefocused. The cameras were all manual in those days. And I knew that if I had any chance to get this picture, I was likely to be 8 to 10 feet away from them.

I always used a flash in my outdoor photography, to get the shadows out of the eyes and so forth. All the other photographers used 35s. I had a Rolleiflex camera with a strobe, and I had to carry a battery pack, a pretty good size in those days, for the strobe. The pack weighed about 6 or 8 pounds. It was heavy.

The date was August 19, 1964.

The Beatles were big. Huge. The phenomenon was new. They were the first ones to attract that many people.

I got to like their music later when they came out with Sgt. Pepper. But at the beginning, they just played the pop stuff. I got to appreciate who they were later.

At the Cow Palace, where they performed, I have pictures of the crowds, girls screaming and yelling. There’s a picture that I have on the floor; kids were throwing jelly beans at them. Because in England, they’d throw jelly babies when they performed. But in England, jelly babies were soft, like gummy bears. But here, jelly beans were hard, like rocks. They’d throw those at them. The floor was covered with them. I picked one up and put it in my pocket, and I gave it to my younger sister, who was a Beatles fan. She kept it for years.

The Miracle on Ice

When the U.S. beat the Soviets in 1980, Steve Yianoukos, 73, now a retired Clarkson University athletic director, had the best seat in the house

A couple weeks before the Olympics started in Lake Placid, New York, in 1980, I got a call from a friend who was in charge of the arena. “I’m short on Zamboni drivers,” he told me. “You want a job?” So, when the U.S. Olympic hockey team was scheduled to play the U.S.S.R., I was in charge of the ice. There was so much excitement, because nobody expected the U.S. team to get this far. The Soviets had the best team in the world, and they had not lost an Olympic game since 1968.

When the players came out for warm-ups — the Americans on one side of the rink, in red, white and blue, and the Red Army (as the Soviet team was called) on the other — that’s when the crowd started the chant: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” You have to remember, at that time the U.S. was at a low point. The Soviets were in Afghanistan. We had the hostages in Iran. And the American Olympic hockey team hadn’t been very good. I came out on the Zamboni and did the ice right up to the minute the game started. I’d been to the World Series, to Final Four basketball, to the Stanley Cup Final. But I’d never experienced anything like the intensity in that arena.

As the first period was played, the Zamboni was off the ice behind a curtain, so I couldn’t see much. But in the final second, when Mark Johnson scored for the U.S., tying the game 2-2, my job was to come out to do the ice. When Johnson scored that goal, the crowds were going ballistic. I did my job, motoring around the ice like it was any other game.

After the second period, I had another guy doing the ice, so I could sit and watch. Visualize an ice rink. There are double doors that open to let the Zamboni onto the ice, and to the right of that is this area where, during figure skating competitions, the announcers do their broadcast. This is where the skaters get interviewed. But for hockey games, the announcers Al Michaels and Ken Dryden were up in the press box. So, I had a seat in this area, right behind the Soviet goal.

The Red Army was leading, 3-2. When Mark Johnson scored the tying goal and Mike Eruzione scored the go-ahead, I was right behind the net. The ABC cameraman was a friend of mine. At one point, earlier in the week, I’d helped his wife get a seat for a game and he’d said to me, “I’m going to get you on TV.” So, when Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal — the most famous hockey goal in Olympic history — the camera cut from him to the U.S. bench, where you see coach Herb Brooks, and then directly to me. I’m wearing a red, white and blue sweat suit. You can see it on YouTube.

When the game ended, fans littered the ice with bottles, shirts and programs. There was another game scheduled, so out I go to clean the ice. But when I finally got outside that night, the scene in Lake Placid was like Mardi Gras. You have to remember how much people did not like the Soviets at that time. It seemed like all these other countries — the Swedes, the Germans, everybody — wanted the U.S. to win.

It remains one of the greatest sports upsets in history. That’s why they call it the Miracle on Ice.

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away

Artist Chris Canole, 75, on attending the 1977 premiere of Star Wars

In 1977, I moved from California to New York, to become the city’s first artist in residence, working for the Parks Department. I was new in Manhattan when the film critic at the Village Voice newspaper gave me a free ticket to this movie that was coming out. So, on May 25, 1977, I went to a matinee by myself.

That afternoon, I stood on line at the Loews theater in Times Square. The line was a half-block long, and I do not believe the theater had sold out. Nobody had any idea of what we were about to see. I’d seen George Lucas’ hit movie American Graffiti, so I figured his new movie was going to be pretty good. But there was no hype. None at all. A New York Times photographer was there taking photos, which I thought was odd. Why the photog? There didn’t seem to be anything newsy about what was happening. We were just a bunch of people lined up to see a movie.

I grabbed a seat near the front row. Then suddenly everything went dark, there was an explosion of sound, and the words “STAR WARS” appeared on the screen. Within one second, this film had already made cinema history. Nothing like this had ever been seen. Then the iconic title roll started. Here again was a movie first for me. We were all on the edge of our seats, focused on reading the title roll as the words moved up the screen, because there was a lot of information to digest. When the first Star Destroyer flew into vision, everyone went nuts. Then we were all dropped into this world, where a battle was occurring and soldiers were firing laser blasts from pistols, and here were these characters, C-3PO and R2-D2, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. We were transported into this fictional universe, and I was overcome with emotion. You have to realize: I was a 30-year-old man. But these were not the emotions of a 30-year-old man. These were teenage emotions.

When the movie ended, there were so many questions left unanswered, so I knew that there would be more films. That, too, was exciting — the idea that you weren’t just watching a movie but entering into a story that had no end in sight. Everyone in the theater wandered out without going anywhere. We were all just stunned. But when we got outside, I saw that now there was a line around the block. It seemed like the word had already gotten out — that this wasn’t just a movie but something indescribably more.

Ever since, Star Wars has played a role in my life. At one time I owned a cape worn by Alec Guinness in his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi. My last name sounds the same as the Italian pastry “cannoli,” so people started calling me Obi-Wan Canole. In 2015, I created a character called Dude Vader, and I’ve attended hundreds of charity events in my costume, which has been trademarked by Lucasfilm.

This May 25th marked 45 years since that wonderful day. Just as I thought would happen back in 1977, the story hasn’t ended and the films keep coming. I feel so blessed to have watched it all happen from the moment it began.

First flight of the space shuttle

Astronaut Robert Crippen, 84, on witnessing the flight of the Columbia, from within the cockpit

In 1973, I was assigned by NASA to a new program developing the space shuttle, which would be the first winged and reusable spacecraft ever built. Being a test pilot, I found the fact that this vehicle was going to have wings and was going to land on a runway appealing. For nearly eight years, I followed the development closely. So, you can imagine how excited Commander John Young and I were to launch the first space shuttle, Columbia. John was a veteran of the Apollo and Gemini programs and had flown in space before. I had not.

On April 12, 1981 — launch day — we awoke in crew quarters on the third floor of the Kennedy Space Center. They fed us too big of a meal — steak and eggs. Doctors did a cursory check to make sure we were healthy. We climbed into our space suits and went through all our protocols. When it was time, we went downstairs and a little van took us to the launchpad. Already, we’d had an aborted launch, so it wasn’t until the countdown got under one minute that I turned to John and said, “I think we might actually do it.”

At that point, my heart rate went up to about 130. We had been waiting a long time to do this. We knew that the whole world was watching, but we never focused on that aspect of it. This was a complicated vehicle, and we were focused on making sure the flight was successful. The final seconds seemed to stretch out forever.

“Three … two … one …”

Earlier rockets accelerated kind of slowly from the pad. Not so with these big solid rockets. When the Columbia launched, we felt an almost instantaneous G and a half. The solid rockets put out more power than we had planned for, so we flew significantly higher than the trajectory we had agreed upon. After about two minutes, we jettisoned the solid rockets. From zero to 17,500 miles per hour took about eight and a half minutes. But once you’re in orbit, up around 120,000 feet above the Earth, you don’t feel any sensation of speed. It’s a delightful feeling to be weightless and floating around. We were circling the globe every hour or so, and the view of Earth from the windows was indescribable.

That first space shuttle mission took a little over two days, as it was largely a test mission, to see if we could get this vehicle into orbit. When we were coming down, John took the control and we banked left to line up with the runway at Edwards Air Force Base. Through the window on his side, I could see that thousands of people were standing in the dry lake bed watching us.

“I hope they’re not standing on the runway, too,” I said.