Blowing in the Wind

Just Act like you know what you are doing---------

There was a credo by which we operated when I was in college at David Lipscomb in Nashville, and it was “just act like you know what you are doing and no one will question you.” Using this theory, we were able to do a number of foolish things that college students engage in just to make sure the world knows you are alive. For instance, once a friend of mine and myself removed a Grecian column from the stage of Alumni Auditorium posing as workmen and relocated in the center of my room, because we thought it gave the room a nice mediterranian flavor. We also had heard that priests were allowed to ride city busses without the standard fare and turned our shirts and vests backward, put the suit on the right way and simply walked around Nashville posing as priests not because we wanted to acomplish anything, just because we wanted to know if it would work. I suspect it did not!
It was in Nashville that I learned about race relations outside of the sheltered environment of Carthage. By early 1964 sit ins, and freedom marches were beginning to occur all over the south and Nashville was no exception. I had developed a keen interest in photography by that time and when we heard on campus that a freedom march was scheduled down by Vanderbilt, I loaded up my trusty camera and headed that way. I was stationed at the old Holiday Inn on West End where it forks off from broad and it was the epicenter of the action that day. I watched as the nicely dressed young “negro” marchers came down Broadway and out to the Holiday Inn where they began to sit down in the roadway. The Nashville Police moved in quickly, first telling them that they had to keep moving and could not block the street, and then announcing over a bull horn that they would be arrested if they failed to disperse in short order. When no movement was evident, the police began to arrest them, tossing the passive resisters roughhly into paddy wagons for the ride downtown. It was one of those near out of body experiences for me, like it was not I who was there and watching this, but that I was simply watching someone who looked like me watching the show in front of me. I kept trying to sort out how I was feeling about this whole thing. My emotions ranged from “how dare they act like this, they are breaking the law?” to “they aren’t doing anything wrong and besides what is the big deal of eating at a lunch counter anyway?” My guess is that most young people were like me - and not sure how to sort out how they felt, or even how they were supposed to feel.
I found out from a policeman what was going to happen next and made my way down to the Davidson county courthouse where those arrested were herded inside a large courtroom. With my trusty camera as my entrance pass and the newly learned college motto of “just act like you know what you are doing,” I marched into the courtroom along with real reporters and photographers. Once inside someone must have taken a good look at this kid with a cheap camera and decided a few questions were in order. A court bailiff approached me and asked, “who are you representing?’ Since I couldn’t summon up a lie that quickly, I simply said, “I’m a freelance guy.” “Alright, kid out of here” and I was unceremoniously escorted into the hallway with the masses. That marked the end of my journalistic career. But to this day I wonder about the young people my age that I watched that day. Where are they and how do they remember the event? It was a turning point of some kind in my own life and for the first time I began to feel a part of the sixties, with all of the turbulence that entailed. Not that I grew my hair long and started wearing sandals, but I did understand the words of folk music like Peter, Paul and Mary in a different way.

How many times can a man turn his head
and pretend that he just doesn’t see?
And how many years must some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
The answer my friend is Blowing in the Wind.

And it was. What do you remember about that time???

Have a blessed day. Bob