Anniversaries

Anniversaries

Noel Laflin

5-4-19

It’s the anniversary of the Kent State shootings forty-nine years ago today.

You know how you can recall being in a particular place when hearing bad news? For me, it was a 5th grade classroom when learning of the Kennedy assassination - the teacher left the room mumbling how he'd not voted for the man; standing in the living room when Krysten’s mom calls to tell me to turn on the TV on a September morning in 2001 - Krys was still asleep on the couch; sitting in a chair at work when news of the Challenger disaster broke - I went to my car to listen to the radio and cry; or awaking to my folks staring blankly in front of the old black and white television learning about a man named Sirhan Sirhan in early June of 1968 - it my mother’s birthday that morning.

And so I vividly remember being in my best friend’s living room when the news of Kent State hit the airwaves. I was 17 and Kris was 19. We had grown up just three doors down from one another, shared childhood and adolescence together, and I had seen him in some angry moods before, but never like this. His rage was intense.

I guess we were at an age where we could relate to those kids in Ohio. And although it was not mentioned at the time, I think that my old best friend and I suddenly realized that our childhood was no more.