Friday. November 7, [969

SCARLET AND BLACK

Page Eleven

No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
As i have seen in one autumnal face.

Elegies. IX. The Autumnal
John Donne

FALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID SNYDER

' FALL FREAK-OUT

By Mark Graeser

”Cheer up brothers,
Live in the sunshine,
We'll understand it all
Bye and bye.”

when I heard old country Ere
nest Tubbs on the radio yester-
day twanging out this lyric ol
'the old ile Spiritual “Farther
Along”, I scarcely realized how
prophetic it was. I should have
guessed it when I joined the
crowd ill front oi the Forum
yesterday afternoon. There they
were suddenly, a bunch of jest
plain folks drinkin’ beer, smilin’
on their brothers, and soaking
up the spectacular autumn sun»
shine.

And then old Slim and the
boys came on with their in
struments, pluckin’ out some
tunes for the folks. Soon people
commenced to dance up a
storm, do—si-doing and swingin’
the gals round and round.

The dancing got faster, and
the clapping and yelling louder,
until nearly everyone was
stretched out snake-dancing,
winding around the trees on
Central Campus faster and last-
er til the snake's back broke,
strewing people llatbacked all
over the leaf-crinkled ground.

The din dulled momentarily
when an uptight Dean Conney
Kimbo stomped up to the scene
of the crime to tell the Cole-
brants to “get rid of the beer"
because “drinking in public like
this is illegal.” The swarms re-
sponded by clapping up a last
rhythm and dancing to it. The
dean turned around, and strode
back to Burling Basement —
ignored.

Again the snake arose. slither-
ing toward the forbidden fruit,
the library. There the snake
dissolved, and. . .Genesis. . .an
egg hatched. .and there
emerged a student body breath-

ing, touching itself, and taking
its first step.

“Let's levitate the library",
someone shouted.

“Levitate! Levitate! Levi—
tate!" everyone cried, watching
to see it the building moved.
Why didn't it rise? “It’s the
evil spirits”, laughed someone
in front.

Dancing hand in hand around
the library, the motley group
chanted “evil spirits” in unison
as they exorcized the devils,
then regrouped in front of the
library. Though still impulsive
and capricious the group began
to blend culture and politics,
Chanting “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh,
NLF is going to win.”

The group, now about 150
strong, entered the library and
began walking quietly down the
aisles to the strumming of its
minstrels. The inhabitants of
the library viewed the horde
with mixed reactions: some
openly laughed and joined in,
others burrowed their eyes deep
inside their books ignoring the
whole crazy procession.

Once outside, the folks headed
toward the Forum, chanting. ap-
propriately, "Forum! Forum!"
As the crowd wound through the
grill toward the North lounge,
tlley chanted “2, 4, 6, 8, we are
going to liberate!” 7

In the North lounge people
swarmed around the middle of
the room brushing against each
other, laughing, shouting and
dancing to music inside their
heads, Again the snake. and
coils Dl bodies bounced and
breathed the electric air.

Steppenwolt's “Born to be
Wild” lunged from the juke box
shattering the snake into n hun-
dred dancing figures Among the
crowd were several people that
I have never seen dance before.

Then the mellow Youngbloods
Came on with ”Get Together,"

and the folks just sat on the
floor and listened again to a
song they knew and felt by
heart.

It was by now 5:20 and time
to go to the Quad for early din—
ner. Chanting again “Ho Ho Ho
Chi Minh, the NLF is going to
win," they walked past the
Coats and ties waiting for the
doors to open and walked thru
the gates.

Once inside, they filed past
the slack-jawed Saga workers
and sat around a rather large
number of tables, for they still
numbered around 100.

None wore ties, a few were
barefoot, everyone was noisy,
and they hadn’t bothered to
knock before coming inside.

They must have seemed an
awesome beast, but they were
served their mystery meat along
with the rest. There weren‘t
many complaints about the food
since mostly people were too
busy singing.

They sang “Home, Home on
the Range," “Iowa" (the state
song I think), “She’ll be com-
in‘ 'round the mountain," and
a version of “Star-Spangled
Banner" that you’ve never seen
at a baseball game. The anthem
was accompanied by raised
clenched fists, signifying “Pow
er to the People."

Some chants included:
“ecstacy,” ”Alka - Seltzer,"
“apathy," “cream pull," “dare
to struggle, dare to win," and
the old favorite, “Gimme an
F . . . Gimme: an , . . gimme
a C . . . ”

Before leaving, the folks
stacked their dishes to ease
the clean-up, then tiled back
out past an amazed, disgusted,
delighted, smiling, and scowl-
ing, sea of faces.

The day, then, was over.

But even those who were

It might have been the 70 degree sunshine or it might have
been the beer, but this fellow seems to be “grooving on the
vibes” at yesterday’s fall freak-out.

not involved in any way yes~
Lerday will probably realize
that there was a dawning of
something that is not going to
disappear for some time.

Outstanding in the character
of the event was the diversity
of the people involved. The
crowd looked like a random
section of a dinner line, freak
and straights alike,

That such a group could
have (used as it did was may
be because of the sunshine; or

perhaps it was all that beer,
But probably more likely is
that students are finally ieel—
ing a unity, and a community
is developing from it with its
own cultural and political view.

It’s very late as I write this
and it's all verbal bullshit any-
way. As Mrr Tubbs says,
“We’ll understand it all by and
by.”

In the meanlime, let’s feel
the sun’s warmth together, an
wait for the dawn. ,

 

