“I have often mentioned to friends of mine the experiences I had during that time. Honestly, I can say the rank-and-file students like myself didn’t really have a clue as to what all was happening around campus. Contrary to popular belief, the percentage of ‘involved’ students was very small, probably a lot like today when small groups get lots of attention at times.

I was a graduating senior in Education, so I was student teaching at Bexley Junior High School at the time. I was only taking one elective class on campus. It was very disconcerting to graduating seniors in particular, because once the campus closed down, it was heavily rumored that it would not re-open, and it would be a lost quarter. Even though the campus was closed, those of us student teaching stayed in our schools and continued with our student teaching responsibilities. Eventually, campus re-opened and we were able to continue with our classes and graduation.

However, another important aspect for me was taken away: I had a goal to raise my GPA to a certain level for future schooling considerations, but, all classes were graded as pass-fail only that quarter. All GPAs remained the same, unless a class was failed. That hurt me personally more than anything. I truly believe grades were much harder to get in those days (it could be that I worked 30-35 hours a week, as well), and I so looked forward to the opportunity to reach my goal. It didn’t happen.

The presence of the National Guardsmen was obvious, but to a lot of us they did not pose a threat. I worked evenings at the Main Library in Special Materials in the basement, but I would go up in the stacks and look out on the Oval before I left in the evening to see what was happening. I lived off-campus in an apartment on Alden Avenue off Fourth, quite a distance from campus. Those away from campus could not see or hear anything about what was going on until they got to campus. But I had parked over by Lane and Neil, and one evening on my way to the car, I had to break into a dead run to avoid being trampled by a large group of students charging down a side street from the Oval. They were being forced back by tear gas, which I got a good dose of just running past the street. I did NOT want to be a part of any of the protest groups, but I inadvertently became a part just trying to escape.

Those were memorable times for sure. I did see the seeds of some of the discontent building a year or two before that. I worked Sunday afternoons as a busboy and a soda jerk in the Tavern in the Student Union and saw and overheard many small impromptu student activist groups in some intense discussion over campus and world events. I heard enough to know that the resistance was not going away.

Interestingly, some of those same students were in a history class I was in as a sophomore. I had signed up for American History, but, when I showed up for class, the class had been changed to Black History (same course number), and out of 60 students, four of us were Caucasian. Somehow, the word was out about the new class. The interesting part was that several students were avowed Black Panthers and pretty much dominated the class, with quite a bit of discussion about guns and shots fired into bedrooms at night. It was a learning experience, and I did see pretty clearly what the future was holding.

It was a difficult time on campus for most everyone – another aspect for me was the lost income from my library job. I put myself totally through school and that lost couple weeks put a pretty tight squeeze on my budget. I believe that 11-cent cans of tomato soup made up my primary meals for a good long while! Probably the more well-to-do students didn’t have as many anxieties, as a lost quarter for them would not be out of their pockets and they may not have had to worry much about their jobs. But, for some of us, about everything a lot of people take for granted was greatly magnified.

I did get the opportunity to go on to graduate school and got my master’s in counseling at Xavier [University] in 1974, so I was able to overcome that small hurdle. I retired after 31 years in education, 30 as a high school counselor.”

-Leon Bradley