About a month ago a neighbor
of ours invited us to come watch his students make paper. This was definitely not
a school art project. Our neighbor is Klaus Doelle, professor of paper and
bioprocess engineering at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
(SUNY-ESF). He teaches a course on commercial papermaking. As their senior
project the students get to operate a full-scale commercial papermaking
machine. The students analyze, design and make the paper to given
specifications. ESF owns a large papermaking machine that is used primarily for
this course.
The ESF papermaking machine
is in operation only one day a year. Because Klaus knew my wife, Merry, is
intrigued by papermaking, he let us know in advance when the run was scheduled
and provided us with a parking pass. On a nice April day we proceeded to the
basement of Walters Hall on the ESF campus. As soon as we entered the building
we could hear the whine of the papermaking machine. Even without directions, it
was easy to find.
Klaus met us at the entrance
to the room housing the giant machine. He provided us with ear protection and
safety goggles. There were only two other visitors, a man my age and a young
woman, probably his granddaughter, who is a current Syracuse University
student. Klaus gave us a quick safety briefing: “Don’t touch anything and watch
out, the floor is wet.”
Watching a papermaking
machine operate is truly cool. I'm not going to describe the process here
because there is an excellent video on the ESF website that you can watch by
following this link: http://www.esf.edu/pbe/
We finished watching the
machine then spent some time examining samples of previous student paper
including one that incorporated glitter (“we’ll never do that again”), one that
used shredded money and one that used the shredded Rockefeller Center Christmas
tree.
We were walking to the lab
where the students derive and test their paper formula when it happened. The
other man on the tour suddenly turned to Klaus and told him that the barrel of
muriatic acid sitting against the wall in the hallway reminded him of an
important event in ESF history.
It turns out the other
fellow is an ESF alumni who graduated in 1970. He recounted how after students
were killed at Kent State the students at Syracuse University went on strike
and closed down the campus. Not only were classes cancelled, student strikers
built makeshift barricades blocking all campus entrances, including those to
ESF with which they share the campus.
Senior engineering
students at ESF, including the fellow on the tour, decided to take matters into
their own hands. They were all skilled heavy equipment operators and had access
to ESF loaders, backhoes, etc. Armed with their big toys, they proceeded to
demolish the road barricades around ESF. The protestors, however, did not give
up easily. They rushed into the road and blocked it with their bodies. A brief stalemate
ensued as the ESF engineers were loath to run their fellow students down and
face certain dire consequences.
That’s when the ESF
students thought of the muriatic acid. Returning to their lab they wrestled a barrel of the stuff up the hill to where the protestors were still
blocking the gate. After yelling a warning, the ESF engineers dumped the acid
in the street. A cloud of acrid smoke preceded the hissing, spitting corrosive
liquid. The protestors left. The engineers had won.
For those of you who are
not engineers, muriatic acid, also known as hydrochloric acid, is sometimes
used to clean masonry prior to painting or sealing. It is highly caustic and
with the exception of some plastics, muriatic acid can damage almost anything
it touches, including clothing, metal, and skin. It emits a suffocating odor
that can quickly burn the lining of the nose, throat and even the lungs. http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infxtra/infmur.html
I stood there horrified. The
leader of the 1970 Syracuse University student strike was my friend, David
Ifshin. He was then student body president. He would go on to become president
of the National Student Association. In 1971-72 I worked closely with David as
conference coordinator of the National Student Congress in Fort Collins, CO and
for the International Student Conference to End the Vietnam War in Washington,
DC. David was smart, articulate and totally committed to ending the war. He
even traveled to Hanoi to talk with the Vietnamese.
Not only was this guy
insulting David, a respected leader of the student peace movement, he was also
insulting me. You see in May 1970 I was one of the leaders of the Bucknell
University student strike. Most, but not all, of the students supported the
strike. The picture that accompanies this essay shows a much younger version of
me handing out a flyer to the protestors filling the Bucknell academic quad.
As I remember it, the
picture was taken around noon on May 4, 1970. Shortly after the picture was taken I was informed
that four student protestors had been murdered by National Guard troops at Kent
State, on that same warm spring day.
I can barely remember the
following days. The number of protestors swelled. By the next day over 450
campuses across the country were on strike. Pennsylvania state governor,
William Scranton, called all PA student strike leaders to assure us that
National Guard troops would not be used in Pennsylvania. The next day the New
York Times carried an open letter calling for an immediate end to the war
signed by 100 college presidents, including Bucknell’s Charles Watts. That
night Peter, Paul and Mary performed a stunning concert at Bucknell.
All of this flashed through
my mind as I listened to this proud ass brag about his part in trying to show
those peaceniks how tough engineers can be.
I could not speak. Merry
managed to blurt out a pointed reminder that the student strikes were an effort
to stop the war. The ESF alumni guy shut up after that. He knew we were not
amused.
A few days ago, May 4, 2015,
was the 45th anniversary of the Kent State murders. The press took
little note. One of my Facebook friends simply posted a video of Crosby, Stills
and Nash singing “Four Dead in Ohio.”
Rest in Peace: Jeffrey
Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer. You are not
forgotten in this heart. Rest in Peace: David Ifshin. You actually did help end
the war.
