123: MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU

When my photographer and I returned from our trip to Buffalo, New York on January 11, 2020, he placed me on the shelf with the rest of my Presidential bobble head buddies.  As a matter of fact, I stood in between Donald Trump and Abraham Lincoln; mainly for the contrast. At that time, the word on TV was the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, was playing havoc in China; but the folks in the United States were relatively safe.  But that quickly changed – a man returned from Wuhan, China to his home in Washington State on January 15^th and became ill four days later.  On January 20th, the U.S. had its first confirmed case of the new coronavirus.  I still wasn’t worried; after all, Washington was a few thousand miles away and Americans are very smart about staying safe.

Seven weeks later, on March 10^th, the first case of the virus was detected in Michigan.  Schools in our state were closed on the 13^th; bars and dine-in restaurants followed on the 16^th; and on March 17^th the first person in our state had died.  By the 23^rd of March, our governor had issued a state-wide stay-at-home order for all non-essential workers.  At that time, I became worried.  In my mind, I wondered to myself: “If we are forced to stay at home, how will I travel to Presidential sites? Am I going to be stuck here on this shelf for the rest of 2020 or longer? Will my photographer, his wife, or Mongo get seriously sick with this bug? What effect does this virus have on resin? Will COVID cause some of my body parts to fall off?”  But then we received some reassuring news on March 25^th when President Donald Trump said: “We’re going to be opening relatively soon.  I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.  Easter is a very special day for me… and you’ll have packed churches all over our country.”  The Donald Trump bobble head to my right shook his head in agreement.  Five days after Trump’s statement, the remainder of the school year in Michigan was cancelled and the virus seemed to be out of control.

When COVID-19 was not eradicated by Easter, I began to wear a face mask as I stood next to the other bobble heads on the shelf.  I knew Trump wouldn’t wear one, even though we couldn’t social distance; but I was surprised when Lincoln refused to sport a mask.  It was almost as though Abe knew that April 14^th was around the corner and he figured he had bigger things to worry about – like the BOOTH-65 virus.

On Friday June 5, 2020, with no end in sight for the virus, Tom snatched me from the shelf, mask and all, and before I could say “quarantine” we were headed to Mongo’s house in our Dodge Ram.  It turned out that Bob Moldenhauer was riding along with my photographer and I to Canton, Ohio where Tom had arranged a 10:30am meeting to buy an autographed guitar from a rock and roll collector.  Although I love the history of rock and roll, I was more thrilled to tag along because Canton was the site of William McKinley’s grandiose memorial and I knew that Tom wouldn’t miss that for the world – or for the virus.  During the four-hour ride, I heard my photographer mention to his friend that his main goal was to find McKinley’s temporary tomb.  Although Tom and I had never been to that temporary burial vault before, my photographer figured it would be easy to find because he read that it was ‘in the shadow of the McKinley Memorial’.

We made good time on the Ohio Turnpike and arrived in Canton around 9:30am; which meant we had an hour to kill before our scheduled rendezvous with the guitar’s owner. The William McKinley National Memorial was located alongside West Lawn Cemetery in Canton and has protected President William McKinley and First Lady Ida McKinley’s remains since it was dedicated on September 30, 1907 – six years after the President’s assassination. While there were plenty of parking places close to the memorial, Tom parked in a more remote area to avoid getting too close to others that were milling about. Although the three of us wore face masks, we were the only ones in that vicinity who did. We were outdoors, but my photographer was still cautious; especially when it seemed as though Ohio had relaxed their COVID protocol more than Michigan had. After I posed for a few photos with the memorial in the distance, Tom carried me up the 108 steps that led to the mausoleum. Once there, I posed for a few more images near the 96-foot tall tomb.

Due to the coronavirus, my photographer and Mongo figured they might have a problem finding restrooms on the trip that were open to the public. They also knew in advance that William McKinley’s Presidential Library and Museum, which was located near the Memorial, had been shut down. But they were surprised to discover the doors to McKinley’s tomb were locked. I heard Tom say to Mongo that he could understand a concern if the tomb’s interior was a major tourist attraction like Disney World; but that was hardly the case. He also said in a sarcastic tone: “It’s not like the McKinley’s will catch the virus and die.”

Our search for the Werts Receiving Vault, which became William McKinley’s temporary tomb after his assassination, began directly behind the national monument to our 25th President. Tom had read on-line that the vault was in the shadow of the McKinley Memorial; and since the cemetery’s boundary was closest to the monument directly behind it, that was the logical place to begin our search. Mongo managed to scale the fence that separated the cemetery from the memorial’s property; but after a ten-minute search inside West Lawn, Bob came up empty-handed. He saw hundreds of grave markers, but there was nothing he saw that resembled a tomb.

With no time to spare, the three of us walked back to the truck and began the 8.6-mile drive to North Canton where my photographer had planned to meet a local brother and sister duo named Tom and Judy. As scheduled, we arrived at the North Canton police station parking lot at 10:25am and met up with Tom, Judy, and the autographed guitar. Following a few minutes of rock and roll chit-chat; where both Tom’s played a game of ‘one-upmanship’ about their rock star experiences, we headed back to West Lawn Cemetery where my companions had some unfinished business to take care of.

Back at the area near the McKinley Memorial, my photographer and Mongo searched for an entrance into West Lawn Cemetery.  As a matter of fact, we drove completely around the entire exterior of the cemetery twice – with no luck.  Just as we were about to give up hope of entering West Lawn, Mongo spotted the entrance in the distance – we were in.  The cemetery was huge, however, and just because we made it inside the burial ground didn’t mean we would easily find the Werts Receiving Vault.  Tom had a photo of the tomb, which gave the three of us an idea of what we were searching for.  After combing a section of the cemetery that was closest to the McKinley Memorial, which proved to be futile, my companions saw a couple of young guys in the distance who were trimming weeds around the gravestones.  Luckily for us, one of them knew the location of the receiving vault and he pointed us in the right direction.  It turned out that the Werts Receiving Vault was tucked away behind some trees and was nowhere close to where our previous exploration had taken us.  When we finally found it, I laughed to myself when my photographer said to Bob: “If this thing is in the shadow of the McKinley Monument, then that monument must be 5,000 feet tall.  I doubt this thing is in the same zip code; let alone in the shadow.”

The Werts Receiving Vault was constructed in 1893 for temporary interment when new graves couldn’t be dug in the winter.  The ornate block structure reminded me of a small church; it had a steeple, front portico and steel doors.  Following his death, the body of slain President William McKinley was placed in the temporary tomb on September 19. 1901 and remained there for roughly six years.  Not only did an honor guard of federal army sentries protect McKinley’s tomb around the clock, First Lady Ida McKinley visited her husband’s temporary resting place every day until her own death on May 26, 1907. Tom carried me to the front of the tomb; but before he snapped any photos, he attempted to open the doors. In my mind, I was happy they didn’t open – that vault looked creepier than the one at Congressional Cemetery and I wanted no part of going inside.

The three of us had spent a lot of time at the McKinley National Memorial and the nearby West Lawn Cemetery in Canton. It was close to noon as we drove out of the cemetery and left behind what I had believed was our final site of the short one-day trip. But as I stood in the camera case on the truck’s back seat, I overheard Tom and Bob as they talked about another place they wanted to visit – the Kent State University massacre site. It took about a half-hour for my photographer to make the 32-mile drive to the Kent, Ohio college that made national headlines in 1970.

As the three of us walked from our truck and into the Prentice Hall parking lot, I got my first glimpse of the memorials that had been erected on the precise locations where the four Kent State students were killed by Ohio Army National Guardsman on May 4, 1970. A few days before the massacre, President Richard Nixon announced to the nation an initiative in the Vietnam War he called the “Cambodian Incursion”. Anti-war protests broke out all over America, including the quiet midwestern campus of Kent State University. On May 4, 1970, about 2,000 people gathered near The Common that was near Taylor Hall; while 77 Ohio National Guard troops were ordered to the campus to stop the protest. As the two groups clashed, which included the troops who launched tear gas cannisters as the students threw rocks, gun fire broke out for about 13 seconds. That’s right – the National Guard opened fire on the unarmed group of student protesters. When the smoke cleared, four unarmed students were killed and nine were wounded. The dead students were 19-year old’s Allison Krause and William Schroeder; and 20-year old’s Jeffrey Miller and Sandra Scheuer.

Tom placed me inside the memorial that was dedicated to Jeffrey Miller. The memorial consisted of six lighted posts that were permanently imbedded into the roadway on the exact spot where Miller died instantly from a gunshot to the mouth. Standing in that sacred spot, I envisioned Miller as he laid on the pavement while 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio knelt over his lifeless body. That image was made famous by a Pulitzer Prize winning photo taken by photojournalist student John Filo. After posing at the Miller memorial, my photographer carried me towards Taylor Hall where we saw the abstract Don Drumm sculpture. Fifty years later, a single bullet hole from a guardsman’s .30-06 round that went completely through the solid steel sculpture was a grim reminder of that fateful day.

Even though 50 years had passed since the Kent State massacre, it seemed to vividly come back to life as my photographer carried me around the area.  The sad part of the whole event, at least to me, was that senseless tragedy didn’t need to happen.  Monday May 4, 1970 was intended to be a “Peace Rally” at Kent State. But instead, it was anything but peaceful.

Americans have the right to protest; that right is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. That amendment states very clearly: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The obvious key word is “peaceably” – which at times gets forgotten in the heat of the moment by either the protesters, the authority, or both. As I visited the massacre site, I couldn’t help but think about how history had repeated itself in the past ten days; and how similar the current events mirrored the past. President Richard Nixon wasn’t fond of the anti-war protesters; he promised “law and order” and had a deep disdain for dissenters. Nixon also once said to Henry Kissinger in 1972: “The Press is the enemy” and the President never trusted the news media. Following the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis just ten days before our trip to Ohio, protests broke out all across America. At times, President Trump ordered National Guard troops to keep things under control and he said over and over that he demanded “law and order”. And there was no doubt in the past three-plus years of his administration, Donald Trump hated the media and their “fake news”. Both Nixon and Trump were very similar; and both President’s followed a path to impeachment – although Nixon resigned before he was removed from office. Make no mistake, I am a bobble head who cherishes the Constitution and what that revered document stands for. Americans have the right to carry signs, shout protest slogans, march in unison for what is believed, or to simply sit down to make their point. But when people take it upon themselves to riot, loot, burn buildings, or threaten police with violence; those folks are not protesters – they’re criminals.

At roughly 2:00pm, I was placed in the camera case where I relaxed without my face mask for the entire 245-mile trip back to Mongo’s house. That four-hour ride not only gave me time to think about my next trip; I also waited for my photographer to be pulled over by an Ohio State Trooper or a county sheriff. In 2019, which was the last time Tom, Bob, and I were in Ohio together, we were stopped by a sheriff who didn’t hesitate to issue my photographer a $105 speeding ticket. On that 2020 trip, however, we made it through the Buckeye State unscathed. In my mind, I thought to myself: “The cops must not have noticed our Michigan license plate or maybe they were too busy with the civil unrest.”

Finally home, Tom placed me back onto the shelf where I only had to wait 33 days for another adventure. But during that time, I couldn’t get the images of the Kent State massacre out of my mind. Those four students were martyrs for the Vietnam War protest movement in the 1960s and ’70s. Those four students were unarmed; two were walking to class and two were peacefully protesting. Those four students were innocent Americans, protected by the United States Constitution, who were killed by American soldiers on an American college campus. Those four students were Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer. And to those four students – May the Fourth be with you and may the nation never forget what happened at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 – a day that will live in infamy.