November 22

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Interior of the limousine in which JFK and Mrs. Kennedy had ridden.

For a long time, this was the date that stuck in our heads. We weren’t even born when Pearl Harbor was attacked and September 11 wouldn’t happen until the 21st Century. No, our date was November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

November 22 was a Friday that year. We were in high school and that’s where nearly all of us first heard the news. Most of us, I expect, then spent the weekend following the assassination with families, glued to the television set, watching the sad and momentous events taking place.

Odd, in a way, but I spent the weekend at Boston College. BC had earlier invited me and several other high school classmates to visit the campus, beginning the evening of November 22. As you might imagine, just about everything we were to do during that visit was canceled. Our arrival was scheduled for only a few hours following news of the assassination, however, and, communication being much slower and more limited those days, we showed up anyhow, not knowing.

We occasionally saw some of the TV coverage that weekend, but mostly moped about in a desultory way. (I did not see, for example, when Jack Ruby shot and killed the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.) We were supposed to attend the BC-BU football game scheduled for November 23 in Fenway Park. It was to have been the last game in the BC-BU series, but it never happened.

That weekend was the first time I was in Boston without my parents. I didn’t want to spend that Saturday night in the dorms. So a few of us took the T into town and went to Kenmore Square. We were underage and most everything was closed down anyway. We ended up in  the Kenmore Square Cinema, where we watched Lord of the Flies. That cheered us up. :)

While we were students at BC, there were memorial Masses for President Kennedy in our freshmen and sophomore years, on Monday, November 23, in 1964 and on Monday, Nov. 22, 1965. There was also an effort then, according to the Heights article “Kennedy Memorial Library Fund Drive in Last Phase,” to raise money for a library to commemorate JFK within the soon-to-be-built Institute for Human Relations building. Alas, the Human Relations building was not built and there is no JFK library on campus. (McGuinn Hall, which houses the Graduate School of Social Work, was under construction while we were at BC and opened in 1968.)

There is a memorial to a Kennedy on campus, but it is in honor of JFK’s older brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who was killed in WWII. The auditorium in Campion Hall was named in Joseph Kennedy’s honor when the building opened in 1955. There is a plaque in Campion honoring the older Kennedy brother.

In April 1963, only seven months before his death, President Kennedy was the main speaker at BC’s Centennial Convocation. As a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, JFK had been the speaker at BC’s 1956 Commencement, where he also received an honorary degree. At the Centennial Convocation, the President opened his address with a quip that generated much laughter. “It is a great pleasure to come back to a city where my accent is considered normal,” he said, “and where they pronounce the words the way they are spelled.”

 

Here is a video (11:27) from that event:

You can see in the image above, to the right of JFK, BC President Michael Walsh, SJ, and, a little more to the right, recently elected Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy. You can also see the typed speech, with his handmade changes, on the JFK Presidential Library and Museum website. You can also see the printed brochure for the entire Centennial Convocation there, following the speech.

JFK’s appearance on campus was before we got there, but his death was still deeply remembered when we were at BC. It is a sad and somewhat amazing reflection of the times that the assassination of JFK was still a fresh scar when we entered BC and, two days following our graduation in 1968, JFK’s brother, Robert, was fatally shot in California.

In honored memory

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Many of us are veterans of the US Armed Forces. Vietnam and the draft perhaps resulted in a greater number than otherwise, but I’m pretty sure most veterans look back on their service as worthwhile and honorable. Today, we observe Veterans Day, which is officially tomorrow, November 11. The University community’s observance today is the 17th annual Boston College Veterans Remembrance Ceremony.

Veterans Day is when we honor all veterans, but let’s especially remember our six classmates who gave all, in Vietnam. Memorial Day is right before our reunion weekend, so it seems appropriate to acknowledge these men today. (The link attached to each name brings you to the page about the individual on the BC Veterans Memorial website.)

Steven Donaldson (Education), from Peabody, died April 5, 1969, in Quang Nam. He was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

 

 

 

Louis Favuzza (Education), from Somerville, was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army (1st Cavalry)  when he died April 29, 1970, in Binh Long.

 

 

 

Frederick Harrington, from Watertown, left BC before graduation and entered the Army. He was a Corporal when he died October 22, 1968, in Dinh Tuong.

 

 

 

Robert Hauer (CBA), from Brookline, was piloting a forward observer aircraft when he was shot down September 5, 1970, in Khanh Hoa. He was an Air Force Captain.

 

 

 

Christopher Markey, from Birmingham, Mich., left BC before graduation. He was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps when he died January 6, 1970, in Quang Nam.

 

 

 

Michael Monahan, from Dracut, started with us, but left BC early. He was a Private First Class in the Marine Corps when he died October 26, 1966, in Quang Tri.

 

 

 

If you knew any of the men on this list, we welcome recollections and comments.

 

Lights out

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Boston skyline November 9, 1965. Boston Globe file photo Joe Dennehey.

Shortly after 5 pm on this date in 1965, the lights went out. And they would stay out for 13 hours. It was what was later termed the Great Northeast Blackout.

The loss of electrical power hit more than 35 million people in eight states: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In Boston, people were trapped on the T and in elevators, and traffic was snarled even more than usual.

In 2015, the Boston Globe published an article about the blackout on its 50th anniversary. The Heights didn’t say much about it at all at the time. A truncated November 12, 1965, edition had a column called “Puff” in which item #5 was “Blackouts which force us to go four pages instead of twelve.” There was no mention I could find of it in the next Heights.

This time of year, it was dusk then, not quite complete darkness, though soon after it was dark. I remember very few details about that evening. What I recall is more a growing sense of concern as the power stayed off longer and longer. Just about all radio and TV stations were knocked off the air. If someone had a transistor radio, I assume people would have gathered around it.

The blackout would also have started around mealtime. Were meals still served in McElroy? Only uncooked options? We welcome recollections!

Novembers

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Classmate Bill Dalton performing on opening night, Middle Earth, November 11, 1966. Heights photo.

Football games, except for Holy Cross in 1967, ended in November, and for the most part basketball and hockey didn’t start until December. School was in forward gear, but thoughts of the Thanksgiving break . . . and the climactic Holy Cross football game . . . loomed large. Here’s some of what happened in Chestnut Hill and in the world in Novembers, 1964-67.

On campus

1964
The School of Education advised that, while there might be an exception or two, women students would not be permitted to marry as undergraduates. In the November 13 article, Mary Kinnane, dean of women at Education, said, “We adhere to the position that a woman cannot be a full time undergraduate student, a full time wife, and a full time homemaker.”

We elected class officers in each school, as reported in the November 20 Heights. Elected president were Peter Driscoll (A&S), Felix Albano (CBA), Peggy Grace (Nursing), and Kathy Cooney (Education).

1965
The requirement that Catholic students attend a religious retreat each year was cancelled. A Heights editorial in the November 5 issue entitled “Amen” praised the decision. It reported that an annual retreat was compulsory for all Catholic students a year before and argued that a “compromise” six months previous that had reduced the requirement to two retreats in four years was insufficient.

The November 19 edition contained an interview of Robert Drinan, SJ, dean of the law school, conducted by four Heights editors. Fr. Drinan was outspoken on many matters during the mid- and late-sixties and was elected in 1970 to Congress. He was re-elected four times and left Congress in 1981 after Pope John Paul II ordered all priests to withdraw from electoral politics. Fr. Drinan died in 2007.

1966
A two-day convocation November 11-12 marked the dedication of Higgins Hall, the new science center. The November 18 Heights article about the dedication reported that the building was named for John Higgins, a close friend of Boston businessman and philanthropist Stephen Mugar. Among the four scientists presented honorary degrees during the dedication ceremonies was James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, after whom the Van Allen radiation belts are named and Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1960. An article in the November 4 Heights previewing the dedication provided additional information.

We’ll talk much more about the “coffee house” in O’Connell. Here we simply note that Middle Earth opened on November 11, as reported in the November 18 Heights. Among those appearing in the first talent lineup was classmate Bill Dalton.

1967
The November 3 Heights had several articles related to controversy generated by an incident at the BC Law School several days earlier when three members of the Law faculty confronted a representative of the Dow Chemical Co. on campus and asked that he leave. The Dow representative was there (BC Law was then in More Hall) to see three students who had signed up for interviews. Dow was the principal manufacturer of napalm, an incendiary chemical used by the US military in Vietnam and the focus of criticism. An estimated 200 Law students and faculty gathered to observe or participate in a debate over the actions of the faculty members. A Heights editorial on the subject criticized the faculty members’s attempt to bar the recruiter, saying, “No one has the right to judge another person’s worthiness in regard to his possible appearance on campus.” A followup article in the November 13 Heights reported on BC policy regarding on-campus recruiting and mentioned that Law students had voted 319 to 63 in support of a completely open recruiting policy.

About 400 students, faculty members, and staff attended a “Rally in Support of Troops in Vietnam” November 6 on the Bapst Library lawn. The rally was sponsored by the BC chapter of Young Americans for Freedom.

Classmate Richard Sawaya resigned as editor of The Stylus, the campus literary magazine, because of a censorship dispute, according to the top story in the November 17 Heights. Francis Sweeney, SJ, “advisor” to the magazine, had objected to a Sawaya story in which he described “an act of love between a man and his wife and the use of religious imagery in a sexual connotation in a second story, which Sweeney considered blasphemous,” the Heights reported. Sawaya and Fr. Sweeney had brought the issue to Carl Kowalski, director of student activities, who determined that faculty advisors did not have veto power over student decisions. Fr. Sweeney, appointed by the BC president, brought the issue to President Michael Walsh, SJ, who decided that Fr. Sweeney, in this case, did have veto power. The same issue carried a Heights editorial that criticized both the decision and the process that brought it about.

The outside world

1964
LBJ won big, easily defeating challenger Barry Goldwater on November 3, winning in 44 states and the District of Columbia. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn opened. English replaced Latin in Masses in the US.

1965
Days of Our Lives premiered on NBC. A crowd estimated at 15,000+ protested the Vietnam War in Washington, DC. US and North Vietnamese regular forces met for the first time in the Battle of Ia Drang.

1966
For the first time, the entire program lineup on NBC was broadcast in color. Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California. US bishops ended the rule that Roman Catholics could not eat meat on Fridays. Massachusetts voters elected Republican Edward Brooke to the US Senate, making him the first African-American senator since Reconstruction. The Washington Redskins defeated the New York Giants, 72-41, the highest scoring game in NFL history.

1967
Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) announced his candidacy for US President. US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned.

 

Halloween @ McElroy

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Something kinda weird happened in McElroy Dining Commons around Halloween 1966. There was something of a “party” for dorm residents. A brief article in the October 28 Heights said “Jimmy and the Jades” performed during the two-hour event, which, most surprisingly, included “suitably-costumed young girls” serving cider and donuts. The photos below, from the 1967 Sub Turri, are from the event, I believe.

Sub Turri photos

We’ll talk more about the food service at McElroy and the protests that brought in Saga as the replacement, but Saga’s Halloween “party” was, to me and I believe many others, a hit. The Heights described the dining hall as decorated with hay, pumpkins, black cats, and other traditional items. Responding to the performance of Jimmy and the Jades, the Heights said, “Dorm students stood on tables, sang along and generally clapped their approval.”

A senior was quoted as saying, “This is the greatest time I’ve ever had eating dinner in McElroy.” Not a high bar to exceed, perhaps, but it was a rare fun evening in McElroy.

‘Ivy Envy’

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Heights sports editors sometimes think alike, I guess. In October 1966, I wrote a column in the Heights entitled “Ivy Envy,” in which I extolled the virtues of football played in that league. The following year, Reid Oslin, previously sports editor, penned a column with the headline “Ivy Eagles?” and he went a little further, suggesting BC should consider emulating the league.

Both columns may have been inspired by mediocre football records for the Eagles in each of our junior and senior year seasons. Reid and I, however, had another perspective as well. We also had been classmates in high school and a fellow high school classmate, Gene Ryzewicz, was the all-Ivy running back and later quarterback for Dartmouth, then called the Indians.

Gene Ryzewicz leading Dartmouth players into Harvard Stadium, 1966.

As my column back then mentioned, the UPI New England coaches’ poll in October 1966 placed Harvard #1 and Dartmouth #2. BC was ranked 6th. Sixth . . . in New England! I attended the Harvard-Dartmouth games in 1965 and 1966. Those games were fun to watch. Football was less “professional” back then (the NFL was way short of being the center of American sports attention) and Ivy players, at least some of them, were as good as the better players at BC and other major teams.

Even now, some BC fans are not fans of the direction BC athletics has taken, i.e., joining the ACC. The feelings become stronger when BC teams are not especially competitive in the conference. Maybe the Ivy approach is no longer among the possibilities for BC, if it ever was, but the concerns about an institution that claims high academic standards competing with institutions, particularly public ones, with admittedly lower standards are not likely to disappear.

Mixer! Moulty!?

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McHugh multitudes

It’s Friday, in the fall. That meant MIXER! in our days at BC.

Sub Turri photo

Remember dark, sweaty McHugh? Guys and girls dancing, maybe a few girls dancing together. Guys, mostly, standing on the sidelines. There were flings, romances, and marriages that probably started at one of these. And they featured many hours of blah, too.

There was a letter in the October 30, 1964, Heights signed by “School of Nursing Class of 1968” complaining about the presence of high school girls at mixers. “We strongly resent sharing our collegiate rights with high school students,” it said. “We cannot estimate the opinions of the male majority of the student body concerning this problem,” the letter added. “We can only observe that they appear to be as vexed as we are at the situation.”

 

BC was one of the college mixer stops for local bands. Among the “bigger” local bands was Barry and the Remains. Later known simply as The Remains, they were a BU band that played briefly, i.e., 1964-66 (they later reunited in the ’90s and are on a retro band circuit). Here’s a song we likely heard.

But the band I remember best, at least, was Moulty and the Barbarians, who started out in Provincetown. Moulty was the drummer and had a prosthetic hook replacing his missing left hand. Here’s a YouTube video. Only one I could find showing them “in action,” from the movie The T.A.M.I. Show. (Like The Remains, they later dropped the eponymous angle and were just The Barbarians.)

Their “big” hit was Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?

I believe I remember this song, too, and figure I must have heard it at a mixer. Where else would I have seen or heard Moulty?

 

“Every little breeze . . .”

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The Boston mayoralty election in fall 1967 was one of the codas to the tumultuous “Summer of 1967.” There had been the more than 150 riots in American cities, protests against the war in Vietnam, the “summer of love” in San Francisco. At BC, there had been excitement among their many fans about the Red Sox run to the pennant and World Series, but there was also excitement . . . and concern . . . about local politics.

Young Republicans speedily escort Kevin White (left). Sub Turri photo

The opponents for mayor that fall were Massachusetts Secretary of State Kevin White (BC Law ’55) and Louise Day Hicks, chairwoman of the Boston School Committee, famous and infamous for provocative statements about race. Hicks was a populist, pledging a “Boston for Bostonians.” Her campaign slogan was the simple and effective “You know where I stand.” It was unclear that White could beat her. To a lot of people, it seemed the election would determine Boston’s future. A recent Boston Globe article looked back at that election.

And BC was involved.

In mid-October 1967, both White and Hicks appeared on campus on the same day and approximately the same time. While both candidates were Democrats, White had been invited by BC’s Young Republicans and Hicks by the campus Young Democrats. A Heights article from October 20 reported on the “BC politicos squawk.” Young Republicans had received permission from BC’s Director of Student Affairs Carl Kowalski to have White appear. Kowalski, citing BC policy not to have opposing candidates appear the same day/time unless in debate, denied the Young Democrats’ request regarding Hicks. Despite the ruling, fliers announced the Hicks appearance.

Then it got interesting.

Louise Day Hicks receives a plaque from the BC Young Democrats.

Some Boston media reported in the following days that BC had named Hicks as “Woman of the Year” during her appearance. The press photo above shows the late Robert McNulty CBA’68, chairman of the BC Young Democrats, presenting an award to her that day and, best I can tell, it says, under “Boston College,” Woman of the Year 1967″ and “Louise Day Hicks.” There are seals above and below, but I can’t tell if either is the University seal. Any mention of the award being from BC’s Young Democrats seems quite small.

An October 27 Heights article reported that the Campus Council had voted to censure the executive committee of the Young Democrats “for awarding Mrs. Louise Day Hicks ‘what appeared to be the Boston College Woman of the Year Award.'” The Young Dems chair refused to comment, but Young Republicans chair Bill Henri A&S’68 criticized the council’s action in the absence of notice of the action and any defense from the Young Democrats. Letters to the editor in the same issue condemned the action of the Young Democrats.

On November 7, 1967, Boston elected Kevin White mayor by 12,000 votes, giving him 53 percent to 47 percent for Hicks. He served as mayor for three additional terms, for a total of 16 years, 1968-84.

 

Hello HHH . . . and Vietnam

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Vice President Hubert Humphrey arrives on campus, with protestors in rear. Sub Turri photo.

Vice President Hubert Humphrey came to BC on October 13, 1966, as part of the Boston College Public Affairs Forum. He spoke before a reported 3,500 people in Roberts Center, and was joined on stage by Democratic candidates for governor, attorney general, and other offices, it being only a few weeks before election day.

While the vice president’s appearance and talk received attention (Heights article), the actions taken by an estimated 500 BC students regarding 150 anti-Vietnam and anti-administration protestors who were present and the subsequent reaction to those actions garnered more notice.

Page 4 of the October 21 Heights featured two articles, by news editor Mike Rahill and editor-in-chief Bill Waldron, about peaceful BC protestors and raucous BC students shouting down anti-Vietnam protestors, of whom many were non-BC students, faculty, or staff. Rahill cited chants of “Get off our campus!,” “Kill a commie for Christ,” etc., from the students, several of whom indicated the presence of protestors was sending out the “wrong image” of BC. Pages 6 and 7 contained editorials, opinion columns, and letters mostly decrying the actions of BC students against protestors.

An ad on page 2, signed by more than 125 “members of the Boston College community,” expressed their “condemnation of and regret at the manner in which certain students chose to exhibit their disapproval” of protestors, calling the conduct “violent.”

One Heights editorial stated that Humphrey’s appearance and the actions surrounding it had “pushed this university into the controversy over the Vietnam war for the first time.” If this was the “first time” BC experienced the controversy, it was not the last. “The war” was a pretty dominant issue facing us. In addition to its national and international ramifications, Vietnam had special meaning for male students subject to being drafted into the armed forces.

We’ll have a lot more discussion about “the war, “the draft,” etc. The events of October 1966 on campus showed that BC reflected sharp divisions among Americans about it all.

Homecomings . . . at home

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The tradition of “homecoming” in the context of colleges and universities seems aimed at the return of alumni to campus. Graduates coming back into the arms of alma mater. Maybe it’s just self-centered memories, but the Homecomings at BC, 1964-67, seemed more oriented to us, the students.

1964
As was common through our time at BC, this Homecoming started with a Friday night concert, a football game that featured the naming of a Homecoming Queen and Favorite Son at halftime, a post-game social, and a “victory” dance in the evening.

Fats Domino

Ian and Sylvia, the Canadian folk-singing duo, performed in Roberts Center on Friday, October 16. “Orchestra” seats on the court cost $2.50, “balcony” $1.75.

BC won the football game, 10-0, over Cincinnati the next day. Jim Lucie and the Heightsmen were featured at the post-game social at Chestnut Hill Country Club ($.99), while Fats Domino headlined the entertainment at the Victory Dance at the Surf Nantasket ($5/couple).

 

1965
The organizers stuck with folk music this year, as the Friday concert, the “Homecoming Concert,” featured The Highwaymen, a quartet. Also performing were the comedy duet of Ullett and Hendra. (Ullett’s name was misspelled in both the Heights ad and the Sub Turri caption of the two.)

The Highwaymen

The Victory Dance (BC beat Richmond 38-7) was held at the Victory Road Armory in Dorchester. Bill Haley and the Comets (old rock n’ roll even then) were the musical artists.

1966
In a portent of things to come, the original act for the Homecoming Concert backed out. Instead of Chuck Berry, homecomers saw the Isley Brothers Friday night in Roberts.

The Isley Brothers twist and shout

After watching Syracuse pound the Eagles, 30-0, students enjoyed Junior Walker and the All-Stars at the Victory Dance at the Hotel Bradford.

1967

Wilson Pickett

As the Temptations might have described it, Homecoming our senior year was something of a  “Ball of Confusion.” Efforts to have The Righteous Brothers appear broke down, as did attempts to sign Woody Allen and Judy Collins. BC “settled” for Otis Redding. But we never saw him, either. Redding backed out and was replaced, if that’s the right word, by Wilson Pickett in Roberts on October 13. (Sadly, Otis Redding died less than two months later in a plane crash.)

Penn State rocked the Eagles, 50-28, and fans found solace listening to the Pandoras at the Sheraton Plaza.

Prices for these events hadn’t changed a lot during our years. All tickets, not just “orchestra,” in Roberts were $2.50 and the price of tickets for the dance Saturday was $5, but it didn’t say if it was apiece or per couple.