Country Store Lost to Memory

 

Country Store 03-21-1969

One of the more challenging (and rewarding) things about working at The Athens (OH) Messenger was the canvas publisher Kenner Bush gave us photographers: he opened up a 9×17 news hole five days a week for photo essays.

We drove all over Southeast Ohio photographing people and places that would be overlooked most of the time. I called it “photographing ordinary people doing ordinary things.”

Some stories didn’t pan out

Country Store 03-21-1969

I did a number of stories about country stores over the years, but these photos were never published. I don’t know if the subject didn’t have an interesting tale to tell or if I had to rush off before I discovered it.

I don’t even recall where the store was located, nor the woman’s name. Both are probably scribbled in a notebook buried in a box somewhere.

It’s fascinating to see the wide variety of goods carried.

A gallery of a few moments

So, here’s a brief portrait of a country store in the days before convenience stores and Dollar Generals. I probably should have made a Picture Page out of the images.

Click on any photo, then use the arrow keys to move around.

May 4 Slipped Up on Me

May 4 Mea Culpa

When I went to bed after midnight on May 3, something made me think that I had something to do on May 4, but there weren’t any calendar entries for that date.

Just as I hit the light switch, I knew that I’d be greeted by an email from old friend and former chief photographer John J. Lopinot.

Like expected, it was there first thing in the morning: “Never forget: 49 years ago today! We are getting old…..

It WAS the 49th anniversary of the National Guard killings at Kent State, and for the first time, it HAD slipped my memory. I hadn’t completely forgotten the event because Curator Jessica and I had been trading emails about how we were going to handle the 50th anniversary, but May had crept up on me unexpectedly.

Postings for the years I DIDN’T forget May 4

Shawnee High School

Way back in 1969, I stumbled across a dying coal town in Perry County, Ohio, that looked like something out of a Western movie set. Many of the buildings had wooden balconies overlooking Main Street.

Most unusual was an effigy hanging at the main intersection in town. I was told that some in town thought it was supposed to represent the mayor, but I couldn’t confirm that.

I needed ten more hours to graduate from Ohio University, so I convinced an architecture prof to let me earn six hours of credit for documenting the town. I spent about 20 hours and shot over 400 photos. I didn’t think I had exhausted all the possibilities the town had, so I took an incomplete to keep working. Riots, a job offer in another state and circumstances kept me from getting the hours and the degree.

I spent almost a month recently digitizing the negatives, improving their quality and repairing dust spots and scratches. The result will be a series of exhibits in concert with the Little Cities of Black Diamonds and the Southeast Ohio History Center. The first showing will be at the Second Saturday celebration in Shawnee on June 9, 2018.

The first will center on Shawnee High School. The only thing left of it today is the gymnasium.

Gallery of Shawnee High School in 1969

Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

 

Another May 4 Memory

Chief photographer John J. Lopinot and I took buyouts from The Palm Beach Post 10 years ago this summer. Cox sold our paper to another Chain on the first of May. I wondered if this would be the first year I wouldn’t get the usual cryptic message from John: “May 4 – Never Forget.”

All is still right with the world. The message, reminding me that on May 4, four students at Kent State were killed by National Guardsmen showed up like always. It’s getting harder and harder for me to find photos of that era that I haven’t published, but here is what happened when Ohio University students occupied the vacant Chubb Library on the Athens campus.

It was a chaotic 24 hours. It started with a rally in Grover Center attended by more than 2,000. John Froines of the Chicago Eight was of the speakers. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

The ‘liberation’ of Chubb Library

After the rally broke up, some of the students headed to the Main Green to the Chubb Library. A new library had been built, and the building had been standing vacant for about a year. Gail Schnitzer’s story in The Athens Messenger said someone broke the glass on a locked door and shouted, “Now, it’s open. It’s free. It’s yours – let’s go.” Most of the hundred or so people milling around were less convinced that this was a good idea.

Throughout the night, though, many people – some estimated as many as 150 – entered the building. They included students, faculty and staff, even though faculty marshals at the door were warning that this is “illegal – forcible entry”

Froines showed up to speak to the students. He urged them not to shut down the university, but to open it up by repurposing unused spaces like this one.

Freedom University

Some of the students argued that the library should be made into a “free university,” a place to study “relevant issues” and to form a Radical Studies Institute. “Freedom University” was the most popular name, primarily because of its initials.

Discord and debate were the order of the night. Many votes were taken and discarded as the students tried to decide if they would stay or leave, or if they should take the university’s offer of three meeting rooms, an office and a lounge in the Baker Center student union building.

Mellow folk music

Not everybody was into speechifying. This group picked a quiet corner to sing folk songs.

It’s going to be a long night

This pipe smoker must have figured it was going to be a long night, and he was going to be as comfortable as possible.

Waiting for the cops

Athens police officers in riot gear stayed outside, watched by anxious students.

Some of us media types figured that our presence might create a buffer that would discourage students from becoming destructive, and keep the police from over-reacting.

Let the university, not Columbus handle it

Dr. Edward Sanford, a physics professor, one of about five faculty members who remained throughout the night, cautioned the students to let Ohio University officials remain in control, “not the people in Columbus,” a reference to Gov. Rhodes’ calling in the National Guard at Kent State.

‘I’m sick of this, and I’m leaving’

Reporter Schnitzer wrote that a blond-haired student stood up on a table and shouted, “You’re all fools, man! You’re all ego-tripping. Everyone wants to do their own thing. You’re having a civil war right here – I’m sick of this, and I’m leaving.”

There were cheers from some, and “Shut up! Shut up!” from others. He walked out, and little by little, the crowd dwindled.

It was over by 6 a.m.

At 6 a.m., the remaining students were ordered to leave by Robert Guinn, OU director of security. President Claude Sowle said that all present complied with the order. At about 6:10, police officers entered the building. No arrests were made, and no force was necessary.

It wasn’t exactly over

Right after I left the library, I found out that someone had firebombed two buildings on campus that were under construction. Instead of going home and to bed, I had to shoot the damage and make a morning deadline.

So far as I know, the culprits were never identified. Most of the usual suspects were in the library when the fires were set.

The firebombing wasn’t the biggest blaze in Athens that night. It seems that Wife Lila, not too far from being a newlywed, had planned her first big dinner party where all the newspaper types were invited. Everybody who would would have shown up was busy with the night’s news, so she was left with lots of leftovers.

I tried to explain that there were no phones in the library, and that I was afraid to leave because I wasn’t sure I could get back in. That’s why I didn’t warn her that nobody was going to show up.

Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned this. Maybe she’s forgotten it after 48 years.

A look back

Here are some of the earlier stories I’ve done about the era.