Dead student, Draft card ate, no payoff

[Byron Black]

Hey Mike,

The only slightly burning aspect is that in years following when I tipped my
violin out of its case and began to sorrowfully recount how a budding
academic career had been permanently fucked, and how I was a political exile
on the run, with the FBI and CIA after me, I'd just get this sorta blank,
puzzled, faintly disinterested look.

"Draft dodger? Veetnam protestor? Huh?"

When I left Fresno it was for Tokyo, where I'd been hired to work as Japan
Correspondent for Cycle World Magazine. I had a one-year visa and like a
fool did not suspect that the US Embassy there would put the squeeze on the
obedient Nips to force me out.

Investigators hovering around my place, repeated immigration "inquiries" and
finally 24 hours to get out of the country. The obsequious Japanese gave in
and it was either Vancouver or Stockholm and I often wonder what kind of
Swede I'd have made (ha).

I know what kind of Canadian I made: an annoyed one. Ten years later I left
for Asia, pretty much never to return.

I would have retired on full pension from the California State University
(read: California State College) system in 1999 or so, like a couple of the
people I stay in touch with in Fresno. But the thought of teaching those
agribusiness morons for 20 years is simply incomprehensible.

One of the huge hand-markered banners I flew at a Resistance demo on campus
read, rhetorically, 'HOW MUCH MEAT DO YOU NEED FOR YOUR MACHINE?' They
didn't get it; they didn't even want to get it. Armenian grape barons and
their loutish offspring.

I also wonder whether knowing an alternative path through life is itself not
an impossible concept to grasp in depth. What if...

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele@HotPOP.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 2:28 AM
Subject: Re: My dead student, Eating the draft card


> Fantastic letter, Byron. Fantastic story. Likewise your
> Eating the Draft Card. Keep them cards and letters
> coming! The wonderful coincidence of having known
> a Viet Cong martyr back at Fresno State is the sort
> of plot line that makes life worth living. Like consorting
> with Ho Chi Minh when he was a pastry cook in Paris
> in 1914.
>
> And earlier, your account, with photos, of your medical
> scare, I dont think i got a round to thanking you for
> sharing your travails with us. Especially when it had
> a happy ending and you got better.
>
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Byron Black" <blacky@cbn.net.id>
> To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 8:40 AM
> Subject: My dead student
>
>
> > If I ever get to Vietnam I'll go visit the street named after a student
I
> > had at Fresno State College in 1967.
>
>