Roger Armbrust on 1968, Part 1

Roger Armbrust was national news editor of Back Stage in New York City. His poetry has appeared in New York Quarterly, Chelsea and Icarus. He has also published a book of poems called "How to Survive" and a chapbook titled "Final Grace." He recently moved back to his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. This is the first part of this interview.

What were you doing in 1968?

From January to June, I was in Fayetteville, Arkansas, primarily involved in three activities: (1) covering the University of Arkansas sports program for the Arkansas Gazette, the state’s largest newspaper; (2) teaching grammar and spelling to 120 fifth and sixth graders in Lincoln, Arkansas, a small farming community outside of Fayetteville; and (3) partying at lot.

In Arkansas in the ‘60s, folks looked on the Arkansas Razorback football team as canonized saints. Perhaps because, as our state foundered second to last nationally in education and economy, we needed a positive unifying force. We were also still suffering psychic and economic repercussions from the Central High integration crisis in Little Rock, the state’s capitol and largest city. We felt we had received national respect because the football team ranked consistently high in national polls. I eventually realized that was an exercise in self-perceptive petting. That people outside the state really could care less. Still, the newspaper gig proved fine training for me. I was writing every day, sending in reports primarily on football and basketball. I was considered a “stringer,” and the Gazette paid me $150 a month. That, in the ‘60s, paid my rent for one apartment, and later my portion of the rent on an apartment I shared with an old friend, Al Smith.

Al and I both were teaching at Lincoln, a job he recommended me for. Twenty or so kids would come into my classroom for an hour, strictly for grammar and spelling, then go to other classrooms for math, science, history. I taught either five or six classes a day, around 120 kids. Good-hearted kids from a poor farming community. When apple-picking season came, attendance was sparse, because they had to help in the orchards.

I still possess many fond memories from both the Fayetteville and Lincoln experiences. Writing everyday prepared me for my later weaning in hard news at the Arkansas Democrat in the early ‘70s, and a journalistic career in later decades. I hope I helped some of those kids through my teaching.

I originally went to Fayetteville in the fall of ’66, following graduation from Little Rock University, a private college that is now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I had tried law school at the UofA in Fayetteville, but decided I’d rather write and party.

But I didn’t agree with our government’s presence in Vietnam. My older brother Frank, a young doctor serving in the Navy, had gone with the Marines’ Hawk Anti-aircraft Missile group from the Twenty-nine Palms base in California to Danang in late 1964. I was editor of the college paper, The Forum, and wrote an editorial, criticizing U.S. involvement, which won a state collegiate press association award, which I guess made me begin to seriously think about becoming a journalist.

Anyway, my war opposition led me to seek a deferment from the draft in ’67 and ‘68, and teaching was a good way to not get killed and also do some kind of service. But the travesty of Vietnam never really leaves you, if you have any sensitivity for your fellows and your country. I realized years later I felt survivor’s guilt because of the number of people my age who went to war and either didn’t return or returned psychically damaged. I remember sitting with my brother, watching TV in ’68 or so when Vietnam was falling apart. He had been proud to care medically for the Marines over there, considered them the greatest fighters in the world. But as we sat and watched TV, it was so sadly obvious to him what a mistake Vietnam had been. I recall him saying, “That war has torn this nation apart.”

Also, it seemed by 1968 the world was going to hell. The January-February Tet Offensive had proved we weren’t going to bomb the Vietcong into submission. My Lai showed how cold-blooded and insane war can make soldiers. And evil forces existing in America kept killing our leaders. I felt a part of the generation that considered itself Kennedy’s children. To us, the evil “they” that had shot John Kennedy in ’63 was the same force that killed Martin Luther King in April of ’68 and Robert Kennedy in June.

I still remember the night of June 5. At Leo Hawkins’ apartment in Little Rock, we had watched Robert Kennedy’s victory speech following his California win. We turned off the TV, thrilled and hopeful that he would move on to the presidency and turn the country around. Youthful hopes. I was about to turn 25. Went to bed feeling good about the future.

The next morning, I was in the student center at LRU, where I was taking a summer course, when I heard about the assassination. I had grabbed a bottle of Coke and was standing under an intercom speaker, waiting to pay for the soda. A voice came over the intercom, a radio broadcast, saying Kennedy had died from gunshot wounds. I literally went limp, the bottle sliding out of my hand to the floor.

I went to the telephone and called Jim Guy Tucker. We who knew Jim Guy well felt one day he’d become president. He eventually became a congressman and governor. I told him I had just heard about Robert Kennedy. He summarized what we all were feeling: “They’re killing all our leaders.”

By the end of ’68, I was winding down on my three years in Fayetteville, writing and rocking, and preparing to move back to Little Rock, my hometown, to seek some work in the writing trade.

Comments

[Andrew Salomon]

Arresting recollections, peppered with wonderfully vivid details. Bravo Roger and Laura.

Of the many things that struck me: A school within a poor rural community had extra money to spend on teachers to instruct just spelling and grammar. What a concept. I'm grateful that we're seemingly dedicated these days to leaving no child behind. To aid in that effort, maybe we should stop leaving subjects behind, such as spelling, grammar and (gasp) geography. I would love it if the leaders of tomorrow could actually find Afghanistan on a map. Lord knows the leaders of today cannot. Or maybe they just think it's spelled I-R-A-Q.

[Laura]

LOL.

Thanks for leaving a comment. It is striking how different things were back then.