Dennis Rein, Oral History

 

Recorded: May 5, 2022

Interviewed by: Liz Campion

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Interviewer]: This is Liz Campion, May 4 Archivist speaking on Thursday, May 5, 2022, at Kent State University Library. As part of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, we are recording an interview in person today. Could you please state your name for the recording?

 

[Dennis Rein]: My name is Dennis Rein. I’m known as Denny out here in Ohio.

 

[Interviewer]: I would like to begin with some brief information about your background so we can get to know you a little bit better. [00:00:29] Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[Dennis Rein]: I was born in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, on December 1, 1950. I grew up in the Five Towns area of New York. Until I was eleven, I lived in Hewlett. After eleven, we moved about a half a mile down the road to Woodmere.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:00:45] When did you first come to Kent State University?

 

[Dennis Rein]: I came to Kent State in fall of 1968.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:00:53] What brought you to Kent State?

 

[Dennis Rein]: It was affordable. Basically, that was the main thing. They had my major that I was going to major in and my parents weren’t well off, so this was affordable.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:01:08] What was your major when you first started here?

 

[Dennis Rein]: My major was industrial design which I don’t believe is given here anymore. It was a five-year course.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:01:18] As a student, how did you view the protests and the Vietnam War when you first arrived on campus?

 

[Dennis Rein]: When I first came on campus and all, I was pretty much of the, more of the right-sided wing protests because of where I grew up and the background that I had and everything else; and support the soldiers and all that stuff and everything. Most of the protesting was done on the campus through SDS who, whose ideology at the time, predominantly didn’t agree with mine. Over time, after a while, I remember talking to one person I knew from the dorm whose name was Nigel Dickens and I got to start to thinking, I said, “You know, Nigel,” I said, “I’m really kind of starting to see what you see and I agree in what your point of view is. I just don’t agree with your methodology.”

 

[Interviewer]: [00:02:08] How would you describe the prevailing attitudes or even the mood among the students in that spring of 1970?

 

[Dennis Rein]: 1970, if you’re talking about the political aspects, I wasn’t really that political of a person. Most of the people I knew, you would get tired of the stuff, but every time Nixon would come on or somebody, the TV rooms were full. Of course, that was our only method of getting any kind of communication as to what’s going on. Needless to say, about ninety-six percent of the people in that room watching those things were against the war and all at that time and what was going on. You’d get a handful or two, there was one guy I won’t mention that was kind of, he was kind of the barb of a lot of the jokes and everything. But you listen to all of the bullshit and then, for the most part, a lot of times, you just go out and put it aside because it wasn’t directly affecting you at the time. So, we’d go out and we’d do our partying or whatever and everything and like I said, I wasn’t a member of any—I wasn’t an active member of any political organization, although I knew several people who were. A lot of people who were.  

 

[Interviewer]: I was going to say, [00:03:31] did you feel any pressure to participate in any of those kind of political—

 

[Dennis Rein]: Never.

 

[Interviewer]: Never? Okay.

 

[Dennis Rein]: No, I never felt any pressure. Nobody was like, Why don’t you do this? Or anything. I never felt any, that in any way. It was your decision to do.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:03:43] At the time, was your family involved with the kind of political—

 

[Dennis Rein]: No.

 

[Interviewer]: No?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Not at all.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay.

 

[Dennis Rein]: None whatsoever.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:03:51] Was there any point kind of in the lead up, did you end up participating in any of those protests as we started nearing May 4?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Well, I was downtown on May 1, which was—

 

[Interviewer]: Friday.

 

[Dennis Rein]: —Friday. I was downtown and I was at The Deck, which was in the bottom area of the old hotel on Main [Street] and my friend, my very good friend, one of my very good friends who has since passed away and it’s—since the last time I was out here—my very good friend, Chuck Patti, came in, I think he came in with his girlfriend Gerry, and they said, “Hey, they’re starting to liberate North Water Street.” I said, “Oh, really?” So, I said, “Okay.” So, I guess I finished what drink—real quick, what I had, and we went on down to North Water Street. I think we were going to go into Walter’s [Café] or, most of the time, we referred to it as Orville’s, but just about at that time, is when the police did the key stupid thing of closing all the bars and putting everybody out onto the street. And at the same time, there was a motorcycle gang downtown, zooming up and down the street. I think their name was “The Chosen Few.”

 

I can’t remember for sure. And so, they’re out there and they built a little bonfire in the street and I think one guy whips it out and starts pissing on the fire and everybody starts doing the chanting because everybody’s out in the streets now instead of leaving us inside and let us enjoy our beers and drinks, whatever. I know I’m sure you heard this many times, the cop car goes slowly rolling by, the beer bottle goes flying at it, and it was like arrrrr! Things started getting a little hairy after that and you could see a bunch of the mob going south. The windows started breaking and everything and I think I looked at Chuck and I don’t know if there was any other people, he said, “This is getting a little ugly. Let’s get out of here.” So, we cut north, up the hill towards Depeyster [Street]. We didn’t go down South Water Street because we knew the shit was going to hit the fan real quick and didn’t want to get caught up in it. And I wasn’t into destruction. So, we headed, and made our way back to campus and back to the dorms.

 

[Interviewer]: And what dorm were you at?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Wright Hall.

 

[Interviewer]: Wright Hall? Okay, at Tri-Towers?

 

[Dennis Rein]: We opened up Tri-Towers the first year it was open. Cracks in the walls and all.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:06:30] Can you tell us about what was happening in Tri-Towers? Were there a lot of people that were also involved in that downtown atmosphere, or did you have a lot of people that you were friends with in Tri-Towers?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah, because Tri-Towers was always this focal point because you had that pit area and you used to have a lot of protest groups come and sometimes they’d make that a focal point because they knew they had a large crowd and there was a lot of people coming and going, so they would get people to stop and discuss things and everything. So, you had that going on and you’d even have, like I said, on the weekend, when some of the people would come down from Cleveland—MaryAnn Vecchio was in there during the one time during that weekend as well, and they’d hang out, you know. There was one girl I remember come down each weekend and I used to think she was a student, she wasn’t, she’d just come to hang out. So, there was a lot of people and friends that I knew even friends that I knew from, that had been in Tri-Towers and moved out of Tri-Towers and they sometimes would come to visit because it was, Yay, let’s get together and do this and do that.

 

[Interviewer]: It was the hangout spot. [00:07:44] After the downtown evening where the destruction began, I know that communication wasn’t as constant as it is today with texting and social media. Were you able to touch base with your family frequently or—?

 

[Dennis Rein]: I didn’t need to. I didn’t have to. They didn’t call, What’s going on out there? I’m sure there was not really much, too much, any news. So, I did not get any calls during that whole weekend. I had to finally get through to call and say, “I’m all right.”

 

[Interviewer]: [00:08:20] As Friday evening went by, can you describe how Saturday began and Sunday? Kind of in that lead up to May 4?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Saturday, I really don’t remember much what happened during the day on Saturday. There was no classes, I don’t remember what we did. I think it was a nice day and everything, but in the evening is when they had the other protest and the sit-in at the intersection of Depeyster and Main [Streets], right where Robin Hood was [editor’s clarification: the narrator is referring to the intersection of Main Street and Lincoln Street. The Robin Hood was a restaurant and bar located at the northeast corner of that intersection]. We went down there, I think, I think it started off—I believe it started off maybe as a rally that went through campus. I can’t remember for sure. And that it ended up as a sit-in at Main [Street] and Depeyster [i.e. Lincoln Street] where they had the Kent Police and I think the state troopers might have been there too, at the time, because they brought in the troopers. Usually, it doesn’t make a difference which state you’re in, you don’t mess with state troopers.

 

So, I remember not being—sitting in the street. I was just back up by the gate and watching what was going on, helicopters were flying above, there was a spotlight and stuff, and they were like, You got to move and everything else. I was like, “Fuck you. We don’t want your—” and all that. And then, the cops started moving in and hitting people and whatever and it was bad. The one thing that a friend of mine mentioned, his father used to be a prof on the campus, that he always appreciated the Greeks, at the time, because there were, they had two fraternities across the street and they’re yelling, “Leave them alone! Leave them alone! Stop it, leave them alone! They’re not doing anything wrong!” This is the Greeks, so you know you’re seeing a little bit of a changeover politically on their end, too. I remember finally, they started moving in and everything else and then they, we ended up—downtown was closed as I remember, yeah, everything was closed. So, we ended up doing the only thing we could do was to go back to dorms and hang out, hang out in The Pit.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:10:29] The night of the ROTC fire, do you have any memories?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah, that’s the one I was telling you earlier where I believe we were, I’m pretty sure, I believe we were restricted to the dorms. We couldn’t go out on, they didn’t want us out on, they didn’t want anybody milling about on campus. So, we were under form of Martial Law. And one of my roommates, because I was in a quad, had brought his black-and-white TV in, so we were able to watch the news, or at least turn on the TV, if we would hear something. And that’s when we heard, and I can’t remember, somebody said, “The ROTC Building’s on fire.” Somebody said it, and you’re kind of looking out the windows, down the end, you could kind of see a glow and we all really wanted to go down there and we knew better. Well, we knew we couldn’t go out.

 

And then, there was, at a time, we thought the troopers or whatever were going to come by there, so we were getting things ready to project out the window if they got too close, you know, whatever. And I think there was a time also when people were rushing back when, either the Guard was called in that night, later that night? That was on Saturday night. I can’t remember, yeah, the Guard was called in Saturday night, so they may have been started to get in and we were waiting for them then. People started running back towards the dorm, but they had, they also had locked the doors and the troopers were there and they weren’t going to let them in and I can’t remember who the residence hall supervisor was, I can’t remember because he lived there with his family and he’s pushing. He says, “You let them in. You let them in.” The cops were going to not let them in and lock them up, and then they were going to end up arresting them. So, he pushed it open. He said, “You let them in.” And he let them in, some of the other people who were down there with them because I remember seeing him doing that, pushing the doors open to let the people in. Or, go around the other side, we’ll let you in that side. To let the people in and then, all we could do then is listen to what we may have heard on the news. I don’t remember and see what happened the next day.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. To backtrack a little bit, [00:12:53] can you describe kind of your feelings seeing the National Guard come on the campus?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah, that was kind of like—that’s bullshit, because we knew, we knew they had been out on a trucker—they basically pulled them in from the truckers’ strike because they had people taking pot shots at the scab drivers along the interstates. So, you had these National Guardsmen, poorly trained, weekend warriors, and they’ve been out along the highways, so they’re already tired and everything. So, you knew they were being uprooted, now they’re being brought onto a campus where they’re not welcome. Along the side of the highway, they’re not going to have anybody getting in their face. So, when we heard about that or saw that, and that’s also like—we’re waiting for, I can’t remember if the Guard finally came towards us that night—might’ve been out. I think I remember being outside of the dorm one time and seen them outside because they also had helicopters, I’ll never forget the helicopters. And there was one in particular that was flying over—there’s housing that’s just on the other side of Tri-Towers, it’s private, I can’t remember what it was called then. There was a couple I knew who ended up being married. They lived in Tri-Towers and they moved into one of the apartments over there. Mike and I can’t remember his wife’s name; his name was Mike Estell. But I just remember those helicopters and we were up, we could see them when we would go by the windows of the either our room or go to the other rooms that faced into the middle of Tri-Towers to see them shining those lights. You don’t forget that, that chopper sound and those high beam lights, looking down and everything, so that kept you awake also for quite a while.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, and I imagine that’s not a normal sight on a campus. So, [00:14:59] going into May 3^rd, the day before, do you have any memories of kind of how campus was feeling or what the emotions were?

 

[Dennis Rein]: It was a strange day because that was a beautiful—May 3^rd was like a beautiful day. I went out with my girlfriend, Nora, and stuff. We went out to walk around. I’ve got—I can show you pictures actually because—and if you want me to send these to you, I can send them to you. I only took about four photos or something that day, but it was a beautiful day. We went out, I got a picture of her. I’ll show you, next to one of the soldiers. I think she’s another one she’s holding a flower and it was funny because I remember—oh, you’re currently offline. Am I getting on the KSU thing here? Oh, wait a minute, it may come up on my feed anyway. Let’s see. I remember seeing that, I see this one picture of Nora and she’s standing there with a flower in her hand and everything else and when you think of Allison [Krause], with the flower and the rifle, gee, the next day, that could’ve been Nora.

 

[Interviewer]: It really, yeah, that’s, that’s jarring to think about.

 

[Dennis Rein]: I don’t, I don’t think she ever went out of the dorm that day.

 

[Interviewer]: I was going to say, was Nora, so Nora was a student as well?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Nora Petersen, yeah. It’s P-e-t-e-r-s-e-n. She’s a, she’s a little more of the right-minded, one of the few right-minded people I have. She’s married and lives out in Colorado, praise Jesus.

 

[Interviewer]: And did you two both meet at Kent State?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah, she lived in Leebrick.

 

It won’t come, I’m not getting any—I was on the guest Wi-Fi, but it’s not coming through here. I thought I could still see my—

 

[Interviewer]: Well, we can take a look at them after—oh, got it?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Let’s see if I can get my photo albums. I’ll just take one quick look. I’ll leave it off for now.

 

But we walked around campus, went around front campus, I don’t know if we walked—we may have walked a little bit into town, but I don’t think so. I know we walked like towards the front gate and back up again because, yeah, because I have pictures of the front gate. I have a picture of a half-track up there. I got, the four pictures that, I got a picture of one Guard standing out front of the ROTC Building, the burned down ROTC Building. I got a picture of Nora with one of the Guardsmen and I’ve got one other shot. I can’t remember exactly.

 

[Interviewer]: So, it sounds like things had settled down.

 

[Dennis Rein]: It was really calm. Everything was quiet. The Guards were positioned all over the place. I mean, they brought more of the jeeps, the half-tracks, no tanks that I remember. Just half-tracks, transport units.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:17:59] Did you have any one-on-one interactions with the Guardsmen at any point?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Just a little bit. I think I talked to the one guy that Nora was standing next to. I asked to take a picture and he was smiling and all and everything else, but that smiling guy could’ve shot somebody the next day.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Absolutely, yeah.

 

[Dennis Rein]: So, it was like you have that—when you look at the pictures again, you say, Oh, that was—but it’s like, you don’t know how many, this guy might’ve picked off two people for all you know; somebody I knew. So, then we, it was kind of like, all right, then we went back to the dorm because everything was shut down. And I don’t remember much about that night. I really don’t. We probably got high or something. What else is there to do?

 

[Interviewer]: To go back a little bit, [00:18:43] do you recall kind of the environment in your classes before May 4? If there was any tensions or students or professors—

 

[Dennis Rein]: Nope. I don’t recall anything really going on in my classes at the time.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, so business as usual?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah, as far as I remember. I can’t remember as far as what’s going on or if one of the professors might have mentioned something about it or anything, pro or con, concentrate on your work instead of what’s going on outside or anything like—I just don’t remember. Nothing, nothing strikes me that because I think, I think if one of them said one thing one way or the other, I would’ve remembered.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Did you have an idea of kind of how the Kent community viewed students prior to the shootings?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Probably like a necessary evil, you know? It’s like most of those businesses right in town really depended on that student influx and, during the summertime, of course, except for the bars, it waned. They weren’t getting that same, obviously they weren’t getting that same influx of income no matter what. The real estate agents who, you knew that most of those real estate agents were like board members on the town council and why do you think the Haymaker Parkway went through? That went through all Erie Street. That was all student housing, off-campus housing. They made a fortune. They probably got overpaid for all that housing and then, they don’t have the headaches anymore and what happens two years later? Trains stop running through the upper tracks and it wasn’t even necessary.

 

[Interviewer]: So, after May 3, and as you had mentioned, pretty, pretty casual spring day, walk us through May 4, if you can. [00:20:48]

 

[Dennis Rein]: May 4^th, I knew there was a rally. I wanted to go to the rally and since I’m going to get there, but I was a little late getting up and having lunch and everything, so I was late moving. I probably didn’t leave until like a little after noon, whatever, so I’m kind of—at the time, Tri-Towers is just basically a sandy expanse with some earthen hills, so I’m kind of cutting through there because it was dry enough to go through around it and I end up cutting a little bit to the left and I end up on Terrace Drive.

 

So then I start walking north, parallel to the practice field. As I get to the top there, just about the front of the practice field, or by the fence, all of a sudden, I see the rush of students coming over the hill. And then, I see the National Guard coming up after the students that were rushed and I stopped dead in my tracks and yelled out, “What the fuck?!” Instant radicalization. I make my way onto the practice [field]—I don’t know if there was a hole in the fence. I get on the practice field, there were some other people there already, because the Guard starts marching and they’re marching down and they’re marching towards the practice field and we’re picking up stones and throwing them. This is not a revelation because you know already from a lot of people, we’re doing a pretty—and Bill Arthrell was on that field, I’m virtually positive because there’s a picture of him there. And then I remember the Guardsmen doing that kneel down and aiming towards us and I, “Fuck you! Go ahead.” You know, you’re yelling because you know, you don’t believe, first of all, you don’t believe the guns are loaded. It’s the National Guard, like everything else and the great fallacy of youth, I’m young, therefore I am invincible.

 

So, you start throwing some of the rocks and stuff and then they finally get up and they start—they did, I thought— no they threw it. They might have thrown a few tear gas canisters at them. We picked them up, threw them back, but I didn’t think they had much left at that point or until they went back down or, yeah. So, they get up and then they start marching back up towards Taylor Hall. We start going after them, picking up whatever as they’re going, and then, as I’m going—I’m probably in the middle of the practice field, maybe two-thirds of the way up, so I’m at a ninety-degree angle to Taylor Hall. So, I’m looking dead straight on as I watched the Guard go up to the top of the hill by the Pagoda. Watched them turn around and fire. We all hit the deck too because, needless to say, we’re throwing rocks, somebody wants to pick off one of us or whatever, one of the wounded was on the practice field.

 

I think, I’m pretty, I think it was Bill that got up and said, “They’re firing blanks.” And we get up and we start running to them and the first person I got to—the first person I got to was Dean Kahler who I was, I wasn’t friends with, but I knew from the dorm because he lived in Wright Hall. And I got to Dean and it was like—then it was like reality set in. I mean, everybody, you’re in shock. Everybody’s in that state of shock. And you’re milling about and then, you’re just milling about. I didn’t, I mean—obviously then, I saw Jeff Miller, because he was close by to where Dean was.

 

I had just met Jeff. Let me take a drink of water. I had just only met Jeff about two weeks prior. We had a party up on the quarry at Route 43—which somebody told me they still do that. And so, I was introduced. He was good friends with another friend of mine—two friends, Neil Phillips and Steve Drucker, because I think they all went to high school together. And so, I only knew Jeff briefly from that, I was only acquainted with him from that day. So, I mean, when I saw him laying face down, obviously, I didn’t recognize him, even if I knew him, I might not recognize him, but unless I had seen him earlier, but I didn’t.

 

So, I saw him. I didn’t see anything else because by that time, the ambulances and everybody were coming in and people were trying to link arms or get people back, get back, give them some room, let them breathe and eventually, as people go and they started going down to the other side, we went to the other side of the hill when we were hearing, and everybody says the same thing when we see “Fire in the Heartland” and we listen to Glenn Frank—

 

[Interviewer]: It’s a powerful voice and especially in that moment. Do you want to take a break?

 

[Dennis Rein]: [Professor Frank was shouting],“Going to be a slaughter and you don’t want to be a part of this!” And you didn’t want to go and then, finally, they started dispersing. A lot of people started dispersing. I went over—some of the things I kind of forget, but now comes back to me. I went over towards the right side of Blanket Hill as most of the people were getting dispersed and everything else and I was just sitting there and there was a guy to the right of me and I don’t know who it was. I used to think it was Chris Butler, but it wasn’t him because I asked him about it once. This guy started reciting a poem that I tried to look up by the words. I’ll have to try Googling it again and he started off saying like, “I am a small man.” And it kind of went on and all. He just recited this and I always wanted to find that poem, but whatever, I’ve never been able to do it.

 

Eventually, the troopers who were still there because there was still Ohio State [Highway Patrol]—they came up those, Let’s go. Got to go. Moving everything else, so eventually, I went back over to the other side. Now, I don’t remember if this happened before or after, this other event. I was probably on the hill afterwards when what I just told you happened.

 

There was, and I don’t know if you’ve heard this from anyone else whoever, there was one shot fired afterwards. Laurel Krause, Allison’s sister, had a Kent State Truth Tribunal, I think on the thirty-fifth anniversary—or what, I can’t remember exactly—with Emily Kunstler did the taping and everything else. William Kunstler’s daughter. So, I, like many people, and several people that I know, made video tapes in which I stated it about this other shot. And I said, “I’m telling you, there was one extra shot fired.” As the person—unfortunately, you won’t see my video because she took it down. She took several others, she took mine down, I think she got ticked off because I didn’t buy a T-shirt from her one time. I will never deny, I will never deny Laurel, her bitterness. Never deny that to her. She’s right in the fact that she lost a sister, there’s never been a truth come out, nobody’s been made to pay for it, she’s done as much as she could do from her end, in her own way, to try to get the case reopened. She went to The Hague, the international court, you know, she had her feuds with Alan, I know, Canfora, for a long time for stuff because of—God bless Alan, I mean, he, I told Chic [Canfora] the other day on Sunday, I said, “I just want to tell you personally from the heart, how much, it’s inconceivable that Alan’s not here. That you lost your brother and like I said, he did so much to keep everything alive and the investigations and everything else.” And I said, “He took a lot of slings and arrows for it, too.” But he was relentless in finding out the truth and making, not just, like I said, not just making sure that May 4^th wasn’t forgotten with the creation of the [May 4] Task Force and everything. But also, he kept on investigating. He went to Yale. He found that tape [editor’s clarification: narrator is referring to the Terry Strubbe tape]. He had that tape re-evaluated. Then he had it re-evaluated again as a technology’s gotten better.

 

But back to that other shot. I’ll tell you how the incident went. And, oh, also, I was talking about it when I did it. One of the guys who’ve reviewed online, reviewed my video, wrote in the comments on my video that he goes, “I’m glad you,” he says, “I’m glad you mentioned that other shot.” He says, “I remember it too, but supposedly the FBI didn’t count it as anything because it was only corroborated by only eight people.” Now, you’ve got to remember too, most people had scattered by then and were gone. And also, people were in a state of shock, so this is what happened with that incident.

 

So, actually, this probably, this had to happen before I went back to the other side and sat on the side of Blanket Hill where the guy did the poem. For some dumb reason, I’m kind of like milling about, and for some, I don’t know what reason, I kneeled down and I put my hand on Jeff’s back like there’s going to be some sign of life or something, or whatever. At that point, because my back is to Taylor Hall. There was a row about six or eight Guardsmen in that little corner, approximately on the corner of Taylor Hall where the dumpsters are now—one of them fired a shot. It was either six feet to the right, I think it was six feet to the right of me, might have been to the left, at the ground. Six to eight feet from me. I dove down that little hill, covered myself, and then finally got up.

 

By the time I got up, a friend of mine from Tri-Towers, Mary Van Oosten, is screaming at them. She’s livid. She goes, “What are you doing? Aren’t enough people dead?” And she’s screaming and yelling. I go over there and I start screaming and yelling at them, too. A couple of them had that sheepish look on their face, like what, because obviously probably the ones that didn’t take the shot and she’s screaming, yelling, and screaming and everything and then, I did also mention it to Alan one time. He said, “I’ve never really heard of it or corroborate it.” And the only thing I could think of is I never thought of, the only way to try to corroborate it maybe one time, I should’ve mentioned it to Alan was get a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), see if it’s in the FBI interviews with all the people that they interviewed, and see if it’s still there. Or if they decided not to certify it, so to speak, they should, they might have said like, Get rid of this. Because, especially if it happened after the action, that could also involve some other type of investigation or lawsuit.

 

[Interviewer]: Right, just to follow up.

 

[Dennis Rein]: I’m getting shot at for what? So, one, there—I guarantee you, this happened. This absolutely fucking happened. And I don’t know if you’ve gotten it from anybody else. I wish to hell you would. I really wish, or anyone. So, I guess after I went on the hill and got shooed away, I ended up going back to the dorm. There was a group of about dozen people that I knew sitting in The Pit. One of them is Al Bussard [00:33:32] who used to go out with Sandy [Scheuer]. And he goes, “Denny, Sandy was one of them.” I said, “You’re kidding me.” She would’ve been one of the last people you would think that got hit and as it was, she was just going to class.

 

And at that point, I didn’t know it was Jeff [Miller]. I still didn’t know it was Jeff until I heard about it afterwards. I didn’t know anybody else who I had heard that got wounded. I might have heard, I mean, I knew Robbie [Stamps] and Robbie was the only one who was wounded that I was friends with. I did get to know Tom [Grace] and Alan [Canfora] a little bit through Chic until afterwards.

 

Like I said, I knew Sandy from the dorm and going out with Al. She was also a roommate of two other girls that I was friends with in Koonce Hall, so that was tough for them. I was acquainted—I just met Jeff two weeks before. I was kind of acquainted with Allison because she’d be in The Pit sometimes with Barry. I knew Barry a little bit better than I knew Allison, her boyfriend, Barry Levine. And then, next thing you know, it’s like you got this much time to get your shit together and get out, get out of town. And so, you could see people are scurrying, like trying to figure out what are you going to do, what are you going to go? So, I ended up—my friend Chuck Patti, he had a car. So, it was me, it was him, me, his girlfriend Gerry, my girlfriend Nora. There was somebody else. There was at least six of us in the car, there might have been seven.

 

[Interviewer]: That’s a lot of people in one car.

 

[Dennis Rein]: He had a Camaro. People needed ways to get out.

 

So, Chuck lived in Rochester.  Nora lived in East Aurora which is right near Buffalo. And so, I think, I believe I went to stay with Chuck’s family first. He dropped Nora off. I was there with Chuck’s family and then, I already mentioned those two girls that was Sandy’s roommates. I was friends with them and they lived in—Annie, and I used to like her younger sister, Jo, kind of see her a lot. She was like still in high school, but so I went and stayed with them for a little while because, we don’t know when we can get back. And they lived in a little town called Barre Center which is outside of Albion, New York, and pretty much right in between Rochester and Buffalo. Stayed with them for a while. Then eventually, I went and stayed with—I think Chuck might have picked me up and then, dropped me off at Nora’s because I think he was trying to head back to Kent or someplace by there to stay with some people. Or he went back, he dropped me off and then probably went back to Rochester. And then, I stayed at Nora’s house with them. I mean, I had a little tough time when I stayed with my friend Annie’s family. Her father was one of those crew-cut guys, “They should’ve killed more of them.” And it’s like—and I think Chuck was there at the time when he said it—it was like, we was like livid. How do you say that? What if it was one of your daughters? What if it was your daughter that got shot, you know?

 

And people don’t realize that. That’s like when we saw those, you see those women from Ravenna, “Well, they should’ve shot more of them.” And it’s like, “Oh, you bitches.” So, we finally—finally, when we got the word, it was just, then it was kind of like, you got this much time to be on campus this afternoon, or I can’t remember if they did it in waves and whatever. If you lived in these dorms, you could go there. I don’t know how they did it. I don’t think they wanted a mass of people because you were going to have so much traffic going in and out. I don’t even remember what—I guess I packed up my stuff and got whatever there was and then dropped me off back at the airport and I flew back home with my trunk and stuff.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:37:54] What was your parents’ reaction when you got home?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Well, I know what I heard from people, that my mother was like, needless to say, until she heard from me, she was completely bent out of shape. Because somebody called her and said, “Phyllis, they shot four kids at Kent State. They killed four kids.” And so, she didn’t know anything until she heard from me. My father didn’t say too much. He really didn’t. He’s, “You okay?” “Yeah.” I said, “I’m okay and everything else.” But then, like, when I had to go back over to the firehouse, and I had to take some shit.

 

[Interviewer]: I was going to ask, so the firehouse and what was also kind of the community’s response to Kent students as well?

 

[Dennis Rein]: On my high school, outside the wall that was the outer side of the swimming pool that faced the ball fields, one of the high school students, in big blue letters and spray paint, put “U.S. out of Southeast Asia” and it took them years to finally get it to a color—because even when they took it off, the fading of the letters, you could still see it.  And that was there and I remember seeing that when I went by it the first time because they did it right away and it made me feel good.

 

I didn’t really go out and about, because I don’t remember a lot about it. I mean, some of my friends or people that I knew talked about it. They asked about it and what happened and everything else and, Were you there and what were you doing? I don’t remember talking about it too much, I mean, especially like the firehouse, they asked me to a degree because they knew what kind of crap I’d take.

 

It’s like—somebody remembers too because you have all these other guys that were like in during the war and stuff like that. But I also know that in a certain case and in certain instances, you got a problem, even if they didn’t like what you did and all. They’d back you up a hundred percent. It’s like if you went to—I used to go to, I used to run on the tournament teams for the fire department. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them, you can see mine on YouTube, and I’ve been to dozens of dozens of parades and stuff and there’d be block parties afterwards. Sometimes there’d be fights, but you pick on one fight, you might as well pick on one member of your fire department, you might as well on pick on them all. I’ve seen those brawls. I don’t need to get into them. But, there was, that type of stuff that you kind of got up with, so a lot of the times, you didn’t mention—you didn’t really want to talk about it much because then you didn’t want to deal with the bullshit grief that would come through.

 

I did have one time, one time. I went to a fire school that summer at the Nassau County Fire Service Academy and I had on one of my Kent State shirts. Fire chief that was teaching the class at the time saw that, he goes, “Kent State,” he goes, “you guys cost my son from being, he was going to be an all-American in lacrosse and then they ended up shutting down his university because of you bastards.” Or whatever and I wanted to say, Fuck you. I’m out of here. But I couldn’t. I’m there to take the class; it’s like, all you could do is sit there and like, take it.    

 

[Interviewer]: Take it, yeah.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah, because that’s the type of crap you would end up having to take, so it’s like, but that’s what you want to do. Your fucking son didn’t become an all-American, meanwhile four people got killed, nine wounded and that’s all you think about.

 

[Interviewer]: Lives were changed forever.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yes, absolutely. And we all know that that shooting was the crux of the start of the end of the Vietnam War.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:41:50] Can you talk about a little bit about what the days and weeks were like after May 4, did you have to do classwork from home? Did you have to do finals?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yes, I did classwork from home. I remember—it’s funny, you don’t remember all your prof’s names, but one I do remember who was great was Sheila Tabakoff, taught art history and she was great because she wasn’t that much older than the students and so, she made it really easy for us. The art history class, obviously it wasn’t online like today, but she made it pretty much easy for us for the art history class. I can’t remember what she said to do it and then I finished what other classes I could do, I think. I was in my industrial design classes, there was, I don’t think there was any way of whatever if there was a project or something I was working on, there was no way to finish it, or if they sent us something from home. So, yeah, whatever classes I could or had to finish at home, I did.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:42:53] Was there any point that summer or at the end of spring that you thought about not coming back to Kent State?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Never.

 

[Interviewer]: Never?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Not at all. As a matter of fact, it was—I mean, I’ve talked to some people during the summer, we were all, a lot of my friends and us, we were good letter writers. My friend Dustin still, I think, has a lot of old letters he mentioned about recently that he’s started going back and reading through. Dustin and I wrote a lot of letters back and forth and stuff and so, we talked about that. Didn’t talk on the phone too long or too much because it cost a lot of money back then, but it was—we talked about it and then it was like, you’re starting to anticipate what was going to happen that fall. Because like, my freshman year, homecoming show was Bob Hope and Dionne Warwick that’s about as far straight, big stars, big time stars. And you’re like, Wow, when you go, when I was going through freshman orientation and I heard that’s who they were having I was like, Wow, big time. So, I went to the shows and all but, very middle-of-the-road America.

 

Fall of ’70: it’s Jefferson Airplane, Volunteers of America, all of a sudden we go—so it’s like my friend, I wish I had—I wish I could get on here, I’d have to show it to you. Maybe we can get on a computer. My friend Jeff was a—he wasn’t an art major, but he was a good artist. So, he had this little cartoon thing that he made like comic strip cartoon that he made and he’d call it the “When Will It End Sweepstakes” thinking that they were going to— there was going to be some type of a shutdown or a strike in the fall and he had Bob White, President [Robert] White with the Mickey Mouse ears on and he did it all real tongue and cheek and basically the characters—he was drawing all the friends as the characters in the strip and stuff.

 

We were thinking like, this is going to be real interesting— we knew the atmosphere was going to be a lot different. I was still living in Tri-Towers. It was my third year there and this time, though, I was in a double with a friend of mine. So, the concert was great. It was funny because it was—the lead off act was Sha Na Na, if you know what that group was. They basically did oldies. They were a retro oldies group from, I think they were from New York or Jersey. I think from New Jersey. And so, we all thought, too, Well, that’s a strange lead off group, but they got the fricking house rocking and then, [Jefferson] Airplane came on and they acted, what, it was a great time and all. But nothing really came down, so to speak, and the only thing I remember, and I guess it wasn’t until spring, I forgot about this. I was talking to this reporter about it yesterday with—that Tom Grace said, “Talk to her.” And I mentioned it to Tom, I said, “You remember the next year when we had that big protest and everything down on front campus that the university did their little divide and conquer tactics?” He goes, “Yeah.” So, I talked to her about it. I can’t remember her name, she wears the little like baby name bracelet, if you know the girl. Anyway, let me take a drink.

 

The next year, during the springtime, one of my friends who lived in the dorms, Susie Cooley, she started all of a sudden getting politically active, too and then, they had this thing where they were going to have a rally or student strike for whatever it was, I can’t remember the actual impetus at first. But they were going to talk about having a student strike. So, I think it started at Tri-Towers because we were at the far end of campus. But we had a rally parade. Join us, come on in, join us and everything else and it was towards the evening, so we all converged—you’ll have to look it up, because I can’t remember exactly what the impetus was to start it.

 

Everybody converged and met down on front campus by Rockwell Hall because that’s where the Administration Building was at the time. We’re all around there, people are playing, there’s a few people. But there’s a few people milling around, some guys were talking to us and all, and it was one of those things where also you’re, “You know who this guy is?” Because he’s asking questions and everything else. What are you going to do? And you knew, you could tell, because people talk, Well, what are we going to do? There was no like organization to the whole thing. Afterwards, when everybody was down there on front campus—you had a lot of people there to see, Well, what’s going on? What’s going to happen?

 

And afterwards, when you look back and realize, I said, “They had this, they were ready for this. They were ready for this in case anything happened because they knew if this campus exploded again, it’s going to go right across the country again like it did when all those other universities shut down.” So, I remember one time, people were talking about a strike, people were talking about going to Washington, going to Washington for some, whatever the reason was. There was another small group, I know it was a friend of mine because I knew the voice, said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to go downtown and have a beer.” He was looking to stir up some shit. I do not believe there was any damages done that night. There may have been some minor damage. This was the following spring so you’d have to look that part up.

 

It was decided that there was going to be organizations above some of us that were going to Washington [D.C.] and then, there was going to be other ones that were going to organize a student strike on campus. I went to Washington with some friends of mine. I don’t even remember how I got there. I can’t remember if there was a bus that was provided or a van or something. It might have been and it could’ve well been the university. It was perfect divide and conquer tactics. We’ll get this group here and we’ll keep an eye on them and then this other group here, so you won’t have masses of people causing a large disturbance.

 

It probably was in the [Daily] Kent Stater, you’ll have to look it up. There was a picture of us because, first person we met was, we met with [U.S.] Representative John Seiberling who took us around. You can kind of tell that they knew we were coming ahead of time. Seiberling talked with us, he was a really nice man, he was a great representative. He took us to meet with Senator Saxby [Chambliss] who was a little Republican, and he listened to us. There’s a picture of us sitting at the table with Senator Saxby. It’s me, my friend Dustin Lecate, that’s L-e-c-a-t-e, Jim Kerch, K-e-r-c-h and there was one other guy in the picture who, I knew the face, but I don’t remember his name.  I’m pretty sure it was from the Kent Stater. And we, we had a round table, a little round table discussion for a while with Senator Saxby. I think Representative Seiberling was in the office. And then, after we met with, I think it was after we met with Senator Saxby, he took us to see Senator Tip O’Neill. Tip just kind of gave us lip service. It was like we talked, we didn’t get to say much of everything and everything else, but he took us. It was like, talk to these kids, whatever, and that was it. He was probably busy anyway and had stuff to do, but he knew we were just there not to ask questions or talk with him, but just to be given some statements and stuff. So, that was our trip to Washington to state our concerns and everything. And they could listen to us because I think, at that time, I don’t think the Scranton Commission had come out yet, the report. So, that was that. That following year, that I remembered what had happened, that that incident that was very quiet and kept quiet on purpose, I mean, I don’t think you’ll even, I don’t think they even put much in the local papers. There was no news. There was like no news reporters or anything there, no cameras, no news crews from Cleveland, what’s going on at Kent State?

 

[Interviewer]: Probably couldn’t get away with that now.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Oh, yeah. You couldn’t. All kept away. We all—people said two things, like, if everybody had the cell phones like they had today, May 4^th never would’ve happened. And also, we always used to say, if we had cell phones and everything with all the shit we pulled at Tri-Towers and off-campus and the parties that we had? I said, your grandkids would’ve said, “You did that?” So, it’s like, technology could’ve been a very good thing to a degree or wouldn’t have happened, but you never know. I mean, technology today, look at the shit that comes down between all the crap that comes down on Twitter and Facebook that people believe. People who are so stupid, they’re uneducated and that’s their education and they believe all this shit. They don’t think for themselves. They, Well, I investigated it. Where did you investigate it? Well, I found this paper, I went on Breitbart. Oh, really? “Oh, yeah. And Infowars. It’s like, Okay, you know where they’re coming from. It’s like, it’s amazing. You don’t have the marshmallow conspiracy picture, too, when I got arrested.

 

[Interviewer]: Can you talk about the time that you got arrested?

 

[Dennis Rein]: What it was, there was a, you’ll have to re-look that. There was a ROTC review, something they do I guess each year, on one of the practice football fields. I think it was on the other side of Summit, at the time. On the south side of Summit at the time. So, there was a ROTC review, so a bunch of us went out there and we had like bags of marshmallows because the ROTC, they’re just doing their little marching around and there was a review, like you would do in the military review and everything. I knew a couple of the guys. I knew one of the guys was on my floor and all, that’s probably how I got nailed. And the main instigators too, like Jerry Persky and Jody Zahler. Jodi is one person nobody has ever been able to answer my question, What ever happened to Jody Zahler? Nobody knows where he is or what happened to him or where he went. So, it was a fairly good group. I think Ken [Johnson]—I can’t remember. There was about eleven or twelve of us that ended up getting busted for it.

 

So, we went, basically, we jumped the fence, we threw marshmallows at them, because we’re not throwing rocks, we’re just tossing marshmallows and everything and a cop snuck over or whoever came over—hopped back over the fence and started running away. I’m up at my dorm one night and the cop goes, “Is this you?” It kind of looks like me and so, he said, “Come with us.” I should’ve just said, “No.” Yeah, if I said no, they probably wouldn’t have really nailed me even though there was, I know there was one guy who had lived on my floor that was in ROTC.  So, I probably might have gotten it anyway.

 

I got taken down to the beautiful Portage County Jail facility. The next morning, Bobby Franklin comes, the late Bobby Franklin comes and bails me out. Eventually, when I had to go over to my hearing, I can’t remember when it was. I think it was in June, I might have had to stay late or whatever to go for the hearing. I pleaded no contest and then I ended up going before the judge, or whatever.  I got pissed off a little bit because people who had been busted for the same incident, same offense, same offense that I did, paid like, I don’t know, maybe like, I’m just going to put it out there, like a twenty dollar fine and nine dollars court costs. But it was like, for me, it was like I went in there and, all of a sudden, and I saw the one guy—I guess it was the prosecutor—I saw him lean over towards the judge and whisper something in his ear or something and the judge goes, “Forty dollar fine, nine-dollar court costs.” And I said, “Why is my fee, my cost, higher than the other?” The cop banged his fist down,  “That’s it. Out of here or you’ll be busted again, or pay a bigger fine.” Or whatever. So, I was really disturbed by that. I was like, it’s the same offense, like equal justice for all? My ass. And I remember the next fall, we were on front campus, it might have been the time when they had Jerry Rubin on front campus talking and they said, “Did anybody else want to speak?” And I got up and I, I did a little speech about talking about, Yeah, and I still got charged, so I got busted and they talk about equal justice, but I had to pay more for the same offense. So, I’m still having to pay out of state student fees even though I’m getting busted for it. It was like one of those things that put a little humor in the crowd that day. I mean, Jerry said a lot of stuff like basically, “Go home and eat your sister and brother.” He was really like trying to rile it up, it’s like—

 

[Interviewer]: You brought it back down a notch.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah, I definitely brought it back down a notch, but it was like, that wasn’t my intention. It was just I wanted to say something about the inequality of it.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you think that they upped your charge because of that potential person that lived on your floor?

 

[Dennis Rein]: No, my, my thinking was more like—

 

[Interviewer]: Sending a message?

 

[Dennis Rein]: —this guy hadn’t been in trouble with this group or something, so let’s see if we can make sure he doesn’t—let’s get him away from this crowd of rabble-rousers. That was my thinking on it as to why I got charged more.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. They were sending a message. This is your chance to stop—

 

[Recording is paused briefly for a break]

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, and we are back. Is there anything you want to share about how these experiences, particularly during your time at Kent, have affected your life over the years?

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah. I’ll tell you something. I’ll just start it off by saying my Kent friends have always been my best friends. I still have some close friends at home that were like basically—a few childhood friends. Some I don’t get to see anymore. There’s one girl that has been, one woman I should say, that has been one of my best friends from over the years that I’ve known since Tri-Towers and she lives in New York and we ended up hooking up again together when she was still married to her first husband and I moved into Chelsea in Manhattan and she was over on the lower East Side. We used to get together a lot and over the years, Janice and I would get together and we still do. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen her in about six months because different things are going on. One thing, I wasn’t feeling good or I had something to do, or I had a doctor’s appointment, or whatever. She went away on vacation and so, we’ll see each other when I get back. But you have a community. You have the community of us, the majority of us who lived in Tri-Towers at one time, or new people that were people that were there all the time. I mean, like, I saw my friends Ron and BJ yesterday. They got married when we were in Kent when we were still going to school. We all—a whole bunch of us went out to Mt. Vernon and went to their wedding and all. But like, Ron and Al, Sandy’s former boyfriend, they only lived [there] the first year, Tri-Towers opened and then, the two of them, they got an off-campus house. So, you’re not going to be here? I said, “No.” And of course, they had a party right away which was a lot of fun. Got pictures.

 

So, we kept in touch. We all somehow, over the years and whatever. And then, through the wonderful world of the internet, at the time, again, it was my second stint working at BBDO Advertising [Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn] in New York, in the city. And with the internet, and then, Microsoft had like, Microsoft Pages or something. It was kind of a, they had this, but I don’t know what they call it, groups or whatever they had, Microsoft Groups, I think it was, and it was a precursor like to Facebook so to speak, but it was a perfect venue. [1:00:36] Basically, what I did was, I wanted to get people together again—for old photos. I have to explain why it’s called this, but I called it, “Krotch Shots.” That’s crotch with a k. Now, I’ll tell you why. In Tri-Towers, if you go in and you know where the little food court is there? And then there’s the office to the left? Well, where the food court area is in the grill, that was just basicically an open area that could be rented, used for dances, or they used to show movies in there. I used to be in charge of getting movies and we’d show movies in there. I hired a band one time, Tom Kriss when he was out of the James Gang.  Joey Vitale, I had the band there, I don’t remember if they were calling themselves Sheriff or Warhorse at the time. But what that little office was, they originally intended to be a coat room or something for when they had events. We took it over. And because of the shape of it, it was like this little notch, we called it The Krotch with a “k.” So, we took over The Krotch. We moved some tables in there, we put posters and blacklights and speakers in there, and we used to go and hang out, you could smoke cigarettes in the dorms and everything back then. We’d hang out in The Pit or we’d hang out in The Krotch and people would study in there and I’ve got photos from there and everything else. And that was the first year.

 

Before we left, during the summer, my friend Rita Rubin compiled a list of all the names, addresses, and phone numbers—two pages worth of names and addresses and phone numbers—of where people would be during the summer or where they could be reached or anything else and the name and the list. And I still have that list.  And she called it, “The community of The Krotch.” So, I’m using it mostly for photographs. So, that’s why I called it “Krotch Shots.”

 

And I remember first time, putting on a page or whatever and somebody wanted to join, “This is my type of thing!” I said, “You didn’t read the description of the page.” So, I had to make it closed. But it was great because it had a place for photographs and people would comment on the photographs and it had a page for discussions. It had a page for member’s lists, I had the member’s lists, so I had the names and addresses and phone numbers for everybody who was a member of The Krotch Shots and everything else. As we were doing this, I got more and more people to tell me where these other people were. I could send them an email. I said do this and to join and everything. And it was fabulous and I got other people’s photos. Sometimes they’d send me and I would kind of— because I scanned my photos at work and I wasn’t really doing Photoshop at the time. So, I just used the scanner and got them on the page and everything and it was great.

 

Eventually, Microsoft shut that down. It migrated to—they were able to do a fairly clean migration to a place called “Multiply.” Multiply was a precursor to like, the Facebook and it kind of came out just at the same time Facebook was coming out because one of my friends said, “Oh, look at this Facebook thing.” And I looked at Facebook and I wasn’t crazy about it because there wasn’t a way to do what I was doing on the Microsoft or the Multiply as far a as the different pages that I could have of what I needed to do. Eventually, Multiply shut down, so there was nothing to do and people said, “Why don’t you do it on Facebook?” I said, “No, Facebook’s too ubiquitous. It’s too easy for people to copy and whatever and people can post if they’re members.” And it was like open—like another friend of mine from the days, opened up, there’s a group on Facebook called “The Pit” for members and other old fogies who used to be at Kent State at such and such a time. And at first, he had it as an open group and he accepted some membership from people like, there was—I said, “Well, who are these other two girls?” And he says, “Oh, they went on dates with me and Germano one time.” They weren’t like, their group. And I’ve talked with my friend Dustin and Jack and stuff and said, “You know, we all figured out we did not know who were forty percent of these people were.” Hadn’t a clue.

 

So, there’s still some people there and there’s some other people that have come on during the years that I didn’t know that my friend Janet would say like, “Could you add her to your mailing list or somebody because they were there and all. Well, Patty Taylor.” I said, “I know the name, I didn’t know the person.” I knew a lot of people because I had a very wide circle of friends because of all the time I was here. I had like my Tri-Towers early years and then, I lived at Dale Terrace for a year. Then I lived down on South Water Street.  Which was a lot of fun.

 

[Interviewer]: I imagine.

 

[Dennis Rein]: For my last years there. So, what this has done, this has—and everybody says, I can show you emails recently, too, where people have said, Thank you for all you do. Tom Grace told me the same thing. I said, “It’s a pleasure.” He says, “What you do is great and I thank you for doing it.” He goes, “No, it takes a lot of work to do what you do.” So, it’s kept us really connected over the years. I scanned a few things. I took a picture of Dean next to his marker and I also took a shot of the program for the day and I posted it and posted it on my page and I posted it to The Pit page and—

 

[Interviewer]: Which I’m sure people appreciated, especially not being able to come in.

 

[Dennis Rein]: A lot of people didn’t make this. We were supposed to have, on the 50^th anniversary, just eighty-six, so many plans and a lot of people—we were going to have a huge—Laura Davis is also a friend of mine, since Tri-Towers days. We were going to have—was probably going to be our last big reunion. We’ve had several reunions of varying sizes and degrees over the years. We had a couple of gatherings at my friend Larry’s house, I call it O-F-G number one and two, Old Freak Gathering. And then, my friend Kathy Wallace instigated one one year because she was getting nostalgic, wanted to have it. So, that was our first—she called it the “Summer of Love Reunion.” I’m trying to remember, but I think that was in 2008, I think it was. We had that at Fred Fuller Park. She got one of the big pavilions and we had it there. And then, we looked into it and found out that you could rent the jail that they moved there. And we all joked like, “How appropriate!” But the jail was ideal because you had this little indoor place, you had this big deck, it had running water, it had a bathroom inside, it was thirty-five dollars to rent it.

 

[Interviewer]: That’s a steal.

 

[Dennis Rein]: The trouble was, then we had it again, maybe two years later, it was ideal. But then, when we tried to get it again, it was like, people discovered it and they were using it for wedding venues or bachelorette parties and stuff. Like one time, we were going to do it and it wasn’t available, so I think I took a walk there with Janet or, yeah, I think I went there with Janet, and/or her sister, Roberta. It’s booked for the weekend and what somebody had did, they booked both days because it’s a dirt-free, so what’s it going to cost? Even if they jacked it up for fifty bucks, they’re paying a hundred bucks to get this nice, handy venue. So, the day before, it gave them a day to set it up, and leave it there so there was no worrying about it being a mess or cleanup, and then the next day—because we can look in the window and we can see it was all gathered for like, a wedding shower or something like that.

 

But anyway, we’ve had lots of big reunions, and we were supposed to have this great big bash. I had close to forty people coming already for this reunion.  How bizarre, like I said, Sandy’s ex hadn’t been—I had not seen Al since a few years after Kent when we went down, I think it was the second—we went down there for his wedding. He lives in Maryland, in Frederick. And then, I think we went down a year after to visit. And it was the first time he’d be coming back. He says, “Yeah, I finally decided to make one of these.” He’s a lawyer and said, “I finally decided I’ve got to make one of these reunions. You know, what better time.” And I always remember, the one thing I remember was, Al goes to the May 4Visitors Center, I want to make sure I’m with him because they were going to show—you know how they did each individual person, they had a special showing? 

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah.

 

[Dennis Rein]: They had Sandy’s and there’s that picture of him and Sandy together and it—so, I wanted to make sure I went there with him because I also wanted to tell him ahead of time kind of what to expect. So, at least he could get an idea. It may not have stopped it, but there’s pictures of him and all those messages from Steve Drucker and all and I’m reading these, it’s kind of funny, but we missed out. We were so disappointed because everybody had booked rooms and everything and then, COVID killed it.

 

And then, of course, COVID, this year, it wasn’t until like, what, six weeks before that they decided they were going to have it, so I’ve only seen a handful of people. I’ll probably see less people this time in Kent than any other time I’ve come, and I used to come every year. I haven’t been here in four years because there was the one year because of my back injury that I couldn’t go out.I didn’t want to leave town to go away because it was a worker’s comp case and I didn’t know how I’d be feeling anyway traveling. So, this has still kept us close and I was talking to Laura, I said, “Well, maybe we’ll try and have one in the fall because there’s still some people that have issues with May 4^th.” They just don’t want to deal with it for certain reasons. I know the other friends I haven’t seen since my Kent State days, one of my friends, Peter Lips [01:11:14]. Peter’s birthday was yesterday on May 4^th, so I’m pretty sure that’s one thing that—

 

[Interviewer]: Bad reminder for every birthday.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah. Rather not be here for that. And he knew Sandy. They both knew Sandy.  So, and Robbie, I guess they would know them too. They were first year Tri-Towers people as well. And so, we’ve never seen them, so we figured having it in the fall. I would talk to Laura yesterday and she agreed to—she says, “Yeah, sounds good to me.” And even her husband Tom said, “When are you guys going to have another reunion?” So, he enjoyed having us there. Her house, I don’t know if you know Laura well at all or have ever been there, but she’s got—on Peppermill Road [editor’s clarification: narrator is referring to Powdermill Road] or something like that outside on the, near where the golf course used to be. And it’s perfect for us because it’s a large private home and they’ve got this big open barn-like garage area. So, if the weather’s bad, we can go underneath. We set up the tables and chairs inside. We had it outside. It was—ideal location. And so, when we had the last reunion there, was four years ago, was the last gathering that we had and I got to see—usually every time I come out, we have a good-sized reunion. There’s usually one person, at least, that I haven’t seen since way back in the day. And that year, four years ago, Karen Cullie who was another first year Tri-Towers person, came out from California.

 

[Interviewer]: That’s nice. You’re able to reconnect with some people you haven’t seen in forever and then—

 

[Dennis Rein]: She says, I’ve got to come back. When I posted the pictures, one of the guys, other first year, Steve says, “How did I miss this?” Because Neil was there and he knew Neil from—he was friends with Karen, all these other people that he knew. Since then, two people that were there, its’ funny, that weekend was tough because one of my good friends, Rich Nageotte, who used to be come in every time, he would say “Denny, when you going to go to Kent?” Because he would come out to meet us there and come out as well because he still had family in Cleveland and he still owned a house or had part ownership of a house in Cleveland that one of the members of the family lived at. Rich wasn’t in great health. When he got off the plane, his leg blew up. It expanded from whatever. Long story short, he ended up going right to the hospital. He ended up having sepsis. He never got out of the hospital alive. And he came in for a reunion that he never got to go to and he never got—I mean, I can’t say he never got to go home, I can say, he just never got to go back to California because I’m pretty sure whatever was done, was done here. I extended my stay two extra days like I did this time, but I did the (unintelligible [01:14:20]) “I’m going up to see Rich because if anything happens with him and he doesn’t make it, I will never forgive myself for not seeing him again.”

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, this is the prime time to reconnect with anyone and everyone you can.

 

[Dennis Rein]: So, we went up there. I got to see him and all. And then, my friends went to go up there when he was like, on his way out and Larry was there, actually, too. He was one of the people that were there. Larry, I said, “Put the phone up next to Richard’s ear.” I said, “You may not be able to hear me,” or I can’t remember exactly, “I just want you to know I love you” and everything else. Larry said, “I don’t know what you said. I saw a little smile on his face.”

 

[Interviewer]: That’s sweet.

 

[Dennis Rein]: But since then too, Chuck Patti, one of my closest—he had health issues for a long time. He had prostate cancer, he did everything he possibly could, but he died a year ago this past January. And then, Bill Arthrell, recently—I remember when I posted it and Chic saw it and she typed like, “Wait a minute. I cannot get my head wrapped around this.” I mean, she’s still dealing with Alan. So, Ron will always say, “You’re the glue that keeps us together.” I’m glad to do it. I mean, I started this out just as a picture page in the old days. Just to let you know, too, by the time—and I still get pictures from nowadays or sometimes people that hadn’t sent me pictures before post things on Facebook and I’ll do grabs. Unfortunately, when you grab a picture from your computer, you’re only getting seventy-two DPIs so I really can’t do much in Photoshop. Some people were taking photos with their phone of the pictures. I said, “You guys need to get a scanner. Do it at 300 DPIs, send them to me.” Anyway, I’m getting off on a tangent. So, I’m glad to do that. I have well over, I probably had like 650 photos from back in the day. Some things are like, not people photos, ninety-five percent of them are.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, that’s an impressive number.

 

[Dennis Rein]: I guess, I made separate albums and the first one I just called, “Pit Hippies,” which were basically my photos. And then, as some people gave me them, if it was appropriate like—somebody else who has since passed on sent me a few of her photos from the day and in The Pit, Emily Tanner—pictures of people in The Pit. So, I put those photos in there because I had another album just called, “Members’ Old Photos.” But if it was more appropriate to put in that album, I did. Then, because I’d get people, I’d say, “Listen, if you trust me enough, send me the photos. I’ll scan them, I’ll retouch them, and then I’ll send them back to you.” Which I’ve done. And then I have different albums like “Still Kicking.” So, when I come out here and take pictures, I would take different people and I have Facebook grabs of more recent photos, at the time, of people and put their more recent photos on there.

 

[Interviewer]: You said that’s called, “Still Kicking?”

 

[Dennis Rein]: Still Kicking. And I had one call—I created one, but I didn’t get—I created the album, but I don’t think I got to post it at the last one. I may have called, “Weddings,” because we had people who were married when they were in college or even afterwards or they married people from college or people we had where we’d went to—one of my friends, Jack, his first marriage was in Connecticut to this girl Maddie who used to go to Kent and so, but a lot of people went up to this wedding, so I got some pictures from somebody else who was there and so, I got those wedding pictures.

 

One album, “There are places and things I remember,” Pictures of the Robin Hood, Campus Supply, the Doghouse that used to be across the street from there, Perkins Pancake House. Things that bring—pictures of the cafeteria tray that everybody used to take and go sledding on. Things like that.

 

And like I said, my pictures, some of my personal pictures are up at the Visitor Center that I took because I went through it when it was being built with Laura [Davis] and Carole [Barbato], the late Carole who was a wonderful person. I was so sad to see her when she left. So, I donated some pictures. There’s one picture, if you see it on the wall, there’s one big picture of a hippie bus van, it’s all painted and all, but below that is another smaller picture of a bunch of people sitting on a van. Those are all my friends, except for one girl who, over the years, nobody’s ever remembered her name or who she was.

 

[Interviewer]: Mystery woman.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Yeah. But this was when they all used to live at a house on Costley Court and the van belonged to my friend Chuck and the guy in the back of the van was Kenny Levy who is, unfortunately, he’s legally blind these days, but he put his camera on a timer and then he went and ran and jumped in the back of the van and that picture I had submitted from Chuck. I did all the retouching on it because it wasn’t in great shape. It had scratches and had green colorations, so I did a lot of work fixing it up and they submitted it.

 

Picture from the 9^th floor of Wright Hall and another picture when we did a road trip—that we went up to see—Ron and BJ had a good friend, Anne Lochner, who went to Eastern Michigan up in Ypsilanti. We stayed there, so we had a “Keep on Trucking” picture going through the thing. But that’s the whole thing. It keeps us together and when people see these old—eventually, it’s like, someday I’ll end up making albums and putting them on Facebook because we’re all getting older. I said, there’s no sense in me keeping them. It’s funny, but I did post one album one time on Facebook. I may have done it through Picasa and then did it to Facebook. So, some people had seen it, but not commented because, I don’t remember, because you can go to anybody’s pages you’re friends with, now it depends on what settings they use. So, I can also make that album viewable, I think, only from my Kent State friends list. I’d have to go back through this because I do like flower pictures from my garden each year and stuff. Every time I come out here and take pictures, I make a “Kent Trip” or “Old Freak Gathering” or “Summer of Love Reunion” photo album, so those people can see those recent photos. But all those other old pictures, I’ve never done albums for it. I really have to do it because, it’s like, we’re not getting any younger.

 

It was heartwarming when—I don’t know the person who was speaking at the time, said, “Will all those who were here on May 4^th stand up.” I was like really close, I was like three rows behind in the front, so when I got up and turned around to see how many were there—

 

[Interviewer]: It was a lot.

 

[Dennis Rein]: —it was impressive.

 

[Interviewer]: It really was. I got chills myself.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Amazingly impressive for a short notice.

 

[Interviewer]: Yes.

 

[Dennis Rein]: I mean, there’s still a lot of people that live in the area. But it was like, when I turned around, I said, “Wow.” I mean, I don’t know what else you want to know. It’s like I said, I—

 

[Interviewer]: [01:22:25] Yeah, I mean, is there anything we haven’t covered that you want to talk about?

 

[Dennis Rein]: I pretty much covered a lot. I mean, as long as I am physically able, I will come out here every year. I may not come on May 4^th weekend. Most of the time, I usually try to coincide it with then for obviously, the commemoration, but also usually, the weather’s pretty good. This is the first time I’ve been out here where the weather has been consistently not that good. And I know tomorrow it’s supposed to be pouring down rain. I’m scheduled to go back home, drive back home on Saturday which says showers, I can deal with showers and I’ll probably end up getting ahead of them as I’m driving.

 

[Interviewer]: I think we were all eyeing down the weather for the week and I said, “Next week looks beautiful. Sunny.” But we got the chilly weather.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Well, look at how fortunate it was to do the candlelight—actually, I did the candlelight vigil for the first time in probably twenty-five years.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, wow.

 

[Dennis Rein]: So, I’m sitting under the tent that they had set up for the dedication of the plaques which I’m glad they left it up because we’re watching it pour down. I had my, like I said, I had my iPad here looking at the weather, I said, “Now wait, we’re due for another wave.” And then, just as they were ready to go out and do the vigil, it stopped and the only complaint I had was that vigil march was a lot longer than it used to be. Mike Pacifico, who headed it—and it was like, I heard them say—and Avery was the May 4^th Task [Force] manager. It was like, “Well, we’re doing this. We’re going out along front campus. It’s about a mile.” So, we went out and I remember we used to—last time I did it, we went out Lincoln [Street] I think between Rockwell [Hall] and whatever, and then, we’d go up Lincoln, I guess you would say, to the gate, and then, we would go up the gate and then, you would go along the drive along the old campus [editor’s clarification: Hilltop Drive]. And it was a wonderful sight to see everybody marching with the campus on that old, that curve, all the candles back and forward, it would go back out to Main and then, we’d go up Terrace Drive to the parking field [editor’s clarification: narrator is referring to the area of the Prentice Hall parking lot and the old football practice field]. And I think they changed it because of the construction.

 

[Interviewer]: I was going to say, there’s a lot of construction.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Although, I think we still could’ve walked through Terrace Drive. I’m not sure.  Anyway, this time, they went all the way down past Music and Speech [Building], back around and then, up Terrace Drive. Like I told you, I’m a volunteer fireman. I have been in dozens upon dozens of parades and I’m telling you, that was at least a mile and a half.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, sounds like a march instead of a walk.

 

[Dennis Rein]: It was a, yeah, that was at least a mile and a half. But, as bad as my back had been, because I hurt it a little bit again in the morning, I made it. I made it. I was okay.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, good.

 

[Dennis Rein]: I was glad I did it. It’s important. Everything, any little thing that’s done, is important. So, you want these?

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, you can keep these.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Oh, thanks.

 

[Interviewer]: But all right, well, if there’s not anything else, I want to thank you so much for participating.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Let me see if I can get just a connection here, I can show you some photos.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. And I’m going to end the recording right now.

 

[Dennis Rein]: Sure.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you.

 

[End of Interview]

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