Ronald Goldstein, Oral History

Recorded: May 2, 2015

Interviewed by: Michael Hawkins

Transcribed by: Kent State University Research and Evaluation Bureau

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Interviewer]: This is Michael Hawkins speaking on May 2^nd, 2015, at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives as part of the May 4th Oral History Project. I will be talking today with Ronald Goldstein. First, I just want to ask you a couple of biographical-style questions like where were you born? Where did you grow up? That kind of thing.

[Ronald Goldstein]: Okay, I was born in Detroit, Michigan. I only lived there the first six months of my life and then my parents moved to Merrick, Long Island, and that’s where I grew up and I lived there until I came here to Kent State University. Then I moved back home and then a year later I moved out and I moved to Queens and I got a job at Alexander’s Department store for seven years and then I became a teacher in 1978 and I retired in June of 2013. I was a special education teacher.  

[Interviewer]: So, did you go to any place other than Kent State for college?

[Ronald Goldstein]: Kent State was my undergrad and then I did graduate work at Adelphi University and Queens College.

[Interviewer]: So, when did you first come to Kent State?

[Ronald Goldstein]: I came to Kent State in September of 1966.

[Interviewer]: Oh, Okay.

[Ronald Goldstein]: And I graduated in June of 1970, and to set the record straight, there was graduation in June of 1970.

[Interviewer]: Oh, Okay.

[Ronald Goldstein]: Because I was talking to Pam Anderson and she had gotten that there was no graduation in June of 1970 and I said, “Yes there was because I came here with my parents…” stayed at the old Kent Motor Lodge Inn which is no longer here and I protested by not wearing my cap and gown and wore a black armband and my dad was not too happy and he counted the number of students who did not wear a cap and gown. So, I wanted to set the record straight there.

[Interviewer]: Well thank you, I appreciate it. What were the circumstances that brought you to Kent State?

[Ronald Goldstein]: I have to say that I was not the best of students, okay? I’m not a standardized test taker, but I did take the ASCT [i.e. ACT?] which was more of my type of test and when I-- my guidance counselor was looking for colleges and I found Kent State and I applied and I’m embarrassed to say that Kent State, out of the colleges I was applying to, Kent State was the school that accepted me and I could have applied to other schools but I saw it-- I found it myself and I accepted it and my dad said that I needed-- he insisted that all his children go away to school. He didn’t want us home. He went away to school and we had-- he had sent us to sleep-away camp a couple of years and he said it’s a good experience. So, he wanted us to go away away, not 200 miles where you come home on the weekends, he says “I don’t want to see you.” So, I chose schools that were away away. So I chose-- I found Kent State and they accepted me.

[Interviewer]: What was your major when you came here?

[Ronald Goldstein]: I enjoyed history in high school so I majored in history and I minored in political science and secondary education, because I thought I was probably gonna wanna become a teacher but I took a lot of history courses.

 [Interviewer]: How would you describe the atmosphere around KSU? Even the events leading up to 1970, even like 1968, 1967.

[Ronald Goldstein]: All right, when I came here, I came here not knowing anybody and I got on a plane for the first time in my life and flew into Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Took a limo here, got my trunk, and we dormed-- I went to my old dorm, looked around, cause you can’t get in now because of securities. Clark, Clark Dorm-- got in there, four students in a dorm that the room was only made for two. We had bunk beds and I don’t remember-- I remember three other-- two of the three roommates, Richard Gibbs and Don Warner, and Rich Gibbs and I are still in touch with each other and I have to say that Rich Gibbs came from Youngstown, Ohio, and I had the top bunk and he had the bottom bunk and in talking to him-- he had never seen a Jew before and he honestly thought that I had horns and a tail. That’s-- but we became very good friends. I became very good friends with his parents and on Sundays every once in a while they would take me out to eat at the Ground Round or Ground Derby, whatever it as called on Main Street. I got to meet a lot of different people here, the buzzword that we use now in New York City is cultural diffusion, is what is was-- for me it was. I also got to interact with black students and I remember I was telling Bob is that fighting with Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston, Paterson-- and I remember I had a discussion with one of the black students about who was a better fighter and I think I picked Muhammad Ali, he picked Sonny Liston or something vice versa and we had this passionate discussion about who was a better fighter and the other white students said, “Are you crazy? How can you argue with him? You’re gonna find a knife in your chest in the middle of the night.” I said, “Wait a minute, why can’t I express my opinion?” I said, “He might be black and I’m white.” Now I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know if they had-- I had never interacted with a black student, I treated him just like an individual and I said, “Why can’t I express myself.” Now, I do have to say that it was probably-- I don’t know if it was my freshman year, I think it was my freshman year or maybe my sophomore year, I came here and there is a difference in how people talk and my roommate had a way of saying the word O-I-L called oil and he used to pronounce it “earl” and I used to get on his case, but it was, you know-- I guess it was me being very naïve and I used to get on people and I said you know there’s certain ways to pronounce words, but it was my way of being that, hey, this is the way I was brought up in, you know, when you get out of the country-- but I’ve learned that people pronounce words differently. But it was a friendly campus, I met a lot of people and I find that they were friendly, okay? I met people that were not Jewish that were friends, I met a very young—met a student named Frank and he taught me how to play pool the right way, because down in the quad there-- it’s not there anymore, there were all pool tables and I learned how to play pool the right way. So, it was-- I found it friendly, I mean I made some friends and we hung out together and stuff like that.

[Interviewer]: Do you feel like that changed as you progressed from coming in as a freshman to a--

[Ronald Goldstein]: Oh, yeah, yeah then I joined a fraternity and you made friends, but I had some-- I had to straighten some things out, because they felt that you could only be friends with fraternity brothers and I was friends with Bob and he had formed this other fraternity and there was a question of my loyalty and I told Bob-- I was actually voted up for blackball because I remained friends with him. I had to explain that yes, you’re my fraternity brothers, but there’s no reason why I can’t have friends outside of the fraternity. They didn’t blackball me, I eventually became treasurer of the fraternity with my other pledge brother Ron Law and we got the fraternity from being in the red into the black. That was my legacy. 

[Interviewer]: Do you think your experience changed because you were in a fraternity or do you think you would have had a similar experience?

[Ronald Goldstein]: I think it helped as my mom always pointed out, she says from the time you start as a freshman and you came back as a senior, your whole perspective, you’ve changed as an individual. She saw the change. I think going away to college is probably the most important experience. I tried to convince my daughter to do it and she wouldn’t and in the beginning my wife said no and then she realized because going away to college is the most important experience. You learn a lot about money management. You learn about meeting people, time management, and I even-- even my students, if some of them go to college, when they go to college, or if I come across any mainstream students I talk to them. I say go to college away, it’s the most important thing. I say you learn a lot and I tell them do not think that you can cram, because I did it my freshman year and it didn’t work and I said-- and it’s all different. There’s no professor that tells you you gotta do our homework, you’re on your own and that’s what I emphasize to them. It’s quite different. I know in my freshman year it was like-- I said this is different than high school and I found that out.   

[Interviewer]: So between April 30th and May 4th what type of experiences did you have?

[Ronald Goldstein]: Well mine was a little different, because I as student teaching at Southeast High School. So, when things started to happen-- on Friday, I was student teaching, Saturday night, nothing was going on, I was teaching-- a fraternity brother of mine, a good friend, Roy Zagon, we chaperoned a dance. So, we didn’t know anything about the burning of the building. We come back and we go to his apartment, because we were going to a party. We see trucks and things, we didn’t know what was going on and we went to a party and we were partying, we didn’t know what was going on and then we see-- and basically-- we went up to campus on Sunday and, like, I brought some pictures, and we see all these trucks in front of the Administration Building and we’re talking to the Guardsmen and they-- most-- some of them had just been on the strike, the truckers’ strike, had been guarding the truckers’ strike and I remember talking to some of them and they said, “We don’t know why we’re here and they gave us one bullet and what are we supposed to do?”  And then walked back-- I was even walking back and I took pictures of the burned-out buildings and the trucks and then I was walking, and it’s so funny, I was walking back to my apartment and there’s a Guardsman giving the peace sign. They’re guarding certain roads back to my apartment, because I lived off campus. So, we didn’t know what was going on. May 4^th, I go to student teach and I tell my supervising teacher and Roy [Zagon], we heard about the rally that is going to be on Monday at 12:30 and we told our supervising teachers, we were-- how can you put it? I guess we want to be there and we told our supervising teachers look we’re going to the rally, we’re here, we’re gonna cut out, we’re gonna leave, which caused another big problem and we left and we came to the rally and, after forty-five years, I can tell you events that happened precisely. I was on top of the hill, Blanket Hill, a distance-- and the students rallied, they rang the bell, and the Guardsmen are lined up there, a guy comes-- I guess one of the officers-- comes in his jeep with his bullhorn, “This gathering…” whatever he called it… “is illegal, you have to disperse.” Now, there are hard-core demonstrators and they were probably-- some of them may have been students on campus and we always had outsiders, because this is an open campus. They threw rocks at them. People said, “Well, these National Guardsmen, what are they going to do?” So, that’s when the National Guardsman came in formation and starting lobbing tear gas. I got tear-gassed. First time in my life. It is an experience, I guess it’s pepper gas where it goes down your throat, you got the sink-- you got the-- and lobbed it again, and I just went into it and I realize now is Dunbar Hall. Got some water and tried to get it out. Now the Guardsmen came up and I was watching from the window. It’s not there now, but there was a fence and they formed there-- they call their L-shape defensive perimeter. And they were lobbing, might have been maybe fifty hardcore demonstrators that were taunting the Guardsmen and there were students just watching and they were not participating, they were watching what was going on and then students were-- these demonstrators were taking the tear gas and throwing it back at the Guardsmen and, every time they threw it back at them, they cheered. They was cheering and then the Guardsmen ran out of tear gas and they didn’t know what to do so they retreated and I think everybody was so happy, because now they-- it was like, well, we won. They can’t do anything now because they had a fence on one side so I guess there was that-- I think at that time there was just the playing field all the way in the back, so they really had no place to go.

So, they went up the hill and I was in the dorm and all of a sudden I hear like firecrackers and things and I just hit the ground and then I walk out and I see a friend of mine from art and theater, John Barilla, bringing in somebody who had got shot in the rear and we’re going out trying to find out what’s going on and this chaos and I hear people have been shot and we don’t know what’s going on and then Professor Frank is trying to get students on the hill just to calm down and he says get water. So, I’m running around trying to get water and I was telling Pam Anderson the story. I said so we’re all sitting, there’s a number of students sitting on the hill and I’m watching down and the police are chasing students off the campus and we’re sitting here very quietly. He’s got students very calm, nobody is doing anything and there’s one Guardsman that gets on top of the hill and puts his gun-- it’s a typical thing-- takes his M16, puts it on the side and he goes, “If your students do not get out of here, we’ll just shoot some more of you,” and Pam was telling me that they have a recording says, “You have to leave, I don’t want any of you to get hurt” and I said well I’ll tell you why he said that and he told us, and we all left and that’s when we all left and I went back to my apartment and—devastated-- and then I was talking and I found out that Sandy Scheuer who was a little sister for the fraternity and I knew her very well and I remember the last time I had seen her, she was walking, like a week before that week and I had said something and she laughed and that’s the last impression I have of her. Allison Krause was my roommate’s cousin and then-- and they say it’s a small world, I found out that one of the teachers I work with at Francis Lewis High School where I taught for thirty-two years, Jeffrey Miller was a very good friend of his. They say it’s a small world. So now-- I don’t know if you wanna hear what happened to me after the parts?

[Interviewer]: Absolutely, yes.

[Ronald Goldstein]: All right, so I was student teaching. Now, when I went to school on Monday, the students asked me, “Why did they burn the building?” Now, I could have said “Uh, I can’t tell you,” but being young and a teacher I said, “Okay, I’m gonna tell you why. It’s not my reason, but I’m gonna tell you the reason for SDS which stands for Students for Democratic Society. They feel that ROTC teaches students how to kill and Kent State isn’t educate-- and college is an educational institute and you shouldn’t teach people how to kill.” That was the reason I gave. Now Monday night was-- Board of Ed. for Ravenna County, whatever. So, my students misinterpreted what Mr. Goldstein said and Mr. Goldstein said ROTC teaches students how to be murderers. The parents go to the Board of Education meeting and said, “What kind of student teachers do you have?” And the Superintendent Nace [Richard E. Nace] hears that and says I can’t have these. So, he says I’m getting rid of the two student teachers but that’s not what he said because on Tuesday, I hear on the radio station Superintendent Nace-- and I remember this-- “has dismissed”-- he was very good because he didn’t call us by names-- “has dismissed the two student teachers, because they created an atmosphere of anarchy by leaving early.” Those were his words, I don’t know how we did this, because I had permission from my supervising teacher. He had permission-- Roy [Zagon] had permission. So I said, oh I don’t have-- and after the shooting Roy took off, I stayed here. Wednesday, I got a call from my supervising teacher, Gary [Whitsel], “Ron you didn’t get this call from me, come down to the school, the kids wanna hear from you, they’ve taken over the school.” What had happened is the students had heard that we were dismissed and they made all the announcements. At that time, you know, when kids make the announcements. So they made the announcement over the P.A., “All students that are concerned about the dismissal of the two student-teachers Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Zagon report to the gym-cafeteria.” The whole school reported. The principal says you can’t meet. You have to go home. I’m calling the buses-- if you don’t take the buses you’re not gonna get home. The students wouldn’t listen. They wanted to talk to us. The superintendent came down. So I get dressed. I take my car and run down. I get in the parking lot, the students are-- you can’t come in the building, the atmosphere, the fear that was going on-- the principal thought that I was gonna come with a bunch of students and take over the school, but I guess it’s that period of time, the ignorance, the fear, I have to say-- and I have to believe that a New Yorker, Ravenna County probably had no Jews, Jewish New Yorker, forget it, liberal-- he says he’s blocking the entrance to the door. Go through the gym. One of the students will let you in. This is the atmosphere.

So I go to the-- the kids let me in, of course I get my five minutes of fame when the kids are pounding, ”We want Mr. Goldstein. We want Mr. Goldstein.” So I make when I get my cheer and Gary [Whitsel] says, ”Watch what you say, these kids will do anything,” and the kids asked me and I said, “No, I did not do this,” and I’m talking to the kids and then Gary says, “You gotta leave. Their principal just called the police. They’re going to arrest you for trespassing.” So I took off, but what was happening is that the teachers-- I said meet us here we’ll talk-- the teachers were also having problems with administration and this was-- I could use this as part of their thing. They were telling me that the future teachers of America are-- there were subbing in the elementary schools and the district was collecting the sub money and not using it and all sorts of things-- I met some reporter. So finally Wednesday, that Wednesday my father calls. “Well, Dad this happened.” “Get home now or I’m coming to bring you home.” Okay, Thursday I come home, Dean Stone calls-- my father talks to Dean Stone, “Well, when things calm down-- the boys, you know, they’ll find another school for them.” My dad says, “No way.” He says, “They’re gonna teach, they’re gonna sub, they’re gonna teach in New York and finish up the student teaching.” “That’s never been done. We can’t do it. We can’t supervise them.” He says, “No.” He says, “They’re gonna do it. That’s the way it’s gonna be done or you can explain to my lawyer why they can’t finish doing their student teaching in New York, because of what they experienced out in Ohio.” “Well, we’re gonna have a meeting. We’ll see what happens.” Calls my dad back, “The boys” -- we’re 21 – “can do their student teaching in New York as long as it’s not in the high school they graduated from.” That was okay because my nextdoor neighbor I was good friends with, he said you could do it with my son who’s teaching. Ah, we said, “Fine.” Then Dean Stone calls on Saturday and talks to my mom, “Have they left yet?” “No.” “I think it’s safe for them for to come back.” She says, “What are you talking about?” Well, Tuesday was a primary and the buzzword, for running for the primary was law and order. Now, back in 1968, during the Democratic primary with all those riots with Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and the Chicago 7. So, they passed a law that said if you cross state lines to cause a riot you can be arrested. So, the district attorney for Ravenna County who was running in primary said, “Wait a minute, I got two New Yorkers here going to Kent State and they went from New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio. Why can’t I bring up charges against them?” Because Southeast High School was closed for four days, they closed that school for four days because of what happened, because of those kids. So, he looked into it and he was trying to see if he could bring charges against us. So Roy [Zagon]-- I told Roy and Roy was talking and he was talking to his aunt who worked for the D.A. Gold, she says, “Don’t go back, I know exactly what they’re gonna do.” She says, “They’re gonna plant marijuana in the wheel of your steering column and that’s how we bust people here in New York. “ So, we had to go back, like it was cloak and dagger. We came in Saturday night. Got to our apartment Sunday morning. Couldn’t talk to anybody. Had to pack up our cars and drive home. I just saw Dean Stone. I said, “Here give these books back to Gary Whitsel at Southeast High School,” and I just took off.      

[Interviewer]: Wow.

[Ronald Goldstein]: And I talked to Gary a couple times but he brought-- he was dismissed and he brought a court case all the way to the Federal Appeals Court and if you Google “Gary Whitsel court case,” they mention me and I told the kids ninety percent is accurate, but I said I never got a phone call from the superintendant. He never called me to tell me I was dismissed. I heard over the radio.

[Interviewer]: How did-- looking at campus, how was the atmosphere on campus changed?

[Ronald Goldstein]: When?

[Interviewer]: Well, after May 4th, weeks, days, well up until graduation then. 

[Ronald Goldstein]: Well, I wasn’t on campus.

[Interviewer]: Uh huh.

[Ronald Goldstein]: I saw my roommates, I left, I came back. One of the things that happened, though, I can say is that, when I came back, one roommate, he took off, never came back. A lot of people just scattered. I think there was-- because everybody knew some-- a lot of people knew somebody that was killed and I think it just devastated them that they couldn’t come back or they just came back and they were just so devastated. I think having Guardsmen on campus shooting students, it wasn’t supposed to happen and it was just like surreal. I mean, who has soldiers on campus firing on students? I know it was Governor Rhodes trying to-- because he was running in the primary, he wanted to show how tough he was on law and order. He did it without even telling President White and it was just unreal that it could happen. I think everybody was just numb. Graduation was very solemn. I have no recollection of graduation. All I know is I protested. I don’t remember even what the commencement was about, but I know I went because I was graduating, because my father wanted me to go, but to me it was very low-key. It was just like-- you know when you graduate it’s supposed to be glorious and happy, but it was like something was missing, because of the killing, campus closing, we just had no closure-- I think closure was missing. You didn’t say goodbye to people. It was like you didn’t go to celebration because a lot of people were missing, everybody was scattered, it was just like-- something was missing. Even though they had graduation it was like-- it’s hard to explain, but like it wasn’t like a normal graduation where everybody is there and just like, because people were missing, people were still sad and shaken up.

[Interviewer]: I mean because it had been less than a month.

[Ronald Goldstein]: About a month, I would say about five weeks or so. So it was-- it was just-- it was graduation, but it wasn’t the same.

[Interviewer]: Well that’s all the questions I have for now. Is there anything I have not asked you about that you’d like to elaborate on or something we talked about earlier that you wanna expand upon further or something that you really wanted me to ask you but I didn’t ask you?

[Ronald Goldstein]: I’m trying to think. One thing that’s always bothered me is that after forty-five years none of the Guardsmen, from what I can recall, have ever spoken about what happened that day.

[Interviewer]: Yeah, I don’t know for sure if we have anything out.

[Ronald Goldstein]: I don’t know if you have anything about the Guardsmen who fired. That’s-- I was always curious to know if they’ve ever uncovered-- if any Guardsmen had ever come forward after forty-five years. I mean they were the same age as us. I even think some of them were students on campus from what I understand, I’m not sure, but all I know is that when my dad saw those Guardsmen turn and fire, he said, “They fired on orders.” Because him being in the army from World War II, even though he served in Alaska as a doctor, he said no soldier turns unless he is ordered to fire and watching that officer aim his 45, he said, “that was orders.” And if those guys fired-- I know some of them from my understand tried to help the students, but I mean, I don’t know how they felt and why they-- none-- even though it was a gag order, I mean gag orders don’t last forever, why they’ve never came forth and said anything. I don’t know if they have anything after all these years, I was just curious to know if anyone has-- if anyone of them had ever come forth to say anything. 

[Interviewer]: After forty-five years, looking back on it, have your views on it changed or anything in any way?

[Ronald Goldstein]: No. I mean, I-- as a teacher I get some YouTube, I’ve gotten YouTube and I show my students and I was very close to Sandy and it still affects me emotionally, even after forty-five years it still hurts. You would think that after forty-five years we would get used to it, but still-- it still gets me. I remember, I know it was a beautiful day like today. The sun was shining, it was beautiful, it was warm. I even still have the jeans that I wore that day. I mean, my girlfriend who is now my wife used to patch them up, then I couldn’t wear them anymore and I still saved them. I haven’t given them away. I mean I can’t wear them. They are falling apart at the seams, but I still have them. I don’t have the shirt, I don’t have the-- but I still have those jeans, I will not-- I don’t give them away. I just kept those jeans.

[Interviewer]: Is it something you talk to your daughter about?

[Ronald Goldstein]: Yeah, my daughter knows about it. My wife has jokingly said, “Are you sure it’s safe for you to come back there?” She says “I’m not coming to bail you out if you get arrested.” My daughter knows about it. I’ve told my wife about it, but telling them about it’s-- I don’t think they understand. I don’t think my daughter understands it. I have to maybe show her some of the things that have happened, but if you haven’t really lived it, you can tell somebody about something, but it’s not the same unless you’ve been there. It’s just like when my father-in-law told me about how he was lucky to survive, because he was a gun carrier for a machine gun nest and he got shot in the leg by friendly fire and it saved his life, but he talked about the war, but it’s not the same thing. So, I tell my daughter, but I don’t think she fully understands, because they don’t-- these students today, they don’t really know what protesting is. I mean unless you’re a black student who’s protesting what’s going on with black individuals being shot or arrested or being abused by police officers. They don’t really know what protesting is about and I think that’s one of the sad things is that a lot of students are-- don’t know what really-- have never really exercised their rights in protesting. Like I see this-- when there was a war going on and people started protesting I said, “They’re not really pro-- they don’t know what it’s about. They’ve never really protested. They don’t know what it is to walk down the streets and be called a communist. Go down to Washington-- I remember right after May 4^th, we all went down to Washington. I went down with Roy [Zagon] and we just-- he says I know somebody, we’re gonna go to somebody’s house and we just crashed at somebody’s house and we slept on the floor and we marched in Washington and there’s a peace thing and that was an atmosphere of you go to someone’s house and you meet people and you just crashed with somebody and that was it. People don’t do that today. It was just a different atmosphere.   

[Interviewer]: Well that’s it for me. Again I want to thank you very much for coming in and talking to us, everything that you’ve said, I greatly appreciate it.

[Ronald Goldstein]: Oh if I could-- I don’t even know if I could add of anything else. I mean Kent State was a great learning experience for me as a student. I knew that I grew. I met some very wonderful people. I just-- unfortunately May 4^th I think was a tragedy that I think affected everybody and I think-- I think some people-- I know some people could not come back. I knew that I wanted to come back and I’ve seen how the campus has changed completely. I mean I was at Clark and then I went to-- Rich and I, for one semester, one term, we were roommates at the newest dorm called Heer Hall, which was out in the boondocks and now it’s-- and that’s when they started the campus, the bus loop and now it’s all surrounded by all these dorms and that was the latest dorm. It had carpeting. It had AC and we were so lucky it had built in drawers and I was like we’re thinking we’re living in luxury.

[Interviewer]: It's Human Resources now for us, on campus, Heer Hall is.

[Ronald Goldstein]: Really? It’s not a dorm?

[Interviewer]: Nope, not anymore.

[Ronald Goldstein]: You’re kidding.

[Interviewer]: No, they redid the entire inside of it and made it an administrative office, it’s for--

[Ronald Goldstein]: No wonder I couldn’t get in. I was trying to get in.

[Interviewer]:  Yeah, that’s why.

[Ronald Goldstein]: Oh geez. But that was actually a dorm. That was a luxury dorm at the time and there were no buildings around there. It was just like the newest dorm they were building and we-- we thought we were doing great down there.

[Interviewer]: Well, that will conclude everything, I’m gonna go ahead and hit stop here.

*End of recording*

×