Michael McNamara, Oral History

 

Recorded: May 26, 2020

Interviewed by: Kathleen Siebert Medicus

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Interviewer]: This is Kathleen Siebert Medicus speaking on Tuesday, May 26, 2020, in Kent, Ohio. As part of the May 4 Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, we are recording an interview over the telephone today. Could you please state your name for the recording?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Michael McNamara.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you so much for joining me today and taking the time out to share your memories and your experiences with the Oral History Project. I really appreciate it.

 

[Michael McNamara]: You’re welcome.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:00:42] I’d like to begin just by asking you very brief information about your background so we can get to know you a little better. Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I was born in Washington, D.C. My father was an FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] agent at the time. And after a couple of years in [Washington] D.C., we moved to Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York. Then, in 1962, my father changed jobs and we relocated to Parma Heights, Ohio.

 

[Interviewer]: How old were you when you moved to Parma Heights, when you moved to Ohio?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I was in the seventh grade, what is that, twelve years old?

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, okay. [00:01:45] When did you first come to Kent State University? What brought you to Kent State?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I finished my senior year in Parma Heights in 1967. I was an average student and I didn’t feel like I was ready for college yet. So, I was going to join the Navy. The Vietnam War was starting to escalate, but I still wasn’t ready to go to college and my dad encouraged me to go to college. I didn’t want to. I was just an average student, pretty much just a “C” student in school and, again, I didn’t feel like I was ready to go. But he kept encouraging me. I did apply to several schools. I was rejected by all of them. And I applied to—yeah well, most places don’t take average students. Anyway, I applied to Kent State, and they accepted me. I applied to Kent and these other schools because they had an architectural department.

 

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was dyslexic, and I struggled with reading, writing, comprehension, and all that stuff. So, that’s why I chose architecture, because it’s all about drawings, at the time. I got accepted at Kent, so that’s where I started my freshman year in September of 1967. I was only seventeen at the time. I wasn’t going to be eighteen until mid-November of that year, so I was pretty young for college, couldn’t go drinking, to the bars, or anything like that at that time. 

 

[Interviewer]:  You couldn’t even drink the—was it 3.2 [beer]?

 

[Michael McNamara]: 3.2 beer, that’s right. Not until you’re eighteen, that’s right.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you were a young high school student and also struggling with a learning difference.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:04:17] So, what were your first impressions when you got here? Any strong memories from that first year?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I was in the dorm with three other guys—no, two other guys, excuse me, and both of those guys were architectural students, too. And I didn’t know any of them. Usually, if you go to a college, you try to hook up with one friend that you know from high school kind of thing, but I didn’t do that. I just signed up for a dorm and they put me with these two other guys. Eventually, they both dropped out of architecture. I was the only one that really—even though I was not one of the brighter architectural students, I did graduate with a four-year Bachelor of Architecture degree.

 

[Interviewer]: Nice, very good. So that was fall of ’67. Do you remember what dorm you were in? That’s okay if you don’t. It’s probably all a blur.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you have any memories from your freshmen, sophomore years? Were you aware of any kind of protest rallies on campus—anti-war or civil rights? Was that something that was on your radar screen?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No, that was not on my radar screen. My freshman year, I knew I had to work hard to keep my grades, so I did, I worked hard in that. I also, my freshman year, joined the Kent State soccer team. I learned to play soccer as a kid in Long Island. That’s pretty much the first thing I ever learned to play—team sport. That was a fall sport, so between soccer and all the homework, I didn’t get too involved with anything.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you really enjoying the program, architecture program? Did you find it—what you wanted and really engaging?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I did. I enjoyed it. It was in Taylor Hall. I think that was a fairly new building back then, I don’t know where they had it before. I think Taylor Hall was a fairly new building.

 

[Interviewer]: That must have been an exciting place to be and there were all the journalism students in that building. There was a lot going on. [00:07:28] So, I don’t know where you’d like to go in terms of your memories from there, maybe closer to May, 1970? If there’s anything you’d like to share from that spring leading up to when the shootings took place?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah. It was a fear with the Vietnam War escalating, knowing that if I would have failed out of college or dropped out of college, I was going to be automatically enlisted as a 1-A and then automatically drafted into the service. So, I was following the Vietnam War pretty closely and listening to the student protests in California, Berkeley, and New York and all that stuff. I was fairly conservative in my politics. My dad was a Republican. He was an FBI agent and he worked for the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] for several years, so it was a pretty strong, “Love America. If you don’t like it, leave it” kind of an attitude. He was a conservative Republican. Living in his house, that’s the kind of way I believed too, so I wasn’t too into protesting the war.

 

But, the weekend before the 4^th, I was aware that they had burned down—there was some rioting in downtown Kent Friday night and then they burned down one of the ROTC barracks there [editor’s clarification: The ROTC fire took place on Saturday, May 2]. I remember walking around campus Sunday. The National Guard had already been dispersed around campus. I walked over to the burned building. It was a beautiful spring day at Kent, the weather was warm, kids were coming back from the weekend from going home. It was a really nice weekend, but you could see all these soldiers with their rifles all over campus. That night, I think I was coming back from the library, going to my dorm, which at that time, I lived in Tri-Towers.  

 

[Interviewer]: Do you want to take a pause and we can both clear our throats? We can do that if you’d like.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes, that’d be great.

 

[Interviewer]: This is Kathleen Siebert Medicus and we are back. I’m back with Michael McNamara after a brief pause. So, go ahead Mike.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Okay, so it was Sunday night and coming out of the—I think it was out of the library—going back to my dorm, and I came across a line of National Guard guys. So, ignorant as I was, I tapped one of these guys on the shoulder to get through the line to go to my dorm, and he turned around and took his rifle butt and almost smashed me in the face with it. But I mean, I was a bit shocked. I was pretty naïve about what to expect. But anyway, I didn’t get hurt and I got back to my dorm. That was Sunday night.

 

[Interviewer]: So, what time of night was that? Were you out after curfew? Was that part of the issue? Was it dark?

 

[Michael McNamara]: It was definitely dark, and there were some—I vaguely remember there was an argument. Was there a curfew? Or wasn’t there a curfew? Was it midnight, or was it ten at night? There was something about a curfew had been announced, but I didn’t hear it. I was in the library or—and I don’t know how that got communicated, anyway, on a spread-out campus like that. But anyway, I made it back to my dorm and probably went to bed.

 

[Interviewer]: At that time, the library was on the Front Campus in Rockwell Hall, so you were traveling on foot from Rockwell back to Tri-Towers? Okay.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: So strange. During the day Sunday, when you were walking around, did you have any conversations with any of the Guardsmen or recognize anybody from Parma [Heights]?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No, I didn’t. It was just a great day to be outside.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, everybody who was there talks about that. Just a beautiful spring day.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes, it was. So, that was Sunday night. Monday, to me, was a normal day. You went to your classes. There was an announcement that there was going to be a rally on The Commons at noon. I had no plans to attend. I had an eleven o’clock class in Taylor Hall. It was a structural engineering class and it was taught by a Mr. [Robert] Schively, I think his name was. So, that ended at like at 11:50 [a.m.] and then we could hear some commotion outside, so me and a bunch of students that were in Taylor Hall, plus some of the professors went out on the back deck that overlooked The Commons. We— [audio cuts out]

 

[Interviewer]: Mike? Mike are you there? Mike, can you hear me? I think we’ve been cut off.

 

[Michael McNamara]: All right, so—

 

[Interviewer]: This is Kathleen Siebert Medicus. We’re back after a cell phone glitch and a brief pause, sorry Mike. Go ahead.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Okay, so several students and some of the professors, hearing the noise, went out on the back deck that overlooked The Commons. We could see that on the far side of The Commons, the burned barracks and the National Guard were over in that area. We could hear the bullhorn from the National Guard saying, “This assembly is illegal. Please disperse.” Eventually, a jeep came out and headed towards the crowd to tell them to disperse and, of course, they were jeering at him and maybe some rocks or something was thrown at them and they turned around. Shortly after that, the tear gas was being lobbed over to the students. It drifted up towards Taylor Hall and myself and whoever was still on that back deck got it in their eyes. I was one of them. I went back into the building and I can remember going to the water fountain and splashing water on my eyes to get the burning out. It took a little bit of time but, I figured, Well, it’s time to get out of here.

So, as I headed out of Taylor Hall, in the opposite direction, towards Tri-Towers, because it was lunch time, the Guards had already pushed the students up and to that side of Taylor Hall. I would have had to have gone through the crowd to get to my dorm. The Guard were in a single line out on the [football] practice field, just not doing anything, just standing around. In the meantime, some students would throw rocks at the Guard, but they were so far apart that the rocks weren’t even reaching. They hit the ground, bounce a couple of times, and stop. It never even came close to injuring any Guards at that time. So, I watched from Taylor Hall. I was still on that deck watching that. And then, I didn’t hear anything—

 

[Interviewer]: You were kind of stuck there, in a way, because of the crowd?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I was stuck there, yes, yes. So, the Guard assembled again and started marching back towards where they came from. They had to go up over the crest there, near that COR-TEN steel sculpture [editor’s clarification: narrator is referring to the sculpture created by Don Drumm, Solar Totem #1], and back down. As they started marching back, I said, “Okay, this is over.” I started moving out through the crowd and I wasn’t watching the Guard, so, now I’m off the deck on the sidewalk. It’s not—there’s two sidewalks that get you up on the Taylor deck there. I was on the farthest one from the Guard, back, more towards the [Prentice Hall] parking lot. To give you an idea of where I was.

 

[Interviewer]: More towards Prentice Hall and the parking lot.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Prentice Hall, yes, yes. I was walking down the sidewalk and, all of a sudden, I hear, “Pop, pop, pop.” I got disoriented, didn’t know what was going on, but I looked down, and the bullets hit the dirt in front of me. There must have been three or four bullets hitting the ground. Just like you see in the movies where the dirt pops up, flies up, when the bullets hit the ground. I realized then that that was live ammunition, so I ran back into the building.

 

[Interviewer]: Back into Taylor [Hall]?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes. By that time, it was—the firing had stopped. I came back out, and everyone had just dropped to the ground—there was just—just dropped to the ground. I came outside and the first person I went to was the guy that was shot in the stomach, right behind the COR-TEN steel sculpture [editor’s clarification: narrator is referring to wounded student, John Cleary]. But, there were, I would say, three students attending to him.

 

Then, I walked down the sidewalk to the parking lot where Jeff Miller was shot. I stood on one side of his body and I was aware that there were a few other students, maybe two or three more, standing with me there. Then, before I knew it, there were about three or four National Guard came around and stood on the other side of Jeff. They had their rifles up, their gas masks on, and they just stood there. No one said a word. Then, for unknown reasons, they leveled their rifles at us. They had bayonets still on their guns and I just remember one guy had a rifle pointed right at my chest. Again, nothing was said. I just backed away and went back to the dorm.

 

[Interviewer]: Was anyone attending Jeffrey Miller at that point—first aid or seeing if there was anything they could do to help him?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No. We stood there, we all know, because the blood was coming from his head—he was dead.

 

[Interviewer]: There was nothing you could do, right?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Right, nothing. What I heard much later on is he was shot—he had his mouth open, a bullet went through his mouth and out the back of his head because there was nothing wrong with his face, the way he had turned. Then, like I said, I went back to my dorm. I was—I must have been in shock.

 

[Interviewer]: Of course, yeah. So, nothing was said? Those Guard that were there on the other side of Jeffrey Miller’s body, no one said any words? They just pointed their weapons and you and the other students realized you needed to go?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Right. I could have been shot, or bayonetted, or whatever. Didn’t know what was going on, I just backed away and left. I remember leaving—that’s the other thing I have this picture of—as I was leaving, I could hear the ambulances, and one ambulance was speeding up that knoll where the Guard had just gone down. He went so fast that, as he hit the crest, I could see the underside of the ambulance. Then he came crashing down on his front wheels and started—I didn’t know where he went or who he attended first. I’m guessing the closest one was the guy that was shot in the stomach [editor’s clarification: John Cleary].

 

I just got the hell out of there because I didn’t know how much more shooting was going to go on or what was going to happen. I did not attend that big rally afterwards where everyone was congregating and wanted to charge at the Guard at that time. There were thousands of students that had pretty much surrounded the Guard. They were all over by the burned-out barracks now. Thousands, thousands of students. The Commons area was vacant, but the students were behind the Guard over by the other barracks and the crowd on the high—by Taylor Hall back on that journalism side. What I read was a couple of psychology professors were trying to dissuade the students from attacking the Guard. Luckily, they succeeded.   

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, Dr. Glenn Frank. So, you saw that as you were backing away and then leaving the scene, getting to safety in your dorm. [00:25:00] What were you hearing after that when you were by Jeffrey Miller and then getting back to Tri-Towers? Do you remember the sounds? Was it quiet at first and then people started shouting?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I don’t remember a lot of shouting or anything like that. I think people were just freaking stunned. I went back to the dorm. I don’t remember what happened once I got back there. I was in a fraternity at the time, Kappa Sigma, and we had a house in Kent. I remember going to the house and there were a couple brothers there. Everyone was shocked and it was pretty quiet. I know one of my brothers was crying because he was in—that was Prentice Hall was the girls’ dorm there—and he was in, I guess, the lobby leaning against a wall, waiting for his girlfriend. I guess a bullet lodged in the wall about a foot from his head.

 

[Interviewer]: He was inside the building or outside?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No, he was inside the building.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you both had very close calls.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes. The interesting piece was all those students that were killed were in back of the crowd.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, like where you were, trying to get away from The Commons and get to your dorm, or wherever.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah. People were going back and forth. I don’t know how many were actually there to really protest versus trying to get back to the dorm or have lunch somewhere or whatever.

 

I’m trying to think what happened after that. I just know that they closed the school. I had a car, so I took two guys, I think, two guys home with me because we had to evacuate the school, the campus. So, I took two of them with me to my house and then, from there, they called their parents and they came and got them. 

 

[Interviewer]: Did any of your fraternity brothers stay at the house, do you know? Because that was maybe off campus enough, or maybe not.

 

[Michael McNamara]: I don’t know. It was a small house and we had some brothers that lived in there, maybe six at the most. It wasn’t a big house.

 

[Interviewer]: So just a few guys lived in the house, and then the rest of you were either in dorms or apartments?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes, yes.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:28:54] Do you remember anything else from those days? Even driving out of town, do you have any memories from that? Was it difficult to get out of Kent?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I don’t remember struggling to get out of Kent. It was—I just kind of blanked out on the drive home. I think we were all shocked. I got home and a couple of the neighbors came over to ask me what happened. My mother didn’t know what happened. She was actually on jury duty that day. When she got home, her friends started asking, “How’s Mike? What’s happened—is Mike okay?” She had no idea what they were talking about.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, my gosh. Maybe that was for the best.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah, yeah. My dad came home and I told him—told them what happened at dinner time. Because at that time, the news was coming out that “The National Guard were surrounded,” or “The National Guard were fired upon,” or “There were two National Guardsmen were wounded,” and “Only two students were shot.” Just all these lies were coming out and I could tell my parents, “That’s not true. That is not the truth.”

 

[Interviewer]: So, your mother hadn’t heard the news. Had your father heard some of those early incorrect reports? When he got home, had he already heard some of that?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I don’t think of him saying, “Hey, what happened?” But maybe, at the end of the day, as he was coming home or something he heard, maybe had the radio on or something. My dad, based on his past profession of FBI, CIA, they’re always, I learned, “Where do you get your information? Who’s giving you that information?” And, “Where are they getting their information?” It was just—

 

[Interviewer]: So, he was very critical probably about—a critical thinker in terms of analyzing stuff like that?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes. And he was always—

 

[Interviewer]: Did he question you FBI-style maybe at dinner that night? What did you see? What did you hear?

 

[Michael McNamara]: There was no hot light. He asked a few questions. It was none of that, “Where’d you get your information?” Because I was an eyewitness. Whereas, in the past, if my source of information at dinner times would be, “Oh, I read an article in Newsweek Magazine about this.” He’d say, “Well, what do you know about that information? Where did that author get that information from?” My dad was a Barry Goldwater Republican kind of guy, very conservative. I think I said earlier, living under his house, that’s kind of the way I thought. The government doesn’t lie and all that other stuff, but that really changed my opinion to this day.

 

[Interviewer]: That experience, your experiences on campus. Were there discussions over the summer with your family that were difficult? Was there any sort of tension at home? If your outlook was changing, do you have any memories of that?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah, in the sense that—no, I wasn’t challenged. We all watched the news about Nixon doing an inquiry into the shootings and all this other stuff. I wasn’t challenged and I remember that night, I went over to my girlfriend’s house and we just pretty much sat on the couch and didn’t say much. I was still kind of numb by the whole thing.

 

[Interviewer]: Did it work out okay in terms of finishing your classes, for you?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah, that was the interesting part. We got word that, I don’t know whether it was a week later, or some period of time, you know, no information—were we going to come back to school, what we were going to do? Have classes resume? So, I believe we got a letter—back then, there were no computers, or cell phones, or anything like that—getting a letter saying school is closed for the rest of the year. And then it took a long time for my professors—because, by that time, I was, I think I was a junior, they were all architectural courses: design, structures, mechanical engineering, probably history of architecture—for the professors to figure out what will we need to do to complete the course and complete the year and get credit for it.

 

Finally, I get these letters from my professors saying, “You’re going to have to write reports.” We have a design studio where we’re designing our own project and, in lieu of that, we probably, I think we had to do a—pick a building and write a report on that building. It was all writing stuff to send back to your teachers by a certain date. It’s not too different from what’s going on right now [editor’s clarification: due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns]. My grandkids have school. We have first graders, fifth graders, and seventh graders. But, they’re on computers and it’s the same thing. They’re doing Zoom classes and things like that, but they’re doing all their work from home. So, it’s kind of weird.

 

[Interviewer]: It’s a strange déjà vu moment. There’s sort of a parallel with what you experienced as a junior in college in 1970. So, you had a week at home, just no clue what was going to happen next in terms of going back to school?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Right.

 

[Interviewer]: But, you got through it. Writing reports was not maybe what you had planned to do. You were in tough, upper-division, difficult courses, but I’m assuming you made it through—I hope.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah. I got average grades. We had a design course. We were required to—they give you a project like a museum. So, you have to plan it, come up with plans, elevations, sections, those kinds of things, which we didn’t do that year. Structural engineering class, that’s a bunch of calculations. I forgot, I don’t remember what we had to do for that. I can vaguely remember a lot of writing.

 

[Interviewer]: Gosh. I’m so sorry.

 

[Michael McNamara]: And being dyslexic, that was a frigging struggle.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, my gosh. I mean, it seems like you could have mailed plans and drawings and sketches back to your professors. But models, three-dimensional models, would have been, obviously, much more difficult.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Right. And we didn’t have drafting tables at home. We had triangles and T-squares. We didn’t have that stuff.

 

[Interviewer]: You didn’t have all your equipment necessarily, right. Dining room table and a twelve-inch wooden ruler from your school days.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Right, and typewriters.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, right. [00:38:40] What was that summer like? Do you have any memories from the summer? Did you come back to any classes, any summer classes or were you home?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No, no summer classes. I’m trying to remember what I did that year. Because sophomore year—I’d have to check. The following year—

 

[Interviewer]: You had a student deferment, I’m guessing, for the draft?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes, yes. 1-H, I believe they called it. I have to think whether it was that year or the next year. I think it was the next year. My brother and I, we had bought a Volkswagen van, an old van. It was a ’62 Volkswagen van. We fixed it up and repainted it. Actually, we drove from Parma Heights, Ohio, up the Alaskan Highway, all the way to Alaska and back in the summer. And I think—I’m trying to think, I’d have to think—was that ’70 or ’71? But one of those years, we did it then.

 

[Interviewer]: Either the summer after the shootings or maybe the summer after you graduated?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: That must have been a great trip.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Oh, yeah. The Alaska Highway was still a dirt road.

 

[Interviewer]: A lot of people that I’ve spoken with for this project did big road trips. I think for many people, that was kind of part of the healing process to get away and to have an adventure and explore and be in nature and whatnot.

 

[00:40:39] What was it like—I assume you came back in that fall, back to school? Do you have any memories? That would have been your senior year, correct?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes, and architecture was a five-year course.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, so, that was your fourth year then of five? Got it.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Right, four of five. Yes, came back for the fourth year and, you know, it seemed being back to normal. But I was living off campus that year with a former friend of mine who just got out of the Army. [Unintelligible] at Kent State, so it was his freshman year, my senior year, and we had an apartment in Stow. It was cheap out there, at the time.

 

So, what happened was, things were going fine, and then our design class, we had to—I think it was—we had to design a museum. And, with architecture, in that design class, your project is always due the week before finals week. Those were times when we hit the all-nighters, two to three days of no sleep. Those were one of the times for me. Instead of drawings, I did a model where I actually hung the things. The professor said, “You have to be done by Friday at five and then we, the professors, will come in over the weekend and grade them and you’ll get your grades the next week.” I said, “Okay, great.” So, I put it all up and left.

 

Well, when grades came out, I saw that I got an “F.” I went down to my professor, and I said, “Hey, what happened? How did I get an F?” He said, “You didn’t have anything.” I said, “Yes, I did.” I hadn’t even gone up to the room on the fourth floor there, that big open space where your stuff was. So, I went up there and it was gone. There was nothing there. I was shocked, so I went back down to him and I said, “It’s gone.” And he said, “Yeah, there was nothing there.” I said, “Well, I know I did it and I have witnesses because we were all up there late at night.”

 

[Interviewer]: All together in the studio, right. So when was, is this at the end of your senior year? Like the spring quarter?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes, yeah, it was something like that. So, I said, “Well, I have witnesses that could tell me what I did. They saw it. They saw me there.” So, I said, “Well, can you just give me a pass? Don’t give me a grade. Just give me a pass.” And he said, “No, I’m not going to do that. What you’re going to have to do is do it again.” And I said, “Wait a minute. I’m spending sleepless nights on the normal design course, now you’re asking me to do two designs: the current one for next quarter, and the one you said I didn’t do, I got an “F” on. You’re asking me to do that? It’s going to be impossible. It’s impossible.” So, I told him, “I’m not going to do that.”

 

I think I went to the dean, [Joseph] Morbito [00:45:05] and complained. He, of course, supported the professor. Then I said, then I talked to someone about the frustration and they said, “Well—.” Was that winter course? Maybe that was winter course because spring course, they said, “It looks like you have enough credits. If you finish these courses in the spring, you can graduate with a bachelor’s degree, not an architectural degree.” That’s what I decided to do. I was so angry that I graduated with a bachelor’s degree.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you didn’t do your fifth year?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I did not do my fifth year. It’s interesting that I made my career out of architecture. So, the deal was—so, I graduated and I met my wife there at Kent. She was in nursing school and she was a year behind. So, I worked in Cleveland for a year and as we dated and so forth. We got married. She wanted to go get a master’s degree in nursing. We got married and I was ready to move out west somewhere and she said, “Oh, I want to get a master’s degree.” So, she applied to Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital up in Cleveland. She got accepted there, so we spent two years living in Cleveland and then, a week after she graduated, we headed out west and looked at Spokane, Washington, and Seattle and Portland, Oregon. I just did not like Ohio.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, you were ready for something different.

 

[Michael McNamara]: I was ready for something different, and I’m an outdoor person. I love the outdoors. I still, at seventy years old, go backpacking.

 

[Interviewer]: Nice. Well, that’s a good hobby to have during COVID as well because you can socially distance and still get your activity in. Did you ever find out what happened to that model that disappeared?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No, no. It was like, the pieces—there were no pieces on my table. It was like it was cleaned. So, I don’t know what happened.

 

[Interviewer]: And you didn’t have photographs of it or anything? Oh, my gosh, that’s so awful. Well, thank goodness you still were able to have a career with the four-year degree that you were able to finish. I’m curious, during that year, since you were pretty much based in Taylor Hall, at that point, your senior year. The studio was there, your classes, was that difficult emotionally being right near, every day, the place where the shootings happened? Was that something that was with you that year?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I didn’t feel any emotion about it. I’m a person, too, that struggles with getting in touch with their emotions, too, for anything, for that matter. I can’t remember any kind of situation or trauma after going back in the fall—experiencing anything like that.

 

[Interviewer]: It’s interesting because I’ve talked to people who found themselves just avoiding that part of campus and, depending on what you were studying, maybe you never had to go by The Commons or Taylor Hall. So, when they did maybe go to Taylor Hall six or eight months later, it was very traumatic. But for you, that was your home base. You had to go there every day.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Nor do I remember any of the professors talking about it. It’s almost as if nothing happened.

 

[Interviewer]: So, when you came back in the fall, it was just kind of like, we’re back—

 

[Michael McNamara]: Business as usual, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: —just right back down to the nose to the grindstone.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Pretty much.

 

[Interviewer]: In your major, especially.

 

[Michael McNamara]: I can’t remember a professor saying—mentioning it.

 

[Interviewer]: Just not even having that be a part of a class discussion, ever?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: Interesting. Was it anything that you talked about with maybe your fraternity brother who had that close encounter inside Prentice Hall? Did you see him the next year?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I believe I did. I know we would have discussions about it, when I would go over there, yeah. Everyone kind of telling their experience of where they were and so forth and so on. I had one of the girls, in my freshman English class—that was killed. I didn’t know her well, I just knew who she was.  

 

[Interviewer]: Was that Allison Krause or Sandy Scheuer, do you know?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Sandy, yup.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you knew who Sandy was, you would recognize her, she would say hi to you probably.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, I’m sorry. One thing I’m curious about is, when the rally was getting started and you were on that side of Taylor Hall looking down into The Commons and then you went through the building and you were on the other side of the building, was there any tear gas inside the building? Had anyone deployed any tear gas indoors, that you were aware of?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No. I just went in looking for cold water and to splash cold water on my eyes because that’s what I heard was a way to clear your eyes.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. So, you were able to recover a little bit inside? It wasn’t also in the building. Good, nice.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Right, right.

 

[Interviewer]: And you mentioned that sculpture by Taylor Hall, you knew the material it was made of, the Don Drumm sculpture. Was that something that architecture students knew all about? It was kind of part of your daily life to walk by that sculpture. Was it something that you talked about in class? How it was constructed or anything?

 

[Michael McNamara]: No, we just talked about the material, with the COR-TEN steel which was a new material in a sense that it was steel that was allowed to rust. That’s what gave it that look. Now the Pagoda [00:53:22] on that hill, where the Guard turned around, that was fairly new. That was a couple years old, I believe, where some senior students ahead of me designed and built this thing, was the story I heard.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you surprised that that COR-TEN steel could be so cleanly pierced by one of the bullets? Was that—

 

[Michael McNamara]: I was shocked. I was shocked. I remember looking at that plate, Yep, bullet hole, went right through it. Then, there was a tree, not too—down by that sidewalk where I was by and I realized, Oh, there’s a bullet hole in the tree. So, where the bullet entered, you could barely see where it entered, but on the back side of the tree, it was blasted open. All the bark and some wood were just blown away and the interior was showing. 

 

[Interviewer]: Were you pretty close to where that tree was located when the shootings happened?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I think so, because where I was standing was pretty close to the sidewalk that paralleled Taylor Hall. I started walking down the stairs off the balcony there, off that area, and then I was pretty close to the sidewalk that paralleled the street and length of Taylor Hall. That’s why I realized the bullets hitting that dirt right in that area.

 

[Interviewer]: I don’t have any other clarification questions at this point. [00:55:36] I guess I would just ask if there’s anything that you’d like to share with us about how these experiences affected your life over the years? You already talked about how you wanted to go out West and leave the state of Ohio. Maybe that was one of them. Is there anything else that you’d like to share about what kind of effect this had on your life or your career?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yeah, I would say it certainly has changed my political views. Over the years, I have voted—I came to Oregon. Oregon is a very liberal state. It had the Bottle Bill in the early days, when we moved here. The beaches along the Oregon coast are not owned by anybody, all that. They’re very environmentally friendly. They’ve cleaned up the Willamette River here.

 

So, I like the politics. I like the being liberal. I have voted Republican in the past, too. After Kent, very few Republicans. But basically, I voted for the first George [H. W.] Bush but, other than that, I think I voted all Democrat. We have a Democratic governor. Mostly, our governors are Democratic. I’m more of an environmentalist, so I’m always following that. I really didn’t like the politics after I left because I know [James] Rhodes couldn’t be re-elected because two consecutive terms is all you could do. Then he came back and he ran for governor again after he had stepped away for four years. Even now, I kind of follow a little bit of Ohio politics and it’s, in my view, hasn’t changed a whole heck of a lot. Even currently, what Republican governors are doing by pretty much stepping in line with [Donald J.] Trump. Here in Oregon, we’ve jumped on it pretty quick and we have only a hundred and forty-five, forty-eight, deaths here in this state since it started [editor’s clarification: since the COVID-19 pandemic began]. We’re starting to open up, one phase at a time. Most counties are opened up. So, I just like that thinking. I just like that.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you picked a compatible place for you and your wife to settle, it sounds like?

 

[Michael McNamara]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: I guess at this point, is there anything else that you wanted to mention that we haven’t talked about? Is there anything we missed that you can think of?

 

[Michael McNamara]: I can’t think of anything.

 

[Interviewer]: Great, well, thank you so much, Mike, again for sharing your memories with us. I really appreciate it—with the Oral History Project. Thank you again. At this point, we’ll end the interview.

 

[Michael McNamara]: Oh, you’re very welcome.

 

[Interviewer]: Great, okay, thanks.

 

[End of interview]

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