Phyllis (Harkins) Ralley, Personal Narrative [audio]

 

Submitted May 4, 2020

Transcribed by Liz Campion, May 4 Archivist

 

 

[Phyllis (Harkins) Ralley]: It could have been me, but instead it was you. Fifty years ago today, I was walking through my living room in southeastern Ohio and I glanced down at the small black and white TV on the floor. And I was drawn into this scene that looked like a report from the Vietnam War, someone being killed. But as I listened, the scene changed, there was a young man laying face down, he was wearing jeans and a pool of dark gray fluid had run out of his body. I was to learn later that his name was Jeffrey Miller and he was one of four students killed that day on the campus of Kent State University.

 

I could not comprehend what was happening. All I could think of was, That could have been me. These were the same-age people and that could have been me there on that campus. I walked out the door of my house and up onto the street and began to pace up and down, up and down, trying to think, what was I going to do, where was I going to go? My government was killing people like me.

 

As the facts came in and the reports continued and the opinions rose, the people in the town where I was living, for the most part, decided they should have shot more. They were trying to burn down a building—they should have shot more. It was as if they had drawn a line in the sand with their toe and they all stepped on that side and they left me here on my side, not knowing what to do.

 

What I did was load up a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle and take off driving. My husband at the time and I headed west on a national road and we drove around this country and we met other people our age doing just the same thing. We met some wonderful people who had left Kent itself and were headed west. And we spent several days talking with them about what had happened, really, and what they were thinking of doing next. We drove all the way west and headed north up into Canada and came down the Pacific Coast Highway, then headed back to Ohio. Because, by now, I knew I was going to attend Kent State University—because of those shootings. I was going to prepare myself to do something about this.

 

Well, as I attended Kent State University, I would, of course, attend the May 4 memorials every year. And one year Holly Near wrote a song, “It Could Have Been Me,”—“It could have been me, but instead it was you. So I’ll keep doing the things [editor’s clarification: the lyrics are “doing the work”] you were doing, as if we were two.” And that was when Allison [Krause] became a part of me and we travelled together from that point on. Allison was one of the four who looked the most like me and whose interests and attitudes matched mine. She was an artist and she was an activist. Well, I was an artist that day, but I became an activist because of her.

 

The junior year of my college career, I travelled to Arizona again to work on an experimental city called Arcosanti—it was the “City of the Future.”  We were trying to build a better way to live. I knew Allison would have loved it. And it was while I was at Arcosanti that summer that I received a letter from the financial department at Kent State and it informed me that I was going to be finishing my college career that next year on a scholarship from Allison Krause’s parents. I could not believe it. I suddenly knew that not only was Allison in my art, but I was in hers, too.

 

I went on to graduate from Kent State University, ultimately moved to Arizona, and I was treating with a cardiologist, one year, for a problem with my heart. The cardiologist told me to go and purchase a book called, Finding the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World [editor’s clarification: the book is entitled, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World] by the Lama Surya Das. I immediately went and made one of my first Amazon purchases and bought that book. Amazon made a mistake and they delivered it on a cassette tape. Now, the cassette tape was fine, I had a cassette player, one of those portable ones with the earbuds. But the thing is that I normally do not read the introduction of a paper book, but because it came as a book on tape, I had to, and there I lay with the earbuds on my head, on top of my bed, listening. “My name was Jeffrey Miller,” says Lama Surya Das, “I was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the time that the Kent State Shootings happened. Because my name was Jeffrey Miller, I started receiving a lot of phone calls because people thought it might be me.”  “No,” I said, “but Allison Krause was just here in my apartment last weekend. She was the girlfriend of my roommate.” I ripped the earbuds off and threw the cassette player across the room. I was chilled to the bone. Allison was with me again, the connections continued. Allison has always been with me, and Allison always will.

 

[End of recording]

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