Selective Service and Grad School 01

Selective Service

When I turned 18, like all young American men, I had to register with the U.S. Selective Service System, which is the legal name for the military draft. I gave it little thought since the military difficulties in Vietnam had not come close to crisis levels and as far as I knew no one was being drafted — by 1963, only 16,000 American military personnel were stationed in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors. Little thought that is until I started attending SLU. Even before getting the scoop from my ALGTS friends I knew that attendance at an accredited university bought me two years of student deferment status because that’s exactly what my draft card said. But after those two years expired and I became draft eligible, the dreaded 1-A classification, and nothing happened I promptly put it out of my mind.

As the date of our marriage approached in 1966, San and I found an apartment in South St. Louis City at 5020A Mardel Street. A quick digression is necessary here. As we were driving down Mardel early one Saturday afternoon we saw a small red FOR RENT sign in an upper window. The street was nice so we stopped and rang the bell.

An attractive young woman answered the door. When we told her we were interested in renting the apartment she invited us up, telling us her husband had just gone to the store and would be back in a minute or two. As we were climbing the stairs I whispered to San that the girl looked familiar. She agreed. When we got upstairs she showed us her year-old baby, whose name was Charlie.

That’s when someone came running up the stairs into the apartment. To my astonishment it was an old friend with the same name as mine, Bob Ernst. Bob and I had attended McBride High but he was one year ahead of me in my brother, Jack’s, class. After graduating he had gone to the Marianist’s Marynook Novitiate in Galesburg, Wisconsin. When I went there we played soccer, baseball, and softball on the same teams and became good friends. Several years later we ran into each other at SLU and renewed our friendship. And it turned out San knew his wife, Mary, from their high school, Rosati-Kain. It was an interesting reunion. Well, we rented the apartment and drove the mailman crazy for three months until their mail finally got straightened out. Back to the real story.

Somehow I got the idea that since I was moving from my parent’s house in North St. Louis to an apartment in South City I had to change draft boards. So, one summer morning in May 1966 I called the draft board and told whoever answered the phone that I wanted to change boards. I was told I had to come in and talk to a clerk. My appointment was for the following Tuesday at 10:00 AM. Great.

That next Tuesday I put on freshly pressed dress shirt and pants, tie, the only decent sport coat I owned, a pair of spit-polished black shoes and off to the U.S. Federal building I went. When I told a young woman at the information desk I had a 10:00 appointment with a clerk she directed me down the hall to Room whatever. When I arrived I took careful note of the title on the door: Clerk of the Board. Mercy. I wasn’t seeing any old clerk but what turned out to be the Executive Director of the Draft Board.

I knocked and entered a room as big as a small hockey rink. The proto-typical little old white woman was seated behind an enormous desk at the far end of the room. I walked across the room, introduced myself, and shook her hand. She told me to sit and asked the reason for my visit. I told her. Blah, blah, blah.

She hesitated a moment and then asked what I was doing with my life. I gave her the short version. I was graduating from SLU in a week or so, getting married July, and starting graduate school in the fall. My real goal was to get a master’s and doctorate and become a university professor.

She listened patiently and then in a voice devoid of expression told me that if I changed draft boards I would be drafted within two days. Because the board into which I was moving had NO young men of draft eligible age without deferments. Holy shit. Another body to be shoved into the Army’s Vietnam meat grinder. I nearly had a stroke and promptly swallowed my tongue.

Then she asked if I wanted her advice. Of course, I said, after pulling my tongue out of my throat and making sure my heart was beating. She told me I should write a letter informing her of my pending marriage and a temporary change in domicile. I should keep my parents house as my permanent residence because, as she said rather grimly, that year alone my draft board has more than a thousand draft eligible young men with nothing better to do with their lives than serve their country. If and when anything in changed my status all I had to do was send her another letter detailing those specifics. And she would keep my documents at the back of the draft eligible file. If the country declares war, she said, you’ll probably be drafted. But, failing an act of Congress, I should be able to pursue my graduate program. I nearly jumped across the desk and kissed her.

That started my letter writing program with the Clerk, whose name may have been Hazel H. Toerper, though due to the fog of time I’m not 100 percent certain. I sent her a wedding announcement. A letter documenting my move to a “temporary” address in south St. Louis. A birth announcement two years later when our son, David, was born. A copy of my acceptance letter to the doctoral program at the University of Florida. And finally, my new “temporary” address in married student housing in Gainesville.
Not long after arriving at the U of F and starting classes I got into a heated argument with a fellow leftist student in the sociology doctoral program who had an infant and had recently gotten divorced. As soon as the decree was final his vindictive ex-wife sent a copy to his Selective Service board. He was drafted a week later. He yelled at me and accused me of taking advantage of all the poor black young men in my draft board. I disagreed because I wasn’t doing anything but following the law. If the Clerk of the Board was protecting my ass it wasn’t because of anything I had done or asked to be done. It was pure serendipity on my part and I was thankful as hell no matter what reasons she had for protecting me. I had stumbled into a great deal and wasn’t about to fuck it up. He stomped off, visibly steaming. Two or three days later he shot and killed himself rather than submit to the draft. When I heard about his death, my first thought was, why the hell didn’t he go to Canada and fuck the draft? I would have in a heart beat. But those were desperate times if you hated what the American government was doing in Vietnam.
December 1, 1969, marked the date of the first Selective Service (draft) lottery held since 1942. But because I was 26, married, and with a child, I was not eligible for the lottery, especially since Congress had never declared war. Had I been eligible, my lottery number would have been 112 and my skinny white ass would have been drafted. But all those years that the Vietnam conflict went from nearly invisible to hot on all burners, that little old lady protected my ass. Without her wise counsel I would have exposed my tender body to the terrors of Boot Camp and then the rigors of military service. Although it was a coincidence, before the end of summer 1966 I was 100 percent opposed to the War and couldn’t imagine what I’d do if drafted, though Canada beckoned. I had been saved by my own personal, white-haired, Fairy Godmother.
After thinking long and hard about this situation, I’ve come to the conclusion that the U of F grad student who excoriated me for elitist behavior was right in many ways. No, I had not precipitated what transpired or even thought of the possibility of suggesting it to the Clerk of the Board. But I had directly benefited from the white privilege shared by the Clerk and me. Of course, I had no way of knowing if a white or black guy from my local draft board had been drafted in my place, so whether I had benefited unfairly from her action is still somewhat up in the air. Though it is certain that my local board had many more black registrants than white, so the chance of a black guy being sucked up in the draft instead of me was high indeed.
Did I even consider back then that I had benefited unfairly from the Clerk’s unanticipated patronage? Of course I did. But since I HATED the fucking Vietnam War I rationalized the actions of the Clerk and my acquiescence and simply put the situation out of my mind. I was tremendously relieved at not being forced to join the military or having to flee to Canada, a choice I thought about a great deal though I’ll never be certain if I would have followed through since Sandy strongly opposed it. Once I was safe from being drafted I did not allow myself to think about how that security had come about. Which is yet another example of how white privilege works in the real world and how whites fail to see it for what it is. So, yes, in at least some specific ways I knew I had benefited from white supremacy but didn’t give a shit since it was my very life that was at stake. I rationalized my behavior and refused to acknowledge reality. A great example of white supremacy hard at work.

Grad School

The summer of 1966 was filled with excitement and new adventures. In early June, with a strong recommendation from Dave Roth, one of my SLU profs who was an urban planner and had taught me in two courses in urban geography, I was hired by the St. Louis County Department of Planning to help modernize their land use and zoning records. It marked my first, full-time professional job as an urban planner. I worked for Allan Richter, a great guy and one of the best bosses I ever had. He was very bright and had a Master’s in planning from the University of Illinois knew urban planning to a T. Then, in late July Sandy and I were married. We basically had no money so the only honeymoon we could afford was four all too short days at the Tan-Tar-A Resort in the Lake of the Ozarks, returning to our “new” apartment on Mardel Avenue in south St. Louis.

When I started full-time at SLU in September I knew that the teaching assistantship wouldn’t bring in enough money so I wrangled a part-time teaching job at Harris Teachers College, which was located only four blocks east of SLU. Dick Patterson, an older geography grad student I met the first week at SLU, and I worked there together and became good friends. Harris was run by the St. Louis School Board as a training ground for its own teaching staff. Its reputation was less than stellar but the job was a source of much needed money, especially since Sandy’s secretarial job for a psychiatrist in Mid-Town St. Louis paid crap. And that assessment is very generous.

My duties as a TA were primarily focused on teaching the Physical Geography labs for Lee Opheim. It was easy because of all the courses I had taken in physical geography and in geology. It wasn’t long before I developed a relaxed teaching style and rapport with the students, who were only three or four years younger. That was when I broke out of the shell I had been in with regards to relating to young women. Until that time I had largely been shy and reticent around girls. Interacting with male and female students in the lab taught me that I knew a great deal more than any of them did about the subject and gave me confidence in talking to them. It was an incredible experience for me as I was aware of what was happening and enjoyed that new found freedom.

In many ways teaching at Harris turned out to be a blessing in disguise and a curse. First, the blessing part. The courses I was assigned were World Regional Geography and Urban Geography. The subject matter was easy for me but the students were on the difficult side. They were quite a bit different from the students at SLU. All were from the City of St. Louis. In racial composition about 60 percent were white and 40 percent black. It was my first experience working with black students. The racial part wasn’t troublesome but the average ability of students in every class was markedly lower that I was accustomed to at SLU. What the students didn’t know about geography and other topics astounded me. Over the course of the semester I had to change my syllabus several times because I was spending way too long explaining what I thought should be simple stuff everyone knew.

Another part of the blessing side was my contact with other teachers. In particular I loved talking with Eva Held, a grad student working on a PhD in sociology at SLU and also teaching at Harris part-time. Eva introduced me to a treasure of urban sociological and social-psychological books and articles I had lightly passed over as an undergrad. She opened my eyes to the world of urban sociology and I absolutely fell in love with it.

Another great experience was playing in the Harris touch football league. Every year students formed teams to play in the touch league. Theoretically teachers were invited to play but none had ever done so. That is until I agreed to play on the only racially integrated team in the league. The jock fraternity team had asked me to play for them but I turned them down since it was all-white and I wasn’t about to fall into that trap. Teams played twice a week in the late afternoon after most classes were over. Our team did well, winning all our games but one. At the championship game we played the jock frat team that had beaten us in the regular season. Practically the whole school turned out to watch the game. We won by one touchdown. It was the first time ever that the jock frat team had lost as well as the first time an integrated team played. We celebrated long and hard. I was terribly sore for two days but every ache hurt sooooooo good.

Now for the curse part. Late in that school year three teachers and their spouses were invited to be chaperones at the annual end of the school year dance. It wasn’t a “prom” but everyone wore tuxes and formals. Dick Patterson and I volunteered as did Judy B and her husband. Judy was Professor Conoyer’s daughter and had graduated from SLU with a master’s in geography so we knew her fairly well.

To make a long story short, the Pattersons and Sandy and I sat together at the dance and had a good time. Sometime around 12:30 AM Mary Ellen Patterson went to the Ladies Room and returned a few minutes later absolutely livid. She had nearly stumbled over two couples on a stairway going at it hot and heavy. When she remonstrated with them she quickly realized they were royally drunk and took offense at their rough language (I’m fairly certain they told her to fuck off). No big surprise but the students had all signed pledges not to drink since many underage couples would be in attendance. Dick and I tried to calm Mary Ellen down but she was steamed and insisted we DO something since we were responsible for the students’ behavior.

Dick and I searched the crowd and while doing so witnessed several incidents of booze being consumed. After a few minutes we found to the senior who was the chief organizer of the dance. When we reported the situation he laughed in our faces about the drinking and blew us off in no uncertain terms, telling us it happened every year. Why don’t you just leave, he suggested. Then you won’t officially know anything.

We couldn’t do that. Not after seeing evidence the students were drinking. That’s when Dick and I called the police and reported dozens of underage kids drinking at the dance. And promptly told the dance organizer the cops were on the way and would arrest anyone underage who was loaded or was in possession of alcohol. Well, that cleared out the place in less than fifteen minutes. Everyone was royally pissed off at us, that’s for sure. But we went home thinking we had done the right thing. Keep in mind the salient fact that no good deed goes unpunished.

The following Monday Dick and I wrote a report about what had happened at the dance and sent it to the President of the College. We were called in the next day to his office and were told that students had reported that Dick and I and our wives had been drinking during the dance and were inebriated. Holy shit. I was shocked since nothing was further from the truth. The four of us had had a single cocktail at the Pattersons house prior to the dance and nothing after that. Not one more drop.

To our amazement Judy B said that neither she nor her husband had observed any inappropriate behavior on the part of the students and did not believe any underage students had been drinking. She thought we were mistaken and wrong for ending the dance prematurely. Whoa. Both Dick and I knew she was protecting her reputation as a chaperone and full-time faculty member by throwing dirt on ours. What a bitch, I thought.

It sort of ended there with Dick and I sticking to our guns and Judy B sticking to hers. After a couple days things were back to normal and we basically forgot about it.

But at the end of the SLU school year Bert McCarthy came to me and told me in confidence that my teaching assistantship was not going to be renewed. Professor Conoyer was incensed that Dick and I had been drunk at the Harris dance and had made fools of ourselves and the SLU program as was reported to him by his daughter. Conoyer ruled the roost like a feudal lord and there was not a single thing I could do about it. I was fucked. Period. My teaching assistantship was history.

Intoduction to SLU Grad School

Although my grades in general were not great, in my last two years they were definitely on the ascent, especially in geography and geology, which were my major and minor respectively. I mostly earned As with an occasional B. I had gotten to know all the profs and think they liked having me in class because I was the type of student who asked lots of questions, including some that occasionally were insightful.

Toward the end of senior year I inquired around about the possibility of going to grad school at SLU to get a Master’s degree and explored the possibility of applying for a teaching assistantship. To my surprise, the reaction was uniformly positive.

Based on my desires and the faculty encouragement, I applied for the assistantship and also wrote a long paper for my senior thesis about recent cutting edge discoveries in the newly established field of plate tectonics. Quite honestly it was the best research paper I had ever written. And I knew it. To make a long story short, I was awarded the grad assistantship and placed second in the contest for the best senior paper. A couple years later, over more than a few beers with Bert McCarthy, he told me that the faculty had voted 7-1 for my paper as the best in the senior class. But Professor Conoyer, the departmental chairman, had overruled them, saying that it wasn’t fair for me to get the assistantship and the $500 prize for best senior paper. The other faculty had strongly disagreed, arguing it was a matter of which paper was of the highest quality. But in the end Conoyer made a unilateral decision. He was, after all, chairman and his one vote counted for more than all seven others. As a result, the best paper award went to Joe F., one of Conoyer’s pets, a nice guy but a huge brown-noser.

On the afternoon of the late June day I was supposed to attend the award ceremony, which was for all students at SLU, both graduate and undergraduate, who had been awarded scholarships, assistantships, and other goodies, I went out celebrating with a bunch of friends and got rip-roaring wasted. By the time I got home at 4:00 I could hardly walk. So I fell into bed and slept for about two hours.

When Mom tried to wake me I simply turned over and went back to sleep. Finally, my fiancée, Sandy, came over and forced me to get up. A half hour later all four of us climbed into the car and headed for the Kiel Opera House, where the ceremony was to be held. I was still drunk and thoroughly miserable, with a head that was threatening to explode. Somehow I found my way to my assigned seat on the auditorium floor and tried not to look totally shit-faced, which was probably unsuccessful as the people around me certainly should have been able to smell the booze on my breath.

I dozed through the interminable proceedings and only awakened when the people in my row stood up and started filing toward the stage to receive our awards. I dutifully followed the guy in front of me, my drunk-eyes glued on his back. When University President Father Paul Reinhardt handed me my award he smiled and made some sort of friendly comment, which I managed to answer without stumbling and stammering or breathing raw alcohol fumes on him. After taking the plaque and shaking his hand I turned and started to walk across the stage but to my consternation no one was in front of me to follow. The guy who had been in front of me had made his way off the stage quickly and I was left standing there without a single clue as to how I was supposed to find my way back to my seat. Oh shit.

I tried to fake it by walking slowly straight ahead while frantically searching for a way off the stage. At that moment the young black woman who had been on my left in the seats came up and took my arm.

“What’s the matter,” she asked softly, leaning into me. “Did you start celebrating a little too early?” She was trying to keep from laughing.

“Something like that,” I whispered sheepishly and grinned like the bad little boy I was.

“Stick with me,” she said, smiling. “I’ll be your guide.” And arm in arm she escorted me back to our chairs. After the ceremony I gave her a big hug and thanked her once more. And never saw her again.

As you can imagine, the climate in the car on the drive home was frosty. Everyone was pissed off at me. Everyone except for the kind young black woman I still owe.