Boogaart, Thomas Sr. (interview)

Boogaart, Thomas Sr. (interview)

Testimonial about Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan during the 1970s, including the antiwar movement and the counterculture revolution.

2023-07-17

"Boogaart, Thomas Sr, (interview) July 17, 2023." Life on Campus. July 17, 2023. Video, https://youtu.be/8ckWFZGMYeE?si=-_xLIxNPTgxBz-ZZ.

MP4, 50 minutes, 06 seconds

English

oral history

Boogaart, Thomas Jr

Boogaart, Thomas Sr

Holland, Michigan, United States (via Zoom)

Tom JR: “OK so uh the date is July 17, 2023. The time is 11 25. This is an oral interview with Tom Boogaart senior. The interviewer is Tom Boogaart Jr and the topic is life on campus.”
Tom JR: “Now, Tom you went to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. What years were you at Calvin College?
Tom SR: “ I was uh there from 1968 to 1972.”
Tom JR; “OK, so those were the years kind of the tail end and also the high point of the Vietnam War. Now every University was a little bit different in terms of the anti-war movement. Do you have any memories about how that played out on Calvin's campus?”
Tom SR: “I have a few memories. (2:00) I think that generally, Calvin's campus was fairly quiet at least in my first year in 1968. There was some student activism. There's two memories that I have are pretty clear from that year from 1968, and one was that I commuted so I lived in town and then drove to campus every morning- and one morning- and I don't know it must have been in the spring,- maybe of 1969, there was a science building that had a about a six story brick face with no windows in it that kind of faced the main Highway, and somebody that night- in huge letters covering six stories- had END the war. Each one three letters E-N-D was in the top two stories, and “the” in the second two stories, and “War” was on the third, and now how they did it and who did it? Obviously I knew nothing about it, but, obviously, there was a group of students who had been active and who were protesting. So then I parked the car, took a class, and then at about 11 o'clock there was a huge canvas hanging over to hide the sign. And then the next day they hired people with these steam cleaners and they were they were steaming it (paint) off the bricks the next day, and it made the whole thing pretty effective; and that got the whole campus a buzz, of course, so why? What was the college worried about that? Why did they have to hide the message? Why did they have to? Now think of the symbolism. You hide the message, you have to try to erase it as if it never happened, and so that that got everybody, in other words; their attempt to kind of suppress the message got the message out even more. Even more so “End the War,” it had a very short shelf life, “end the war” it maybe lasted about two or three hours, so that was one memory and um the other memory I have is the conversation about the war {that} came up in a history class that I was taking. And this must, well, I'm confused whether it was the first or second year; either 68 or 69. And um the professor, Ron Wells, was his name, was very active and very vocal about his opposition to the war, and he was telling the class that that weekend he had gone with a friend to a pub where there were singers and they were singing you know pop songs; rock and roll songs; and when they got done they asked the audience with did you have any requests? And he {Wells} said so I raised my hand and he said to the singer why don't you sing a song of social significance, and, uh, the singer was just befuddled. And then he was telling the story as an example of how life is just kind of going on and nobody's paying attention, but when you ask a question like that; sing a song of social significance, all of a sudden the singer didn't know what to sing or what to say, and it isn't like there weren't some songs; that I mean we had all kinds of songs of social significance- Bob Dylan being- you know- the main one that we all knew, and I don't remember after that what happened but I do remember that.

Tom Jr: “That it came up in the classroom.”
TOM Sr: “It came up in the class and the other thing that came up in the class that again; like you said; you know this is years ago, and my memory's uncertain a little bit- I mean certain things; I know I remember certain things; I just don't remember in what context exactly but the um we um in one of our classes they talked about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and that it was fake and they were seeking some justification for the war, and so they they created it, and we as students- I remember I didn't disbelieve it- what we were hearing because; you know; it was a history class and we were going over and looking at the stuff, but I remember being somewhat surprised by it, because I had been raised basically to think that Authority was benign, or it was well-meaning generally. I mean there was possibly a pressure, and I didn't figure this out until years later; my dad was in the Coast Guard during the war {World War II}, and so he wasn't on the frontlines, or anything, but he was protecting boats from German subs, which is dangerous enough in itself, of course, and then- um- Eisenhower was the main General of D-Day. It was a really big thing, and Eisenhower was a respected rational; compassionate leader, and then he became President immediately after in those post-war years, and my dad; because of Eisenhower I think, basically trusted government, and basically thought everybody was a version of Eisenhower, and so when trouble started with Nixon in those years, and we were also studying uh the fact that we weren't getting the data- the right data from the government, so we in class were; it wasn't radicalized or anything- but we were being exposed; we were being asked to be critical, I mean, that was the good thing about Calvin College; now at University is that they wanted us to critically engage the world, I mean just don't accept everything you hear, it might be true, but probe it to see what's there, and don't be afraid to- you know- look at evidence that's being suppressed, and things like that. So we were we being engaged to be critical, and, of course, all of a sudden, with the Gulf of Tonkin, with the inflated message {that} we're winning the war basically, all we need is a few more men, a little more equipment, that was escalating; and we knew that wasn’t true, and I was still living at home at the time. It created real trouble at Sunday meals because my dad would hear nothing of it, and then we were suspicious that not only had Johnson lied to us, but that Nixon was lying to us, and my dad just wouldn't hear it. When I look back, I realized that he was very slow, given his experience to trust government, and when I look back, it's largely because of his- Eisenhower, in fact, he had all these buttons he kept from Eisenhower's campaigns. We like Ike, I remember, that little button that even he even gave us those little buttons that we had in our bedroom for a while; “We like Ike,” and so and so, he wouldn't hear it, and he was stubborn, and it created-yeah it created real tension- around the table, and that, and then I wasn't alone in that. Pete- you know Pete is my brother who's a year older he's getting the same education at Calvin that I'm getting, and is not buying into it either, and so, anyway.

Tom Jr; “It was the Counter Culture Revolution and a generational struggle between the Boomers and you know their kids. So what you're describing seems to fit that mold a little bit that there was a divide between you and your siblings and your parents. Was this true in other households as well or was this particular to your household?”
Tom Sr: “No, no, I think that was generally true, but my parents had a high view of Education. They were not unhappy with our education. In fact, they were really happy. I mean, my dad was a graduate of Calvin, and he taught in a Christian school. So we were really embedded in that system, and it wasn't like he was questioning some of the things that there were. Yeah, they're just so it's there's a conflict there for him, and I kind of wondered how he ever resolved it because he really did believe in education. He wanted us to be, so in one sense he wanted us to be critical, but he was not gonna; he just would not accept-specially when it came to a head over Nixon, and then later Watergate came up, and things like that are you saying then that from your perception he believed that your anti-war views were something that came from leaving the home, and being exposed to this at Calvin, yeah, and I think it's something that he valued. I don't think he wanted- he did not want us to be uneducated, and he understood- I think- that education meant critical reflection, but when it came down to that, it's in the abstract, but when it came down to the concrete, what about Richard Nixon, all of a sudden he would not budge on that. I don't think he ever budged on it. I think even though knowing everything in 72, he voted for Nixon, where and I don't think my mother did, but she never said, she was closed-lipped about that.
Tom Jr: “So you went to Calvin in 68. I guess that would be September and uh what you seem to be alluding to is in 1968 before you went to Calvin College. You didn't have a sense that the Vietnam War was incorrect driven by lies and misinformation; that was something of an appreciation that you acquired by going to campus and talking to other people there?”
Tom Sr: “Yeah I think so. If- again my memory's a little vague- but High School in this system did not invite us to be critical. High school was we're right about everything -you know-you’re being inculcated in some fundamental Christian values, and I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated; I was sitting in a another history class in high school, and I think what they did; they were worried I think- they suspended school that day, and then sent us home- if I remember correctly. But there was never any discussion about that, and we didn't talk about the Civil Rights Movement much, but we were aware of it. Then, of course, when he's assassinated, I remember my memory is that I had seen enough of racism that I never doubted that some of these fundamental institutions were racist in our country, and that the African-Americans had reasons- I think- I was sympathetic to it, but we never talked about it. It wasn't analyzed. What we weren't invited to be critical about, I think it was largely ignored, was the Vietnam War- was almost largely ignored in high schools. I remember it, I just don't remember any class where that ever came up. So college for us was a real shocker in a way, and college that Calvin College (University now), had a very different ethos than the ethos of that high school, so there was a pretty radical break for people like me who have been nurtured through that system for all those years

Tom Jr, but I believe that many people in the in the Christian schools that you went to in East Grand Rapids actually went to Calvin, so you were still in in a cohort that was very similar to you.

Tom Sr: “Oh yeah, I would think that at those years all of the Calvin students streamed from the various Christian high schools around the country. And, of course, Grand Rapids was a main Center, and was the big feeder of students to Calvin. All, virtually half the ones who went on to college, probably half of my {High School} graduating class went to Calvin, so I was in class again in college with people I've been in class with in high school, and, of course, a lot of new people too, coming from- you know- some schools out from the state of Washington. A lot of Iowa students were coming at that time, and a lot of Canadian students were coming.

Tom Jr: “So what you're saying is the college experience was really important in terms of shaping your views?”
Tom Sr. “Yeah looking on politics; looking back, there was a required course at the time called hristian perspectives on learning, cpol, that we have our first year, and that course was designed to help us understand culture itself, and how cults are formed and shaped. Again it wasn't explicitly ideological. It wasn't anti-war. It wasn't taking a position on the war. It wasn't taking position on the Civil Rights Movement, but it was inviting us to the whole idea of a kind of critical engagement with your world, and that you had to develop a Christian world and lifeview, but you had to do it critically. You couldn't just absorb everything that was happening around you. In fact, they had a class, they had a speaker. They played a Richard De Vos, it was just starting to take off with Amway, and he was a huge donor to Calvin, even in those early years, when I was there. They gave a speech that he had given to the Chamber of Commerce or something, and the speech was America's the greatest country in the world because we have 90 percent of the world's refrigerators, we have 65 percent of the world's washing machines, we have you know blah blah blah, and then we broke up into our small groups. There were like 300 new students there, or more than that. There must have been like 500 students. We'd break up into groups of 15, led by a professor, and they just started critiquing that does that. What makes you great; is that really what you want? I think- and I remember thinking- it's ridiculous! What was this? What's this guy saying? What about Christian values? What about you know, so they were so- we were being (indecipherable), and then they dropped that lecture, because DeVos heard about it, and he threatened to take the money away, so my class got that, or maybe some classes before me, but as soon as the boss heard about it, they didn't really give us that lecture anymore. They got it that the same idea in other ways, but they did use him as a foil.
Tom Jr: “ It seems interesting because she had that story earlier about the anti-war message that had had to be covered up, and how quickly that was covered up, and you know this was a conservative School treatments, but also teaching critical thought.
Tom Jr: “Was there any tension in the University between the professors and the administration and the donors, or is there something larger going on in society that just kind of it was absorbed in Calvin's campus, so that the students and the faculty were starting to question was a larger movement you think?”
Tom Sr: “Well I I think it was a larger movement in a way, because Calvin wasn't our only life. We were- you know- I was working at Hendricks at the time, a sheet metal company, I worked on a paint crew one summer. We were in a larger world, and we watched the news at night and things like that. And so we were aware of the Civil Rights, and what fascinated me most now that you're asking me about it- I'd forgotten about this- it was also the beginning of the environment; a raising of environmental awareness, Rachel Carson. We read Silent Spring in that CPO class as I remember. That was my first exposure to environmental degradation; the way that the economic system was just spoiling the environment, and so the one movement that I was somewhat involved in college was the environmental movement. I wasn't actively involved in the anti-war movement, or in the Civil Rights Movement, but I was involved in the environmental movement. Well when you thought about the environmental movement, and something needed to be done.
Tom Jr: “Who did you see as the cause for these environmental problems? Was it the system itself? Was it greedy corporations? Was it rich people? Who was causing these environmental problems? What was the threat to your generation? Would you believe that you could change the world?”
Tom Sr: “I think it focused largely on industry. I think I remember the DDT thing was- I mean- so the bald eagle was threatened with extinction, and the information came out that the DDT weakened their eggs, and they weren't having their little eaglets. You know growing up, and things like that, and then Dupont, of course, I think it was Dupont was the biggest seller of DDT, and we also knew that Agent Orange was degrading the environment of Vietnam; that was very clear, and so we saw the bad boys as greedy industry. I don't know if we- I don't think at that point- I was mature enough to see that I was greedy; that I was participating and I wanted all the goods of the that the modern economy was offering, but I didn't see my desire for the goods and services as part of the greedy system. I think that we focused largely on greedy CEOs, greedy corporations and you know that's partly true, but, of course, that's a system, and everybody's in the system, and that was that didn't come until that, that didn't come until I don't think I was old, or mature enough, so when you start thinking about these things, you start at- you know- kind of growing awareness class 101. And then graduate, you go to second year 201, and then eventually you get to 401 and you slowly begin to see the problem more deeply, or more clearly, but that wasn't I don't think at that stage, I didn't see myself so much as a participant. I saw myself as a somehow strangely outside of it.
Tom Jr: “You mentioned Dupont; their slogan was Better Living Through Chemistry right? You would unlock the science; you'd make better products and it would make life easier, but you were talking about these pollutants, killing the bald eagle. So in your environmental activism these greedy corporations what you want to do so that they won't be hurting the environment? I mean what was your activism focused on doing?
Tom Sr: “It was focused on legislation. We were- we wanted to create enough buzz around these issues that you would force Congress then to pass protections for- I think that there were some clean water, there were some major I think around 1970, there were some major legislation passed about clean water and the Endangered Species Act. I don't know if it was called that exactly, it was, yeah it was in those years, or very close to those years that we were, that was all, it took a while to get that but we were agitating, or I as I remember it for those bills to be passed, so we were largely thinking democratically using the system; making corrections, forcing, so reforming capitalism essentially.
Tom Jr “ You didn't think about in those terms, but you were going to use government to make the corporations be more responsible right?
Tom Sr: “yeah I think that's right. I think that's kind of

Tom Jr: “When you were you were mobilizing through the democratic system; how were you doing that? You were having meetings, you were writing Congress people? How were you making change happen?”

Tom Sr.: “ Well, it was largely. . . how did we make change happen? Yeah, that's a good question, because I remember one night we were, yeah it was it was scattered, it was a little Helter Skelter, those of us- I don't even know that we were even organized into a group- but um a group of us got together one night and said well how can we make Calvin more aware of the environmental problems? And this must have been like in 69, no it must have been um maybe yeah again like you said I don't I don't know the years now. They had a Commons bookstore Café, kind of area and they every morning when I would come to school early I would see there'd be a lot of black smoke coming out of the main chimney, and they were burning whatever refuse they weren't recycling; they were burning it, and the black smoke would just be. They wouldn't do it during the day, they would do it early in the morning, so no one could see it, so then our group got together. We said to others, yeah, you see that? Yeah, they all saw that. So then- I remember this- I worked at a sheet metal shop at the time, so I would make the different parts for you know anything that goes from your furnace to your register, all the metal work that gets the air, hot air ducts, and pipe, and elbows, and things like that, so um I there was a low, it was a low wind, there was a low ceiling, there was a place where you could climb up, and then come up on the roof. So one night I climbed up on the roof of that Commons and I took a measurement of that chimney, and I was going to make a metal box, and I was gonna drop it over the top of the chimney, so that when they tried to burn, it would, of course, it wouldn't release. And it was as a protest, well that I have that memory, so I remember going up. I remember getting the measurements, but I think that someone in the group at that point said you know um you don't want anyone to get hurt because of this, and you don't want to start a fire do you? This could go wrong; this is not such a good idea exactly- something like that. So, we ended up not doing it, but it shows you that we were aware, we were Helter Skelter. We had a few little plants, but we weren't going . . . .
Tom Jr: “I have to stop you there a minute because historians have argued that there's a link between the Civil Rights Movement which was largely black students and activists during the 50s and early 60s and the subsequent counterculture Revolution that became more mainstream. It went to White campuses, but one of their techniques was activism and confronting injustice. So, Martin Luther King jr. would propose this and they'd have sit-ins and so your idea, which came spontaneously, you know, it's essentially a type of terrorism or vandalism; it's not something you would normally do. Was this an idea that was inspired, you think by the environment?”
Tom Sr: “It was anger, yeah, that people were irresponsible; this was unnecessary. You didn't have to do this. There are other ways to do all of this. It's been
Tom Jr: “Your action was for justice?”
Tom Sr. “What you're doing is I would I think so yeah it wasn't it wasn't too in this case it was Justice for the environment I mean but partly you know we're part of the environment, it was Justice for us too, and, yeah, we felt I guess we felt- was
Tom JR: “That incinerator in a way {was} a symbol of the establishment, the system that was not responding to justice that needed to be sent a message. How did you how did you view it did you see Calvin's authorities as connected somehow to decision makers, the corporations, the government?”
Tom Sr: “Well, I think so I think that's I think it was a microcosm it is in a way I mean you know it's just a small you know go down to Gary, Indiana at the time, our Aaron, when I was that age, we breathed the worst air in the United States, because we were downwind from Gary Indiana. We thought we learned about those things too; air quality was a huge issue that we talked about, so we felt personally we had a personal stake in it, but it wasn’t really consciousness like you said. It wasn't, it wasn't wanting to hurt anybody, but to find almost like King did- find non-violent ways to protest, and then raise awareness, and so we thought- gosh- you know- think you know like that in the war thing, how effective that was. We thought well, we'll put that little lid on that thing.”
Tom Jr. “And this is why you didn't act, because you, someone in your group said this kind of goes across the boundary to potentially being a violent act, that could cause harm right? Someone could get hurt, or maybe it starts a fire, or you know?”
Tom Sr: “I don't know and then we kind of backed off on it, it didn't, you know, someone did propose rather than well I don't know something like don't close it off, leave a little opening you know, but we in the end, we didn't do it. We didn't do it so
Tom Jr: “You talked earlier about the Martin Luther King assassination. This wasn't a major event. I mean this period for historians is interesting, because it's really at the turning between you know the height of the anti-war movement the transition to the 70s when there's a lot of you know liberal legislation to protect environment and everything else, you said that they closed down your high school and sent you home. Do you remember why they closed your school down? What were they afraid of?
Tom Sr. “No, I think I'm accurate with that memory, but again you have to this is oral history right yeah you'd have to double check, but I they were um we had had um we had had riots in Detroit before this as I remember, so we were aware of that I guess. We were aware of that, too, I think they were afraid because we- our high school- was located in the quote “black neighborhood” of town. It was the corner of Madison and Fulton, or no full Fuller, no Franklin Madison and Franklin's no wait, not Franklin gosh, yeah isn't that funny I can't remember Madison and something, but anyway we were you know, just a few blocks from South High, which was an all-black high school, pretty much all-black high school, and I think they were afraid of riots; that's what I think. No one said that or anything. . .”

Tom Jr: “Because you were talking earlier that- you know- about the Civil Rights Movement had a kind of a hard time making sense of it, but I think to what extent did you see racial injustice in in the community that you live in, like how many African or black students were there in your Christian High School?”
Tom Sr: “Um, I don't think there was a single one. If I'm thinking about it now, later when adoption agencies started to be more active, there would be more families within our white largely Dutch communities that would be adapting Asian children, and maybe African children. I don't, so their Church
Tom Jr: “Did you have any African or black African-Americans in Church?”
Tom Sr: “No, not a single one. In fact, you know, because I you know I wrote about this when my dad died, and Phil is my younger, for those who are going to be reading this e found the original deed to my boyhood home that was they built. My parents built my house when I was born in 1950, and they lived there you know like 55 years before, maybe 60 years, before they went to a retirement home. The original deed was Caucasians only. That the new neighborhoods in the post-world War II were segregated and so I was guaranteed to grow up in a neighborhood that would not have any African-Americans in fact there was a provision that you could have black um people serving you in your home as domestic servants so there's a clause about that but there was something about they couldn't live there or something like that I don't know.”
Tom Jr: “So Caucasians really means white, so it means not just Asians in America, but Hispanic s Asians too would be excluded from your neighborhood.”
Tom Sr: “It just said Caucasians only and I think it was directed at black African-Americans and so um, yeah, I was guaranteed not to have any contact. There was not in our churches, not in our schools. In fact when I was a wrestler in high school, I've written about this too, uh, we, the first time we had to wrestle South High, I was in 10th Grade- must have been, yeah- I don't know my 1968 or no, no, 65 or something like that, also and I realized that I was gonna most likely be wrestling an African-American young man, and I was just I was I couldn't even think about the match, all I could think about he's going to be African-American. I'm gonna have to wrestle in African-American, and think of the symbolism here, we had never been in contact before, ever even touched before, and now we're gonna wrestle.
Tom Jr: “ Talk about touch. Did they make you afraid or uncomfortable, or it is strange?”
Tom Sr: “It just it just was a violation of the structures of my world. It made me, I don't, I wouldn't say afraid, but I was just I was confused basically, I didn't know what to make of it, and then I thought- I kind of thought to myself what in the heck, what do you, why are you going on about this this- you know- like you know, so my mind was just churning. Journey churning, and then the interest and here's the fascinating thing Tom is that so I'm all nervous, and sure enough you know, I don't know you've never gone to arresting me, but you all you line up by weights, and then before the meet starts the two wrestlers they stand on the side, and then weight by weight they go out, and they acknowledge each other. And I said, well, sure enough. I'm going to be wrestling a black guy, but then as soon as the match started, I was terribly nervous. I was kind of, I wouldn't even know what to do. He went in for a double Leg Takedown, which is a wrestling move, and I threw what we used to call a wizard to protect myself. Flat I pancaked, and threw a wizard, and as soon as we touched all of that anxiety was gone, and I thought, he's just a guy, like any other guy, like I don't know what the world you know- and so the rest of the wrestling match we're going back and forth. I'm not, I'm just wrestling a guy, and then I thought later years later, when I thought about that, the touch, that my society was so afraid of, was the very touch that I needed to overcome my fear. Isn't that ironic? It was, it was literally the touch that made you nervous because wrestling is very- I mean, yeah I think, yeah there's.
Tom Jr.: “You've been so segregated your entire life.”
Tom Sr. “Absolutely,”
Tom Jr. “So this was really first Contact.”
Tom Sr: “First Contact, first ever in my life, yeah, some of the race structures at least innocently by watching television and the Civil Rights well you could see there was Injustice, yeah, but it was still something else to be confronted right in this way, so we had no social interactions with African Americans before, nothing but my mother, and she had no interactions either, but my mother was very compassionate. She made it clear to us that every person was a person, and so we grew up in a home, I mean so it's ironic because all the social structures are racist, in a sense. . .”
Tom Jr: “There’s institutionalized separation of peoples.”
Tom Sr: “Call that whatever you want, but that's not the way, at least we were talking about our values as a family, and so that laid the groundwork, when I later would you know come to greater consciousness of what's going on, I had already my Mom had laid the ground, more than my dad- I think- my Mom had laid the groundwork, that every person was a person.
Tom Jr: “ What would it happen if you had an African-American girlfriend. Would that have changed her view? Would she have accepted that? Would your father have accepted that or not?”
Tom Sr: “Um, yeah I have no idea. I mean it wasn't. . .”
Tom Jr: “Do you remember any interracial couples when you were growing up in high school or college?”
Tom Sr: “Oh no, that was just that was a line that was simply not crossed. Yeah, no, no,”
Tom Jr: “go ahead”
Tom Sr: “No, no, never, not that I know, not that I could, certainly not a church not at school, um, no I don't think so.”
Tom Jr: “What about other White ethnic groups like Poles or Roman Catholics with those other were those also completely?”
Tom Sr: “Well interestingly in the neighborhood that I grew up in was a kind of Levittown neighborhood, a little tiny Levittown house, many tiny rooms, yeah so, that our tiny little house had four bedrooms, but you could hardly put a bed in the bedroom, the person across the street was Paul, the neighbor on the -what side would that be?- on the West Side, I guess, was Polish, and the family across the street was Jewish, and so we were we were with the Polish a lot of us were, but we weren't in an exclusive. . . There were other neighborhoods that were exclusively Dutch, we were in a quote- mixed neighborhood, and the uh, my mom was very good friends.”
Tom Jr: “it was white.”
Tom Sr: “It was definitely white. My mom was good friends with a Jewish couple across the street, and we did not go there, there was an anti polish, they were catholic and there was quite a barrier there, we did not interact with them. I mean we, my mom, was civil, they engaged each other as Neighbors, and he drank beer, he would sit on his porch at night and drink beer, and, uh and then after he'd had a few beers, he'd start singing songs, and we were all we were all a little suspicious that that was immoral. We weren't you know.”
Tom Jr: “Those Catholics, you know, they don't have the same standards that we have?”
Tom Sr: “Well no one said that, but that was kind of that was kind of what we were.
Tom Jr: “still the idea of the Reformation going on?”
Tom Sr: “Yeah, oh absolutely yeah that's that kind of anti-Catholic, in a way, you didn't associate, so anyway, so it was it was in that sense white index, which was unusual because a lot of my friends at school only lived in neighborhoods that were also entirely Dutch.”
Tom Jr: “ It kind of reached the end of the hour, but I wanted to go back on a couple things you talked earlier about. You know there's an emerging conflict with your father about the war and politics, and your criticism of that I was wondering if that carried over to the environment as well, or if you're your father and your mother also felt that corporations had gone too far, and they needed to be reformed, to protect human health, air quality, protect our natural spaces, etc?”
Tom Sr: “Well, I think, and I don't remember talking about it. Of course, my Dad, I never talked to my Dad about anything really. He was working all the time, yeah it the conflicts were largely political, and they were largely as I remember it- certainly around the war, but they weren't around the environment. My parents, when they were able, they didn't have a lot of money, but when they were able, and got a car that was good enough, we did extensive travel. And my parents loved nature. They loved getting out. We went to National Parks. We hiked, took thousands of slides of the Smoky Mountains, and the Tetons, and the Rockies, so I don't remember them saying anything explicit about it, but clearly nature had spiritual significance for them, I think. They wanted to share that with us, and we picked that up then when we were very young. So, I don't remember talking much about it, maybe the fact that I can't remember, we didn't fight about it. I think they probably agreed, they probably were sympathetic to that kind of thing.
Tom Jr: “Just one last question. I didn't talk to you a lot about the hippies, and of course East Grand Rapids was not a big hippie Colony.”
Tom Sr: “ East Grand Rapids, Tom is a separate town, so it's Grand Rapids. East Grand Rapids is where Jeremy lives now.
Tom Jr: “Okay, so it's Grand Rapids, but the subculture influenced the wider culture in various ways like popular music, you know, Neil Young and John Lennon. Also the hippie uniform, so people were wearing clothes that were comfortable, they were not wearing the Brooks Brothers shirt, they were you know this was kind of a way of protesting the establishment in terms of your sartorial choices. Did you in any way adopt these types of fashions, consciously or unconsciously?”
Tom Sr: “That's funny that you bring that up, because it I would have I wouldn't have thought of this, but, hair, was a big deal for my dad. And my dad was always at a buzz cut, a kind of a military buzz cut, and he would always cut our hair. And what he'd do is just take the thing, just shave you, so you had like a maybe an eighth of an inch left when he was done, all over your head. And then it would grow out. And then he'd shave it again. And he did that to save money. There's no way to know, I never sat in the seat of a barber, we would not pay, and probably couldn't afford to pay a barber, so he cut our hair, but then I started dating your Mom, Judy, in high school. And Judy hated that she didn't like that short hair. And so, grow it out, grow it out. And my dad did not like that. No, I finally, you know you're old enough, and you're dating, and you're like now a senior in high school. He can't. He's got no control over what you're going to do with your hair or anything like that. He did not. It's funny how that hippie culture for some came down to, I think for my dad it came down to hair. And if he saw that long hair, you know hanging all over, or covering your ears, he reacted to that. He didn't like it.
Tom Jr: “ He took that as a rejection of him as a father, of the establishment, of his values?”
Tom Sr: “What he tried to instill, I think, it was a symbol of loss of control, I mean that people who did that, didn't have restraint. So, I think he thought, well, you have to restrain yourself. You have to be disciplined. That, that's all, just seen that's just- you know- that's free love. You know if you can't control your hair, how are you going to control your sexual relationships?
Tom Jr: “ So this was that kind of like what we call a gateway drug, if you begin with a longer hair, you're on the path to damnation, that you'd go into other things like you know maybe something?/”
Tom Sr: “Like, yeah, you were being sucked into that uh Freedom closer yeah, yeah, the kind of hidden it he saw it as hedonistic. I think rather than it being disciplined.
Tom Jr: “ And hedonistic would mean then anti-Christian values?”
Tom Sr: “Yeah pleasure seeking, just you know you you're just life isn't to be you know actually life's not about pleasure, life's about work; that was my dad's view.
Tom Jr: “What did you take from that kind of Calvinistic idea, like when you were growing your hair long, did you view this as Hedonism, rejecting the bad, or were just growing out your hair? I mean did you look at hippies, and also look down on them, that this was hedonistic?”
Tom Sr: “No, no, no, I didn't I didn't think anything of it. I thought some of the outfits were ugly. I thought I'm not going to wear that, but it wasn't because I was opposed to it, or anything. I grew mine in now, when I went in the Seminary, my hair, I grew my hair pretty long.”
Tom Jr: “And your dad's criticism was ridiculous then, you just didn't take that seriously? You saw that that as being kind of a limited immature?”
Tom Sr: “Yeah, I mean I just um, that was just him. And I thought, yeah, I thought, and said I thought it was in a sense, that's ridiculous. So I said to him, even as a young boy, oh Dad, don't cut my hair. And he said, I have to. Your hair's is too thin. So he'd give me these awful excuses about it so I grew up thinking, oh I've always got to have short hair, because my hair is too thin, because that's what my dad told me. So I mean, he had a stake in that. I think with his friends, when he wanted his friends to see us as his boys, that that he was trying to send a message by that, to his world. You know, I don't know, but hair was a big deal.
Tom Jr: “Did it include then shaving, or did you grow your hair long or not shave or was that any way a part of it?”
Tom Sr: “Yeah, I would have included that, but you know sideburns, I didn't like sideburns. I think, yeah, I didn't , now my brother Pete, he always shaved in high school. I didn't shave until I hit later in college. I mean I had a little bit of facial hair, but not a lot until I kind of reached my mid-20s, really or early 20s, maybe, so shaving wasn't so much an issue, but yeah, it's interesting to say that now. you say, that as soon as I could, I had a mustache. My whole life, as soon as I could grow a mustache, I had one. That was also, actually, you're right, that was kind of a that was a little sign you know.
Tom Jr: “That you're not going to be clean shaven, as the way he had taught you should be.”
Tom Sr: “Um, yeah, yeah,”
Tom Jr: “Well, we've gone a little bit over an hour. As there any other things you want to add, based on our conversation? We only kind of really scratched the surface. There's obviously a lot of things there?”
Tom Sr: “Right, yeah, I was something I was gonna Flash. Now I forgot about I was going to tell you, but no, I think those are some of the memories.
Tom Jr: “so I'm uh pausing the interview at 12 15.”

Video recording (simple vocab)

Leave blank

Leave blank

Leave blank