On Mario Savio

Dennis Su

my mind is more attracted to the subject of Mario Savio.

My relation with Mario is not from my brief visit to Berkeley in the 65 (?) summer with some of you Lighters and that was before Mario entered the spot light. Nor did I have had the honor to share the closeness as a fellew Berkeleyists. It was from my own experience in the heartland, Stillwater, Oklahoma, participating in anti-war movement and the student movement at OSU in those turbulent 60's that I followed the "happenings"  at the Bay Area from a distance and watched it with great intrerest.

At that time, I was already graduated and working in Seattle. It just happened that one of my fellow OSU student activists was working at Boeing and lived in the same apartment building with me. After survived the  ridicules and "go back to Russia" screams from on-lookers during anti-war  demonstrations in that southern town and many late-night meetings in dorm  rooms to counter the pressure from the U's administration on student  paper's censorship that we were not alone and shared the excitment and  applauded the support that Mario was getting from the UC student   movement. The apartment is close to the Univ. of Wash. campus and even  no longer in school, me and my friend attended our share of "sit-ins" and   many student protests. Man, those were the days.

And who can forget the year of 68. For us dreamers, the crack down in  Chicago that summer at the National Demo Convention was like the end of  the world. Anyway, Abby Hoffman is gone now and what's that Panther's  name ? Something Clever ? and now Savio. Time is catching up.

By the way, I am proud to say that my radical spirit carried over to the  Reagan era that I voted once for Angela Davis for president as a protest  vote the year she had her name in the ballot.  Yes, we are the product of the 60's and long live Mario Savio.