I became increasingly consumed by the nonstop campus organizing and the culture of the political left.  All of my courses had something to do with the Wisconsin brand of radical history.  Memorable were the huge lectures of Dr. Harvey Goldberg, who mesmerized us with analysis and anecdotes about the French Revolution.  Though my immersion in my major only lasted about a year, historical theories and methods began to fill out my world view.

One of the courses was in primary research.  The teacher was Bob Gabriner, who was also the editor of Connections.  I did a paper on the Fansteel  sit-down strike of 1937, which happened in my hometown of Waukegan.  For that, I reviewed the letters of Lester Collins.  He had been a lawyer for the Steelworkers Organizing Committee.  He was a colleague of my dad’s.  As I write my memoirs, I am  doing primary research examining the scraps of old pamphlets and letters from my activist days.

I regret that I didn’t spend more time with my younger sister, Nora.  She was also studying at Madison at this time.  We did go together to see Bonnie and Clyde at the movies on the day after the Dow protest.  As little kids, the two of us had dressed up like cowboy and cowgirl.  Then we were like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans complete with toy six shooters.  They say that a good show causes one to identify with a mail character.  That would have made Nora to be Bonnie and me to be Clyde.  Already in shock from the police violence, we probably should have gone to a comedy instead.

Somehow in this action-filled semester, I managed to get hired at Gisholt Machine Company working in the foundry.  What a different world!  There I rubbed shoulders with white and black workers as we poured iron to meet the demands of the war economy.  I picked up bits and pieces of factory life.  I learned that yelling didn’t mean anger but warning.  I began to understand some of the drawl and slang of the black foundry men.

I saw examples of low level struggle of the foundry men to have an upper hand on the shop floor.  Ridicule of the foreman was a tactic.  Once he did something stupid and unsafe.  The workers broke out a noisy symphony.  The music was from shouts, hammers banging on barrels and the ringing bells of the overhead crane.  I only lasted for about a month at Gisholt because I had not mentioned the disorderly conduct arrest on my application.  I recently re-read a paper that I had written about the job.  I couldn’t believe it was my own writing – filled with lofty over-intellectualized gibberish!