Last Laugh

    Last Laugh

“I was not always this short,” Jeff told me one night
our freshman year. “I was nearly six foot once,
but I suffer from Tamiroff’s Phenomenon. I’m losing
an inch or two a year – and the doctors don’t know when
it will stop.” I looked for a trace of a smile on his
normally impish face, but his mouth was grim,
his eyes sad. “That’s awful,” I said and patted him
on the shoulder, all the sympathy we males were
allowed to show each other in 1968. “Yeah, I know,”
he said and shuffled off toward his dorm room
for another hour or two of avoiding studying.

Five minutes later Jeff burst into my room,
laughing his head off and gasping
“Gotcha. Gotcha.”

Two years later he had shrunk enough
all but his bleeding head could fit on the cover
of Newsweek, along with a young runaway wailing
beside his fallen body. Onlookers at Kent State
said when they saw the National Guard kneel in unison
and fire at the crowd, they thought this is not really happening.

Gotcha. Gotcha.


                                                         In memory of Jeffrey Glenn Miller
                                                         March 28, 1950- May 4, 1970


For foreign readers and Americans under 40, the Kent State killings occurred during protests over the Vietnam War.  Fans of classic rock will remember Neil Young's song "Ohio", written in response to this event.  I first hear the song before it was actually recorded and a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young concert in either late May or early June of that year.  I knew Jeff from his time at Michigan State.  He transferred to Kent State his junior year and died in May of that year.  The last time I talked to him was at MSU during his sophomore year..  He knew I was from Ohio and asked me if Kent State was a good school.  I said yes.