In That Time

Chapter 1

AN ICE CREAM SEASON

To have come of age in the decade between the end of the Korean War and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was to have experienced the most sustained wave of economic prosperity in America since the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Not that Michael O’Donnell or any of his classmates at Shorewood High School in Milwaukee were likely conscious of their economic good fortune, any more than they were of the real dangers being stirred up by the Cold War. Most Americans had been alerted to the potential for global war, and perhaps even nuclear Armageddon, by the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962; but in the spring of 1963, when Michael graduated from high school, they were far less aware of the circumstances that had led by then to the gradual deployment of more than 16,000 American troops to Vietnam. And why would they be? Among the top 100 popular magazines published in the United States in 1960, there were collectively only 15 references to Vietnam, the majority of them brief citations in the weekly news magazines. Although the inexorable process of war making had already begun in the Eisenhower years, neither the press nor the American public was paying attention. The escalating conflict in Vietnam had not yet become a story of consequence. In the spring and summer of 1963, for Michael O’Donnell and his friends, the world was a welcoming place filled with promise and excitement.

Michael Davis O’Donnell was the quintessential postwar baby. He was born on August 13, 1945, just one week after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and four days after it dropped another on Nagasaki, killing more than 220,000 people in all and prompting Japan’s unconditional surrender and the end of the Second World War. In that same eventful month, the Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh and his nationalist militant supporters, known as the Vietminh, launched an insurrection against French rule in Indochina. But to Don and Bette O’Donnell, and to so many other American families in the years following the Second World War, the Communist rebellion in Southeast Asia was a distant and irrelevant matter. They were busy putting war behind them as fast as they could, and enjoying the postwar peace and prosperity.

The veterans of the war had returned to civilian life as heroes, celebrated by a nation grateful for their service and sacrifice. With the aid afforded to them through the GI Bill, many were able to return to school or begin families, and low-rate veterans’ loans allowed them to purchase homes in newly emerging suburbs. There was, for the so-called greatest generation, a direct and tangible connection between their service to the nation and access to the American Dream.

Don O’Donnell, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, studied psychology and labor relations at Ohio State, earning his room and board at the Catholic fraternity, where he was their champion boxer. There he met Bette Davis, a bright and attractive student from Grandview, Ohio. Shortly after they were married, they settled in Columbus, where their children were born: Patricia in 1943, followed by Michael in 1945. Although Don had been drafted in 1943, when Patsy was an infant, he had been unable to remain in the army due to chronic allergies.

The family moved several times in the next decade as Don pursued professional opportunities and advanced in his career as an industrial psychologist.

Patsy and Mike O’Donnell, around 1948.

FAMILY PHOTO.

Mike in elementary school, at age 11, 1956.

FAMILY PHOTO.

By the time Patsy and Mike were in their teens, the O’Donnells had settled in Shorewood, Wisconsin, an upscale suburban community offering almost everything a family, and especially teenage children, could desire. The O’Donnell home on East Kensington Boulevard was spacious and comfortable. The family had a beloved German shepherd with the unlikely name of Helsies Indiana William, known affectionately as “Bill,” who, along with the kids, had the run of the neighborhood. Patsy would later recall the Shorewood years as happy ones for Mike and the family. Surrounded by supportive parents, many friends, and his beloved dog, Mike was an active teenager; he was popular with his peers, a member of Shorewood’s cross-country and wrestling teams, and an avid reader. He was, however, then and later, an indifferent student.

Mike first encountered folk music in the corridors of Shorewood High, where, as a freshman, he met Bill Peckinpaugh, a classmate with a guitar, musical talent, and a keen interest in the folk music scene. With Peckinpaugh and others, O’Donnell began to explore a new world that became increasingly fascinating to him. He set out to learn the guitar, started writing songs and, with his new friends, formed a folk music group called “the Coachmen.” For the first time in his young life, Mike had found something that completely absorbed him, that he loved, and that called on him to make a significant effort.

Later, Michael O’Donnell would title a collection of his poems and songs from this period, “An Ice Cream Season.” The title was meant to reflect his feeling that this had been a carefree and joyous time in his life, but also one in which he was passionately committed to something difficult and personally meaningful. Although his interest in music was already keen in high school, it was during his years as a student at Whitewater State College, where he enrolled in the fall of 1963, when O’Donnell emerged as an accomplished songwriter and guitarist. From his first days in college, his primary interest would be outside of the classroom: in writing songs, playing his guitar, and participating in the vibrant folk music scene he found on campus.

Michael O’Donnell first met Marcus Sullivan on the Whitewater campus in the winter of 1963. Marcus, a talented musician and singer, was a sophomore who with his own folk group, called the Kingsmen, was performing folk standards by the Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul and Mary; Pete Seeger; and Odetta, among others. Marcus remembers vividly the first time he encountered Mike O’Donnell. “I was with the Kingsmen performing covers when I first heard Mike onstage at the Whitewater Student Union,” he told me. “This was in December 1963. Mike had written a song about the very recent assassination of John F. Kennedy, called ‘When You Think of Freedom,’ which really knocked me out. The song was terrific, and it was written by a guy who understood before the rest of us that he had something to say.” In short order Marcus Sullivan and Michael O’Donnell were performing together, and became close friends. “Mike was funny, talented, charismatic, and smart,” Marcus said. “He was usually the center of attention, but he was generous and kind. He was good-natured, liked practical jokes, and he sometimes got into jams. He was always willing to lead the charge, but because he was so likable, he got out of most of them pretty easily.”

Marcus Sullivan, born in Arkansas, had moved with his large family to Whitewater while he was in middle school. His father was an itinerant carpenter, and the family had to move often as he pursued prospects for work. But the move to Whitewater brought good luck, and the family was able to remain in one place long enough for Marcus not to have to change schools. His family was musical, and Marcus, also an accomplished track athlete, had been singing all his life. He had long been recognized as a talented vocalist, and singing became an important part of his life in high school and especially in college.

Soon after Sullivan and O’Donnell connected, they recognized that theirs would be an epic friendship. They shared a passion for folk music and, even better, they harmonized well and collaborated seamlessly. With O’Donnell writing the lyrics, the pair worked closely together to set out the music. Early on they performed their own songs, rounding out their sets with covers they admired, including Odetta’s “It’s a Mighty World” and a new song called “The Sounds of Silence” by two relative unknowns called Simon and Garfunkel. O’Donnell was particularly taken with the earlier folk version of the song that had been released on the album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. and saw great promise in this young duet from New York. Of course, like everyone else, Sullivan and O’Donnell were also influenced by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and the folk superstars Peter, Paul and Mary.

Like many of their generation, Sullivan and O’Donnell were interested in folk music because for them it was more authentic, socially conscious, and politically charged than rock and roll. The folk movement began to blossom on college campuses, first on the two coasts, and then all across America. The genesis of the folk revival of the late fifties, and its mass-market appeal in the early sixties, can largely be traced back to 1948 and the formation of the Weavers, the first mainstream American folk group. Because of their socialist politics, the Weavers’ popularity was curtailed by boycotts during the McCarthy-era Red Scare, but by the early 1960s, Pete Seeger, one of the founding members, enjoyed great success on college campuses nationwide, and his music captured the attention of the young musicians at Whitewater. During this period, Seeger played at San Francisco folk clubs such as the Cracked Pot and the Hungry Eye, and then went on to New York’s Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel.

Sullivan and O’Donnell publicity photo, 1965.

FAMILY PHOTO.