Linda Hanley (Finigan) was editor in chief of The Spectrum in 1969-70. This fictionalized account of a freshman joining the paper in the fall of 1966 is adapted from her new novel, LOVE AND WAR, just published by cobalthouse.com.
The celebrated jewel of the State University system, Canaswego's campus was the furthest away you could get from home in the State of New York without leaving the country. Her parents would seldom visit. Molly Drayton knew from her first glimpse of the quad's bustling courtyard, a vibrant, sprawling, safe city of the young, that here was a place she'd been searching for all her life.
Following her high school guidance counselor's advice to find an activity that would bolster her résumé, she joined the campus newspaper that fall of 1966, journalism being one of her vague career options.
The day she went to apply, five men who looked like Allen Ginsberg sat around a cluttered table in The Spectator office, assigning stories. A woman with long braids played guitar in the corner. Reporters were typing at desks in the center of the room. No one looked up. A teletype machine spewed out long rolls of printed paper, the steady click of type punctuated by periodic bells.
"Five bells!" one of the men called and all rose from their chairs, rushing over to the wire service machine.
"Holy crap." One of the bearded editors grabbed the copy, ripping it off the roll as soon as it was printed.
Molly wanted to know what the big story was, but the editors huddled by themselves across the room. A wiry puppy shredded a bundled stack of newsprint beside a fresh pile of poop and no one seemed to notice.
"Excuse me," Molly interrupted a young woman furiously typing at the front desk. "I saw you were looking for reporters."
Jet black hair hung straight to her waist; her silver earrings shimmered under fluorescent light. She didn't stop typing. When she got to the end of her sentence, she glanced up once. "Have you ever written anything?"
"I worked on my high school paper. I had a weekly column."
Behind the desk, the editor laughed. "That's just what we need." She opened a drawer and handed Molly an application. "We're always looking for nice girls who like to write."
The Spectator didn't let her do that, of course, not right away, but when the regular proofreader broke her arm, Molly was summoned to fill in on the copy desk. Punctuation and spelling were her forté; they asked her to stay.
That was the semester the conservative town printer censored The Spectator, refusing to typeset a line in a sophomore poet's ode to sexual discovery. Molly was an English major—she knew the poem was terrible, but it was the principle, not the work, that mattered. Censorship, the editors argued, must be opposed. A protest rally was called later that week on the steps of the library.
Molly had never been to a demonstration. The braided editor played guitar; several others gave speeches. A collection was taken for various causes. Then, in a moment of breathtaking transition, an art department grad student urged the men to hold up their draft cards.
"It's not just censorship we're up against today," he told the crowd. "Everywhere we look, America is at a crossroads, and we are summoned as never before, brothers and sisters, to answer our own conscience. We've ripped the lid off Pandora's box. Now it's time to let 'er burn."
The art student held aloft his draft card. How puny they were. Smaller than an index card, not much to look at, for all the power they held over people's lives.
"Let 'em all burn!" a bearded young man on the steps of the library shouted and the crowd took up the call. Let 'em burn!
The long sputtering flame of a plastic lighter nibbled at the paper for a moment before it took the art student's draft card in a flash. The crowd whistled and cheered.
Molly felt light-headed, giddy, in the midst of this swirling elated throng. Like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, looked at from another point of view, everything she had been brought up to believe in could be wrong.
She was the daughter of Republican parents; in a few years, in fact, her father would be Under Secretary of Defense. She'd been at the paper three months, but Molly knew somehow she'd crossed a line. She was through with her life as scion of the establishment. She was free.
Email: alumni@ubspectrum.com
