I first met Carl when we were in the National Forensic League during high school. He was from Revere in Akron and had taken first place in about every speaking event in which he participated during his junior and senior years in the NFL. I considered him far above me in talent and accomplishments. Needless to say, it was a tremendous surprise when I saw him during my first days at Kent State. He was in the communal bathroom shared by our corridor in Stopher Hall. My opening words were something to the effect: “Good God, you’re Carl Oglesby, aren’t you!? What are you doing here?” His amused return confirmed my suspicion. Our friendship continued to grow throughout the next three years, along with our friendly rivalry.
His roommate was Ray Tabello, a Palestinian from Jerusalem, with whom he was in a constant, heated debate; Ray usually lost, as had every debater in Northeastern Ohio who had crossed verbal swords with Carl. Later that freshman year, during spring quarter, Carl and I became roommates, along with Alexander (Al) Kennedy, a chemistry major from Cleveland, who lived on our common corridor. We shared a “triple,” the only one, located at the dead-end of the fourth-floor wing. Our common adventures during our freshman year call for in-depth descriptions, but, for now, a feeble summary is needed for Carl.
Oglesby was the brightest guy I met at Kent State. In his fourth year, he left the University before his graduation and went to New York City to become a Bohemian actor, a playwright and, later, a political activist. He returned to the academic scene in the 1960’s, in Ann Arbor, where he completed his degree at the University of Michigan. At the same time, he was one of the founders of the Students for a Democratic Society, a young-adult activist group opposing the Vietnam war. He was an early visitor to Cuba and wrote about his experience there during the formation of the Castro era. He also wrote a book about the events relating to the National Guard shootings of KSU students on May 4, 1970.
At Kent State, Carl was an outstanding dramatic actor; his lead in The Crucible was magnificent in its believability. He was not handsome in any classical sense; he was tall and lanky; the results of acne significantly marked his face. But his voice was sublime. For Christmas, 1953, I had received a reel-to-reel tape recorder which Carl often used, especially if Al and I were out of the room. Carl was devoted to the poetry of T.S. Elliot and, for years, I saved the tapes he made of Alfred Prufrock. I later transferred his readings to cassettes but, unfortunately, I lost them during one of my cross-country moves. He also made color-pencil drawings; I have lost them, too.
Carl was the first atheist I ever met. We spent many midnight hours taking about religion and philosophy, of which he knew much, while I remained his neophyte. Al usually slept through our discussions, with a pillow over his head. Carl was the one who caused me to pose the questions I did for Father Dom to answer, which, as I said, he never did. If only Thomas Aquinas had been able to join Carl and me!
Our friendly rivalry in a public forum came when we were juniors. I was Parliamentarian of the Student Government Association and had become a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity (more later.) Carl was vehemently opposed to “Greek societies.” He formed a group, called appropriately, The Macedonians, which he wanted to have recognized as being equal to Greek-letter fraternities. Our opposing views were carried extensively in the Kent Stater, the student daily. I think we both had exasperated fun in the process.
Once Carl had left Kent, our paths did not cross at the same time. However, strangely enough, they did parallel one another, perhaps in a somewhat fate-determined manner. Carl taught writing and politics at Dartmouth College several years after I was there as a postdoctoral researcher in its School of Medicine. When Carl died in 2011, I learned that he was residing in Amherst, Mass., where he had also been on the faculty, twenty-odd years after I had lived there. He left his literary achieves to the University of Massachusetts, where I had once been Associate Graduate Dean for Research. We had journeyed from Kent State to Umass, but at our own paces and along our own pathways.