{"id":611,"date":"2018-12-31T13:04:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=611"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:04:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:04:09","slug":"august-1-2016-special-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=611","title":{"rendered":"August 1, 2016: Special feature"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Remembering the Tower Shootings, Fifty Years Later<\/h1>\n

special to Lone Star Literary Life by Dave Parsons, 2011 Poet Laureate of Texas<\/p>\n

It seemed like any predictable first of August<\/span> in Austin, Texas: sunny and hot. I left my summer class in European History in the General Academics Building next to the University of Texas Tower forty minutes before the day would suddenly become infamous in the minds and hearts of the citizens of the United States: walking directly under and by the Tower to my car.<\/p>\n

After checking in at my lifeguard job at Barton Springs, I went to legendary Scholz Garten for their 100th anniversary (and nickel beer), where I joined the crowded garden with my six-pack of Lone Star, as they had run out of tap beer at 10 am. With my fellow revelers, we were witnesses of the firefight, at that time, fully in view from the biergarten.<\/p>\n

Since that day, a building has been erected next to Scholz\u2019s, blocking out the full view of the Tower. But on that day our crowd could see the puffs of smoke of the sniper and the small impacts of the fire from people with rifles that the police had publicly asked to shoot at the top of the tower to suppress gunman Charles Whitman\u2019s fire \u2014 since the Austin police at that time had only shotguns and pistols.<\/p>\n

It was only when we heard on the transistor radios several in the crowd had, that a linesman had been shot off a utility pole about the same distance from the tower as we were, that we realized our own vulnerability. You could see everyone doing the math in their heads, thinking, if we could see his perch, then he could see the garden<\/span> and he had just shot someone at the same distance.<\/p>\n

With this news, everyone either hurriedly left, nervously went inside, or dove under the concrete tables, as I did, following a girl holding what was left of her six-pack. I remember peeking out every few minutes to get a glimpse of the Tower. As we were running out of beer, someone came out of the back door and proclaimed that it was over, and Whitman had been killed by an Austin policeman.<\/p>\n

I learned later that one of the students and a promising pianist, Carla Sue Wheeler, a neighbor of mine, had been shot in the hand. When I think of her and the other victims, fourteen fatalities and thirty-two wounded, I am reminded of the lasting impact on not only their lives, but the many adjacent lives of their friends and families. And I remember that we that we witnesses na\u00efvely thought the random shooting was a bizarre anomaly in our country\u2019s history. We would have been aghast if we knew what was to follow, up to this very year.<\/p>\n

I composed the poem \u201cAustin Fire\u201d with the basic details of my day, and it is included in my collections Reaching For Longer Water<\/span> (Texas Review Press\/Texas A&M University Press Consortium) and Far Out: Poems of the 60s<\/span> (Wings Press), both collections released this spring.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Reading about the tower shootings<\/h1>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Tower Sniper: The Terror of American’s First Active Shooter on Campus<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Monte Akers, Nathan Akers, and Roger Friedman, Ph.D<\/span><\/p>\n

John M. Hardy Publishers, 2016<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-0-9903714-3-4, $24.95<\/p>\n

376 pages, 72 Photos<\/p>\n

On August 1, 1966, University of Texas engineering student Charles Whitman<\/span> went to the top of the 307-foot campus tower. Over the next 96 minutes he shot and killed 15 people and wounded 31. Tower Sniper: The Terror of America\u2019s First Campus Active Shooter, by Monte Akers, Nathan Akers, and Dr. Roger Friedman, explores the history and personal experience of this seminal tragedy, enriches public memory, and advances our understanding of mass shootings that continue to haunt America.<\/p>\n

The authors vigilantly examine the details leading up to the event, the shootings, and their half-century legacy in stark detail. In doing so the authors correct various myths that have been part of the public narrative for decades, such as a brain tumor having motivated Whitman\u2019s actions, that he intentionally targeted certain victims, and that he attempted to make it appear that multiple snipers were active. Witness interviews, examination of primary sources, and handwriting analysis reveal information overlooked until now, including the factors that actually contributed to Whitman\u2019s predatory behavior and how his death and autopsy were mishandled.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

by Gary M. Lavergne<\/p>\n

978-1574410297, 324 pages<\/p>\n

University of North Texas Press, 1997<\/p>\n

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman<\/span> ascended the University of Texas Tower and committed what was then the largest simultaneous mass murder in American history. He gunned down forty-five people inside and around the Tower before he was killed by two Austin police officers. In addition to promoting the rise of S.W.A.T. teams to respond to future crises, the murders spawned debates over issues which still plague America today: domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse, military indoctrination, the insanity defense, and the delicate balance between civil liberties and public safety. (less)<\/p>\n

Paperback, 324 pages<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Monday, Monday: A Novel<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Crook<\/span><\/p>\n

978-1250069221, 352 pages<\/p>\n

Picador, reprint edition, 2015<\/p>\n

Winner of the Texas Institute of Letters’ Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction<\/p>\n

One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Fiction Books of the Year and a Wall Street Journal Favorite Book of the Year<\/p>\n

On an oppressively hot Monday in August <\/span>of 1966, a student and former marine named Charles Whitman hauled a footlocker of guns to the top of the University of Texas tower and began firing on pedestrians below. Monday, Monday follows three students caught up in the massacre: Shelly, who leaves class and walks directly into the path of the bullets, and two cousins, Wyatt and Jack, who heroically rush from their classrooms to help the victims.<\/p>\n

This searing day marks the beginning of a relationship that will entangle these three young people in a forbidden love affair, an illicit pregnancy, and a vow of silence that will span forty years. Reunited decades after the tragedy, Shelly, Wyatt, and Jack will be thrown back once more to the event that changed their lives, and confronted with the lingering power of a secret none of them are ready to reveal. With Monday, Monday,<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

\n

Austin Fire<\/h1>\n

Dave Parsons<\/h1>\n

Memories from the day of the University of Texas Tower shootings<\/p>\n

& the 100th anniversary of Scholz\u2019s Beer Garden on August 1, 1966.<\/p>\n

Out of the cave<\/p>\n

of European History class<\/p>\n

I am struck<\/p>\n

by squinting bright skies<\/p>\n

strolling on the edge of the shadow<\/p>\n

of the university tower shade<\/p>\n

through the southeast campus quad<\/p>\n

flip flopping to my Mustang<\/p>\n

for my short drive to work<\/p>\n

less than an hour before<\/p>\n

student victim #1<\/p>\n

will have fallen<\/p>\n

in that very path.<\/p>\n

I am traveling back now\u2014<\/p>\n

back to the pool\u2014<\/p>\n

down the hot tar entry<\/p>\n

down the pebbled walkway<\/p>\n

to Barton Springs<\/p>\n

churning shadowy deep blue\u2014<\/p>\n

it\u2019s the blues\u2014the gushing<\/p>\n

blues 68 degrees year-round<\/p>\n

offering a deadening numbness<\/p>\n

making the youngest of skin<\/p>\n

cadaver cold and this ordinary<\/p>\n

workday, I am just another Life-<\/p>\n

guard cut loose too soon.<\/p>\n

And now\u2014again<\/p>\n

I am driving back<\/p>\n

again back and away<\/p>\n

away from the many<\/p>\n

oblique precipices\u2014falls<\/p>\n

hidden undercurrents<\/p>\n

jutting stones in the blinds<\/p>\n

of the limestone aquifer<\/p>\n

traveling back under and through<\/p>\n

the towering pecan trees<\/p>\n

just a short dash\u2014and now again<\/p>\n

Barton Springs Road\u2014<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones\u2014Can\u2019t Get No<\/p>\n

Satisfaction\u2026. everything<\/p>\n

is heating up the day.<\/p>\n

At Scholz\u2019s Garden<\/p>\n

another grand spring<\/p>\n

100 years of beer flowing<\/p>\n

unjudgmentally through<\/p>\n

the many unruly seasons<\/p>\n

through the untold<\/p>\n

joyous and unfettered<\/p>\n

the anonymous generations<\/p>\n

of the deemed and the damned<\/p>\n

and all their wagging<\/p>\n

Did you know(s)\u2026flying<\/p>\n

around the ever blank<\/p>\n

pages of air\u2014air that receives, never<\/p>\n

recording a single loving or gnashing word<\/p>\n

of the produce of this imperfect garden<\/p>\n

those sweaty hound dog days\u2014I feel<\/p>\n

that very air here again now\u2014the gamey<\/p>\n

smells of the Dutchman\u2019s beer garden<\/p>\n

the care free summer women<\/p>\n

laughing braless in loose tie-dyes<\/p>\n

swilling nickel Lone Stars<\/p>\n

aiming flirtatious glances<\/p>\n

then firing their deadly frank stares<\/p>\n

swinging suntanned legs<\/p>\n

to the juke box beats<\/p>\n

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man<\/p>\n

play a song for me…all<\/p>\n

positioned between<\/p>\n

the two towers: the capitol dome<\/p>\n

topped with Lady Liberty<\/p>\n

and UT\u2019s apex and bastille of education<\/p>\n

and there now\u2026and again\u2014white puffs\u2014<\/p>\n

Sniper! Sniper!<\/p>\n

Girls first! diving under<\/p>\n

stone gray concrete tables<\/p>\n

towering turquoise sky<\/p>\n

ragged clouds<\/p>\n

ripping the battle blue<\/p>\n

drifting\u2026mist like\u2026hiding<\/p>\n

momentarily gun site portals,<\/p>\n

and our shade tree bunkers<\/p>\n

fiery memories<\/p>\n

imbedded<\/p>\n

like so many stray shots\u2014<\/p>\n

He was a crew cut<\/p>\n

every mother\u2019s son<\/p>\n

Boy Scout\u2014Marine<\/p>\n

sharpshooter<\/p>\n

again all paths of mine\u2014<\/p>\n

In his last note to the world<\/p>\n

Charles Whitman<\/p>\n

requested an autopsy<\/p>\n

with special consideration<\/p>\n

to his brain\u2026they found<\/p>\n

a tiny, cloudy gray mass<\/p>\n

of malignant tissue lined<\/p>\n

in crimson\u2014seems it\u2019s<\/p>\n

always the smallest of embers.<\/p>\n

First appeared in Color of Mourning, <\/span>Texas Review Press\/Texas A&M University Press Consortium. Published with permission of the author.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

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