Was Anyone Other Than Me In Austin On August 1, 1966?

[Paladin]

Hard as it is to believe, we're at the 40th anniversary of Charles Whitman's bloody shooting spree from the UT Tower. His final tally: 16 dead (including his mother and wife), and another 31 wounded. Details of that day are plentiful; just Google "Charles Whitman."

It sounds rather obvious, but the shock value of this event was enormous---it happened long before slaughters by gun-wielding lunatics became a much more common feature of life in this country. And for it to happen in a pretty, laid-back university and state agency town like Austin made it even harder to comprehend---even as we watched it on TV that day.

Austin in 1966 was essentially a small town. If you'd lived there for any time at all, you knew one of the victims, or a member of the victims' families. I had a high school friend who lost his mother; she was the receptionist at the top of the Tower. My vote for most striking image of that horrible day: the cover photo from the 8/12/66 issue of "Life" magazine, showing the top of the Tower through the bullet-shattered windows of the University Co-op on Guadelupe (also available through Google).

Anybody else have any memories of this?

[Gman]

1. Wasn't there but

I was in San Antonio that day and remember watching it on TV. It was close enough to home. Everyone was shocked. As you say, something like that had never happened before.

[acmejack]

2. I was here!

I remember the day well. I was still in high school then, we went into a friend's home and his Mother told us someone was in the tower shooting at people with A bb gun. It was live on the news, we could see the puffs of dust flying where they were shooting back at him, so we knew it was not a guy with a bb gun. We watched it all on TV News.

[Paladin]

5. I Remember Those Dust Puffs Well

At my home, the first indication we had of things was on the radio. In between songs, the DJ said something casual, like "Hey, guys, you might want to steer clear of the UT campus area, we're getting some reports of somebody shooting down there." Then another song was played. Then the DJ came back on, much more on-edge, like "Listen, this is serious. There is somebody in the Tower, he's shooting at people, please stay out of the area." After that, we started watching it on TV---it must have been Channel 7, because that's the only station Lady Bird Johnson's family allowed in Austin at the time (you had to have an antenna to pull in the San Antonio stations). I used to hang out at the campus back then, from time to time; I remember my father called home from work to make sure of where I was that day.

By the way, I'm McCallum '68---how about yourself?

[acmejack]

6. Del Valle 70

It was Channel Seven, I was thinking about Neal Spelce when I was typing that post. I'm pretty sure he covered that story on that day.

[Paladin]

10. And Wasn't It Paul Bolton......

...who was on the air, reading a list of the victims, when he came across the name of someone in his own family (niece? granddaughter?)who had been killed? Pretty Godawful....

[muse]

9. Austin High 1978!

Just thought I'd throw that in. :)

[Paladin]

11. So You'll Be Having Your 30th Class Reunion......

...about the same time I'm having my 40th. Be sure to go; I've found that high school reunions get better, the further out they are. Ours are three-day affairs: Friday evening is always at Scholtz', Saturday night is someplace more formal; and Sunday morning is at the Dart Bowl bowling alley restaurant across from McCallum---best Mexican breakfasts in a town noted for its great Mexican food.....

[muse]

16. How is that possible??

I got married on the day of my 10th reunion and never have been to one.

The marriage, thankfully, is over, so I wouldn't have to drag him along.

Wouldn't I just laugh at everyone and how goofy they are, or is that the point?!

[fudge stripe cookays]

21. So you knew the Angelichs?

Good friends of our family. Lithos is buds with one of them too.

fsc

[PDittie]

3. Whitman was the first media-celebrated mass murderer

He's been satirized and is a not-quite-obscure pop culture icon now.

Detailed Wiki here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman

I was eight years old in '66, and I have no recollection even of the TV accounts -- probably I was more concerned with my third-grade school change and such than what was going on in the world. At lunch the other day I had a conversation with Sherrie Matula, our candidate for the Texas House in District 129. She knew Whitman -- slightly -- because she had taken a class from his wife at Lanier HS. She had met him, and Whitman's mother, had introduced her parents to them, that sort of thing.

There was some dysfunction in Whitman's family about which he was depressed, and he had the brain tumor, and had mentioned "shooting people with a deer rifle" to the UT psychiatrist, who described Whitman as "oozing with hostility", but mostly -- IMO and not intended to be a minimalist explanation -- he was a guy with anger management issues who lost control.

Who knows? Sometimes people just snap. It would have been good if in 1966 people felt more at ease about speaking to others about their troubles, and if others wouldn't dismiss the troubles of the troubled somewhat blithely. OTOH, whaddayagonnado?

The cases of Charles Whitman and Andrea Yates sadly share some similarities, though I believe that Yates is much more ill mentally than Whitman was, and with both people the premeditation factor gives the appearance of understanding the consequences of their actions as being wrong.

Sometimes people need intervention. :shrug:


The Life cover to which you refer:

[Paladin]

4. Thanks So Much For Posting The "Life" Cover

And I too had friends who went to Lanier and had classes with the late Mrs. Whitman. So very, very sad.....

[muse]

8. I read that the Life photographer kicked that window out

after he took the photo. He didn't want any other news outlet to get the same great picture. He promised the horrified store owner that Life would pay for the window to be replaced. That story was in the Texas Monthly article on this that is just coming out right now.

Here's the preview of that Texas Monthly article: http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2006-08-01/feature

I was able to read the whole article when it was up briefly before it went to preview mode. It's well worth buying the magazine to read the article, if you are really interested in this. It has a ton of eye witness interviews from people who were actually there on campus and involved in reporting, rescuing victims, taking out Whitman, etc.

[muse]

7. My dad had been on the UT campus earlier that morning

I was six years old and we were actually living in San Marcus where my dad was working on his master's degree. We moved to Austin when I was 8, so I consider myself a true Austinite, but at that time we did not live there yet.

My mom had the live reports of the shooting on the news. I was very young, but I remember that day very well. I was very freaked out that my dad had been on the UT campus that morning and I kept asking mom, "are you sure he isn't still there", that type of thing. This was before cell phones.

And then, when my dad finally did join us, believe me, it was a big deal to my family to follow the news.

As a very young girl, the whole thing was confusing and horrifying. When we moved to Austin a few years later, it took a long while for me not to associate that tower that I saw nearly every day with the killings.

[Melissa G]

12. Hey muse, we are the same age.. I had the same experience from San Antonio

I moved to Austin in '79 and have been here ever since. It took a LOOONG time for me to walk by the tower without thinking of someone shooting me from it. For 11 years my office was in sight of the tower. I always felt nervous in what I perceived as gun range. It was a particularly strong childhood memory.
Our childhood was so full of folks getting gunned down.. I was also remembering all the airline hijackings that we watched as well..

[fudge stripe cookays]

22. Aren't those sorts of stories freaky?

Where you think about someone you know or love being that close to something that frightening?

My brother was working in Killeen at a club installing a sound system in 1991, and they had eaten at Luby's EVERY DAY that week. The last day, they were a little late getting it together for lunch. As they were getting ready to leave, a friend screeched to a stop out front and told them someone was at the Luby's shooting people.

[Lithos]

13. I was three at the time

But I remember hearing stories of people involved in it. My father was on Lavaca not too far from 19th (MLK) watching it. Also have a family friend who was on campus at the time and remembered the armored cars driving around picking up the wounded and ferrying officers. You used to be able to see the pock marks on the tower and on the tower observation deck where he was stationed (though I don't know if they finally re-opened it or not, I got to go up before they shut it down for all the suicides).

L-

[muse]

14. I went up there, as a kid, also

Melissa is right. Our childhoods were filled with guns and death. The Viet Nam war was a constant on the TV. It sure wasn't anything like the war in Iraq where you never see war footage, never see a flag draped casket, never see photos of our soldiers. It was CONSTANT when I was a little girl. Not to mention all of the anti-war protests with police and guns ever present.

Still, all of that seemed distant until someone started picking people off from the top of the tower.

[Lithos]

15. I only remember one anti-war march in Austin

That was early 70's (70?) and went from the UT campus to the capitol building.

Course there was a strong anti-war sub-culture here, Ranger Rick magazine, Fat Freddy's Cat, Wonder Wart Hog among others. I remember being about 4 and getting to mash the oil bag that projected the psychedelic colors up on the side of Ken Kasey's bus when they were in Austin. I also remember there being a bit of anti-war feeling then and I only recall it getting stronger.

L-

[tanyev]

17. I was there, but I was a few months shy of three years old.

My dad was teaching at Concordia College and working on his master's degree at UT. He was headed over there that day, but a secretary had been listening to the news and told him not to go. Whew.

[Paladin]

18. Kicked Up, So One Of Our Resident Gun Nuts Can Find It

Don't get me started.......

[ceile]

19. My mom was.

I wasn't born yet. She was in class though, thank god! She never, ever talks about it.

[Paladin]

20. Your Mother Has A Lot Of Company

I started this thread because I thought the event needed some remembrance. But a few days ago I bought the "Texas Monthly" with the cover story about what happened that day; it's still on a living room table here in my home. Even though the article is undoubtedly well written, and even though it has quotes from a couple of friends of mine, I haven't been able to read it yet. 40 years later. My respects to your mother; I know how she feels.

[fudge stripe cookays]

23. We got there about 5 years later.

But later, in my early 20s, when I used to hang out more near campus, I literally got chills walking down the Drag and looking up. Imagining the sheer terror those people felt.

And I read the Texas Monthly article sitting at the airport the other day. The story about Peul Bolton's nephew is awful. And the pregnant girl losing her baby and her boyfriend that day always makes me cry.

fsc