They walked the halls in Linwood during Vietnam war, other tumultuous events
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
LINWOOD — Four area elected officials began their journey together, went their separate ways but ended up in the same position.
They walked the halls in each other’s footsteps at Mainland Regional High School, coming of age during the tumultuous 1970s on the mainland outside a once-glorious Atlantic City. All four also attended Atlantic Community College (now Atlantic Cape Community College) and Fitzpatrick’s father was a professor there as well.
The county commissioners shared experiences both inside and outside the classroom that to differing degrees shaped who they are and what they do today.
Cape May County Commissioner E. Marie Hayes said she was talking with Atlantic County Commissioner Caren Fitzpatrick recently when they realized that they and two others — Atlantic County Commissioners Maureen Kern and John Risley — had all attended MRHS at about the same time.
Hayes, the oldest of the group, graduated in 1973. Kern and Risley followed the next year, while Fitzpatrick, the youngster, would have graduated in 1977 but left a year early to attend the University of Delaware.
Hayes lives in Ocean City but grew up in Northfield “just behind House & Garden,” formerly on Shore Road.
Fitzpatrick resides in Linwood but lived in Somers Point for 25 years.
Kern has been a Somers Point resident all of her life, while Risley grew up in Linwood and now lives in Egg Harbor Township.
The 1970s was a time of strife in America as public sentiment about the war in Vietnam gave rise to protests at colleges and universities across the country. On May 4, 1970, members of the National Guard opened fire on demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four people and sparking 4 million students to go on strike at more than 450 universities and colleges, according to reports at the time. The event was memorialized in the song “Ohio” that Neil Young wrote for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Continued racial diversification of formerly white suburbs led to tensions in 1970 as Blacks became frustrated with economic conditions that did not improve despite advancements in civil rights. The battle for the Equal Rights Amendment, which sought to eliminate legal distinctions between men and women, was also raging as more women were attending college and throwing off the yoke of homemaker.
During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military, according to history.state.gov. The embargo banned petroleum exports to the targeted nations and cut production to drive up the cost.
The price of oil quadrupled by 1974 from $3 to nearly $12 per barrel. The average price of a gallon of gas rose 43 percent in June 1974. Politicians called for a national rationing program and President Richard Nixon asked station owners to voluntarily close Saturday nights or Sundays — 90 percent complied, resulting in long lines of people wanting to fill up their cars while they still could.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman’s freedom to choose to have an abortion “without excessive government restriction,” giving birth to an ongoing national debate.
Further eroding trust in the government was the Watergate scandal involving Nixon, who was impeached and resigned Aug. 9, 1974, after being linked to a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and subsequent cover-up.
As the decade came to a close, the Iran Hostage Crisis was sparked by a group of militarized Iranian college students who took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage. The crisis lasted 444 days — Nov. 4, 1979, to Jan. 20, 1981 — contributing to the landslide victory of Republican President Ronald Reagan over Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980.
The use of recreational drugs that became popular in the 1960s, such as Valium, marijuana and LSD, made its way into suburbs, which popped up during the white flight of urban centers.
Cocaine increasingly became the drug of choose and was seen as glamorous, with rock stars and actors frequently imbibing. This led to the drug wars of the 1980s and First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign.
These events and others helped shape the young students as they went to school in Linwood, and then their secondary educations and careers as they grew into adults.
“I think that when we were in Mainland, when I was in high school, there was a lot of change going on. The Equal Rights Amendment was going on, Roe v. Wade was in ’73. Vietnam was winding down,” Fitzpatrick said. “Social awareness was part of our everyday life. We didn’t have social media to separate us; we gathered. All of those things influenced our thinking for sure and our upbringing and here we are all those years later kind of ending up in the same spot.”
