The happenings of May 4, 1970 shaped Kent State University in many ways, not the least of which is that they somehow caused Kent to be a sort of homing beacon for brainy disgruntled teens. Kent is the land of protest where you will find that former high school cheerleaders have cast aside their pompoms, uniforms, and razors for long flowery skirts, incense, and the furry legs that make hippy-wannabes the unique creatures they are. You'll find weekly protests for important things like the use of animals in research, whatever war is currently worth protesting (including the ones that do not include American troops and that no one has ever heard of outside of the four people fighting them), and probably even what day of the year New Year's should be celebrated. When you go to Kent, you make a choice your Freshman year whether to become one of "them," aka the Hippy Kids, or try to stay on the outside of that whole phenomenon.

Mr. Husband and I both chose to stay on the outside. We were vaguely aware of the entire culture, but were far too busy actually working real jobs necessary to pay for our education (and extraneous things like food and shelter) to bother with Hippy kid things. Things like going to Brady's Cafe.

Brady's Cafe was quintessential Kent State back in our day. It was a quirky little coffee shop on the very edge of campus. From the outside you could plainly see that it was a bit of a dive, and when you walked in you found yourself surrounded by so-called poets, artists, dead heads, academics, wiccans, free spirits, and probably a few new agers. The coffee was served in old, miss-matched, cracked over-sized mugs that were probably last clean sometime before those four students were murdered by National Guardsmen. On Friday nights it was the place where the deepest souls went to read their heart-felt poetic thoughts in front of an audience that appreciated words like spiritualistic, degradation, elitism, and conscientious. Wednesdays it became open mic night allowing people of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities to have their voice heard, saying whatever it was that they want to say and doing so in whatever way they wanted to do it. Folk, reggae, and jazz music blended together into one supreme backdrop as the computer majors make jokes about java with Java, the political science majors joked about not inhaling, and the English majors joked about everyone else's improper use of the language.

We drove past Brady's Cafe yesterday and were, shall we say, a bit surprised that the place seems to have had a bit of a makeover. It has been turned into a . . .

Wait for it . . .

Wait for it . . .

I bet you could guess if you tried . . .

Wait for it . . .

Awesome.

And lest you think this all went down without a battle, I found the website for the Save Brady's Coalition when I was searching Google to confirm Mr. Husband and I had remembered the name right. At least those protesters didn't end up getting shot by some National Guardsmen.

I don't have a photo of the other side of the sign because I would have had to either climb a tree or stand on some daffodils to take it.

The parking lot came after the shootings. Obviously, Kent Staters aren't actually very good at protesting.

The photo above is a closeup of the photo below.