I always knew in a fight - a picket line, or a union meeting, or a political faction struggle - whether somebody was on my side or not. You learn to recognize the cohorts who will be there when the chips are down. The chips were down about all the time. I'm proud to say that my closest friends today are men and women who were with me in these struggle situations thirty-five years ago.

They always said that anybody from the radical movement in Akron had a certain look around their eyes. We were mavericks in the radical labor movement. We were intellectualized activists. We fought every battle there was to fight. Student fights. Unemployed fights. Anti-ROTC fights. Anti-conscription fights. Anti-Legion fights. Anti-management fights. Anti-Union-boss fights. Anti-CP fights. Anti-Jim Crow fights. You name it. We were there.