Tag: Memories

Gridiron for Leg Irons

In the winter of
Nineteen hundred and sixty-four
Something was going on,
Called the Vietnam War.

But all we could hear,
At the stadium that night
Was the roar of the crowd,
As we continued our fight.

But older friends
Had joined the fray,
And died in a swamp
Many worlds away.

The play was called.
And I started my run.
As another friend died
Under the gun.

The play I remember
Was Buck-forty-five
As the government kept telling
Us, lie after lie.

Then came the day
They said I must go.
But I stood on the line and shouted
My NO!!

They locked me in chains,
Both hands and
Both feet.
But the mind of the boy
Would not face defeat.

The judge said,
Son, “What will you do?”
I said, “Your honor.
It is all up to you.”

If you think I was wrong, then
To jail, I must go.
If you believe I was right
There’s a great Broadway show.
Perhaps we could go.

And with those words
In the blink of an eye
I traded the gridiron
For leg irons
And two years
At Danbury FCI.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

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Shianna: A Christmas Story

On the morning of December 16th, 2017, I heard a small, weak, almost inaudible cry — the kind of sound that tells you something is terribly wrong.
A tiny soul was struggling for life.

My little white furry friend, who had been my happiness and my wife’s favorite, was very sick. She had been my emotional support for the six years since my wife passed away.
That day, Chloe Cat had to be put to sleep.

In a fit of grief and panic attacks, I all but wrecked the veterinarian’s exam room. Two friends who were with me explained to the staff what was happening, and the office simply said,
“Let him go. We understand. We’ll take care of it later.”

I have always had a cat — sometimes two — as a friend.
The emptiness of my home in the days after Chloe crossed the Rainbow Bridge was thunderous silence.

So I began searching the internet for a new friend. Not one who could ever take Chloe’s place, but one who might help fill the hole left in my heart.
Page after page.
Cat after cat.
Days and nights that seemed like years of tears.

And then one day, looking up from the floor of an adoption center webpage, two great big eyes said,
“Hey, I’m here. Come and get me.”

I called the adoption center, and they agreed to come in the day after Christmas so I could visit this hopefully newfound friend.
A 50‑mile trip in sub‑zero weather in an old car I wasn’t sure would make it to the center, much less back home.
A rural road.
No GPS.
But I felt guided, and I made it there.

I was led into a room filled with cats of all sizes and colors, each one greeting me, purring, and showing off.
But the two big eyes I had seen online were missing.

When I asked, I learned she was hiding deep inside a treehouse, keeping to herself, not part of the crowd.
My first sign that we might be meant for each other.

I slowly reached into the opening of the treehouse, and the staff gave me a chair.
For at least an hour, I sat with my hand through the opening — speaking softly, but mostly not speaking at all.
Letting the unspoken thoughts and feelings that can only exist between humans and animals speak to both of us.

The adoption center people must have thought I was a bit daft, sitting there with just my hand in a cat treehouse.
But they didn’t bother me.

And then I felt it.
I knew this was my animal soul mate, my familiar.

I found the attendant and said, “I’ll take her.”

As I signed the adoption papers, I was told that if there was any problem — any at all — I could bring her back, no questions asked.
A red flag.
And the fact that she was already eight months old — another sign she had been returned.

She had also been hurt; the doctor’s notes read: severe wound, possible nerve damage.
Well, that went along with the shrapnel I’ve carried in my lower back for 50 years.
Two reclusive critters with nerve damage — tell me that’s not two souls looking for each other.

I had left my car warming. I loaded my new friend into her carrier, left the adoption center, and we began the long ride home.
I drove mostly with one hand, the other on her case, telling her the whole way how good things were going to be.

I still wasn’t sure we’d make it back to Boston in my sputtering old car.
But we did.

Once safely home, this little life spent the first part of the night hiding.
I found her behind the stove.
Once coaxed out of there, she spent the night under the bed, and I spent it talking to her through the mattress and trying to think of a name.

Many people don’t understand her name, which is, in some ways, the reason I’m writing this a few days before Christmas — besides the fact that she was adopted the day after Christmas.

If you say her name, you’d think it’s spelled Cheyenne, like the town or the Native American nation.
In fact, one time I overheard a friend tell someone who asked what kind of name it was, and the friend — knowing I am part Native American — said,
“It’s Native American.”
I didn’t bother correcting her.

Her name is a contraction of Shilo.

Shiloh was an ancient Israelite city in the central hill country north of Jerusalem. The meaning of “Shiloh” is debated — possibly related to a root meaning tranquility or peace. Some scholars propose a meaning connected to place of rest.
Either one is fine with me.

And Anna: she was a prophetess, one of the very few women in Scripture clearly given that title.
Anna appears only in three verses in the entire Bible (Luke 2:36–38), yet she stands as one of the most powerful spiritual figures in the New Testament.

And so, having found my new friend the day after Christmas, and somewhere in the middle of the night as I talked to her through the mattress on my bed, her name became Shianna.

Sometimes the gifts that matter most don’t come wrapped in paper or tied with ribbon.
Sometimes they arrive the day after Christmas, with big eyes, a wounded past, and a quiet way of saying,
I’m here.

This is the story of how Shianna found me —
or maybe how we found each other.

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A Radio Christmas Remembered

The holidays always make people feel nostalgic. I know I do, even though I don’t really take part in what feels like holiday madness these days, instead of real joy. I get a kick out of the ads that promise big savings if I just spend twice as much as usual.

New Year’s Day has always been a time for me to reflect, feel grateful, and sometimes regretful. Even when I was young, there was always someone or a moment to remember. As we get older, those memories matter even more.

I haven’t done live radio since 2006, and sometimes I miss it. It’s hard not to miss something you dreamed about as a kid and finally got to do. But when I talk to friends, they remind me that radio isn’t what it used to be. Now it’s all programmed and controlled by corporations, with little room for real personalities. I was lucky to work in radio when it meant something, when underground FM was fun and creative.

I wrote the next story a few years back, but it actually happened more than 40 years ago. I’m sharing it again because it’s real and it means a lot to me. People have told me it’s one of their favorite stories, and it’s one of my favorite Christmas memories, too.

A Radio Christmas Remembered

It was a quietly magical December, around 1982. Snow was blowing outside in the middle of the night—well, 3 a.m. is hardly morning. The kind of snow that sneaks up on you, drifting quietly and getting deeper. It moved across the empty parking lot, turning this lonely spot into something like the Montana or Wyoming prairie. It was the perfect scene as Merle Haggard sang about wanting the Big City to let him go. Even though I wasn’t far from Boston, it was easy to feel cut off from the world, watching the snow shape the night. I probably wouldn’t see another person for at least three more hours. I was the only one on duty from midnight to 6 a.m. I could still see most of my car, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to move it in the morning, even if someone could get to me.

As the keeper of the light, I stayed in touch with others who were awake during the darkest hours—the night people. I’ve always liked night people. There’s a passion in how they move through life—caring, yet often a little lonely, choosing the quiet roads and the small hours. My way of connecting with them was through a country radio station in the basement of a small strip mall in the middle of nowhere. Still, our AM signal reached far and wide, especially at night—traveling over flat land and even across the ocean, carried on the darkness. I was the only show in town, the only one playing music on the AM dial in that forgotten time zone.

About once a week, a cross-country trucker would call me. When he got to Rhode Island and picked up my signal, he’d say, “The California Kid is on the line.” This time, he wished me a Happy Holiday and, as always, asked for a few songs to help him make it to Maine. I was his companion on the road.

I also got calls from Alice. She drove all over the area, servicing ATMs, and would call once or twice a week while she worked. I never met Alice; she was a bit like the coyotes that roamed the parking lot, always staying out of sight. I called her Dallas Alice, after the Little Feat song Willin’, which I played for her every time she called.

On that snowy night, Alice called to wish me a Merry Christmas and told me to wait a few minutes, then look outside. After we hung up, I played Willin’ and walked up the steps to the door. There, already gathering snow, was a small pre-lit Christmas tree and a card that read, “Merry Christmas from Dallas Alice.” I saw her footprints in the snow. She had parked close to the entrance so she could get back to the main road quickly.

I never met Alice, but her kindness lingered long after that night. I never met the California Kid either, yet in the passion of their journeys and the gentle connections forged in the dark, we shared something rare—a caring warmth that glowed quietly in the lonely hours. On that cold, snowy night so many years ago, a woman named Alice—Dallas Alice—and a trucker called the California Kid gave me memories that still make me smile every Christmas.

Every Christmas, I remember the way we reached for each other across the airwaves—passionate, caring, and yes, a little lonely, but never truly alone.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

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Clamshell Echoes: A Rambling Harbor Reflection on Seabrook and Sanctuary

There was a time when the salt air of New Hampshire carried more than the scent of low tide; it had the pulse of resistance. I remember it not as a headline or a footnote, but because I was there as part of the Clamshell Alliance, and we stood stubborn and unarmed against the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.

We weren’t just protesting a facility; we were trying to protect a way of life. The marshes, the estuaries, the fragile coastline — they weren’t just geography. And when the government said “progress,” we said “not here.”

My friend Ron Rieck, a pacifist apple picker with the soul of a poet, climbed the weather observation tower in January 1976 and stayed there for 36 cold hours. Alone but not isolated, he turned that tower into a lighthouse of resistance. I was supposed to go up there with him. That was the plan. But duty called me back to Baltimore, to Jonah House, where the work of peace and resistance and support was unfolding in its own sacred rhythm. I wasn’t there in body on the tower with Ron, but I was there in spirit, tethered by purpose and friendship.

In May of 1977, over 2,000 of us occupied the construction site. This time I was there. I felt the ground beneath me, the tension in the air, and the quiet resolve of people who knew they might be arrested but refused to be silenced. More than 1,400 of us were taken into custody. We slept on armory floors, shared stories, and turned confinement into communion.


The Clamshell Alliance wasn’t just a protest group—it was a blueprint for change. We organized in affinity groups, practiced nonviolence, and made sure our resistance was as disciplined as it was passionate. We weren’t radicals. We were caretakers. And we believed that energy should be clean, democratic, and rooted in respect for the land.

Seabrook eventually went online in 1990, but not without delay, bankruptcy, and a legacy of resistance that still echoes. The plant may have risen, but so did we. And in that growing, we shaped a movement that inspired anti-nuclear activism across the country. Jonah House, as the war in Vietnam ended, became involved in Nuclear disarmament, as Phil Berigan said. “Nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself.”

Now, decades later, I sit in Rambling Harbor and remember. Not with bitterness, but with pride. Because sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is stand still. To plant your feet in the sand and say, “This matters.”

We were clamshells—fragile, beautiful, and unbreakable in our unity. And though the tide has shifted, the memory remains. A protest becomes a poem. A moment becomes a movement. And a harbor becomes a sanctuary.

Here is a line from Allen Ginsberg’s Plutonian Ode: “I declare the end of War!” “I chant your absolute Vanity. Yes, you are pure Void.” “I enter your secret places with my mind…” “I call upon the soul of Man to arise and walk.”

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Rambling Harbor Dispatch: The Bill Comes Due

In the late 1960s, while napalm lit the skies over Vietnam, a quieter rebellion flickered across American kitchens. It wasn’t shouted in the streets—it was whispered through unpaid phone bills. The government had slapped a 10% excise tax on telephone service to help fund the war. And hundreds of thousands of citizens said, “No thanks.” They refused to pay, not out of stinginess, but out of conscience. I was one of those. They called it war tax resistance. I call it dialing into dignity.

By 1972, as many as half a million Americans were hanging up on war—literally—by withholding the tax. The IRS attempted to pursue them, once even seizing a man’s car over $2.44. That’s not enforcement. That’s bureaucratic burlesque.

Fast forward to 2025, and the bill has come due again. Only this time, it’s not for war—it’s for one man’s legal battle against the government. President Trump, facing a thicket of lawsuits, wants taxpayers to help cover the costs of his defense. The irony? It’s thicker than a Nixon tape.
In the Vietnam era, we resisted paying for bombs. Today, we’re being asked to pay for briefs. Legal briefs. Filed by a man who once promised to drain the swamp but now wants us to subsidize his wade through it.
Where’s the opt-out box on that invoice?

This isn’t just about money. It’s about memory. About whether public funds should be used to defend personal grievances. About whether the American people are shareholders in someone else’s vendetta. And about whether resistance still has a place in the age of auto-pay and algorithmic distraction.

It may be time to revive the spirit of the phone tax rebels, not with rotary dials and mimeographed pamphlets, but with satire, sanctuary, and a refusal to subsidize secrecy. Maybe it’s time to hang up again—this time on legal tab transfers disguised as patriotism.

Whether it’s $2.44 or $2.4 million, the principle remains: we should not be forced to pay for what violates our conscience.

And here’s my thought: what if you decided to withhold even $ 5 from any tax you might owe, along with a long explanation about why you are doing this? And sure, that would really make no difference, but sometimes it’s the symbolism, the meaning behind the action.

Donald Trump is reportedly seeking reimbursement of approximately $4.2 million. So, along with our $5, what if we lean on major companies? Corporate Tax Revenue: In 2024, the federal government collected roughly $425 billion in corporate income taxes.

Imagine if Apple, Amazon, and Google said: “We’re withholding 3% until Congress passes climate legislation.” Or until war funding is redirected to healthcare. And not one cent to Donald Trump’s defense. It would be the modern equivalent of hanging up on war—only this time, with billions instead of phone bills.

3% Withheld: That’s about $12.75 billion withheld.
Sure, I’m Dan Don Quixote, still maybe swinging at windmills, but this is my first thought tonight. If you have a better one, don’t hesitate to share it.

Rambling Harbor remembers. And resists.

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Introduction

I never meant to write a war story. I meant to live a life. Not the kind that ends up in textbooks or on movie screens, but the kind shaped by quiet choices—by sitting down when others stepped forward, by saying no when silence was easier. This book isn’t about the Vietnam War or the peace movement. Those stories already fill libraries. It’s not about my years behind the mic as a radio broadcaster—that came later. Nor is it about the loud ones: the noisemakers, the celebrities, the politicians, or the filmmakers chasing spotlight and legacy.

This book is about quiet defiance. About extraordinary moments tucked inside an otherwise ordinary life. Mine.

During the Vietnam War era, roughly 570,000 young men were labeled draft offenders. Of those, 210,000 were formally charged. Just 8,750 were convicted. And only 3,250 were jailed. Less than one percent. This book is about that final group—the ones history rarely names, Hollywood never casts, and textbooks barely mention. It’s about my friend Kevin, who said, when we reconnected after Daniel Berrigan’s passing in 2016, “Dan, we didn’t go after the government; they came after us. We just wanted to live our lives.” Kevin was right. We wanted to live, and we wanted the boys sent to fight in a war we didn’t choose to live also.

I’m proud to say I was one of the 3,250 who said no. We said it quietly, but loud enough to keep our souls intact while they locked up our bodies. I tell only my part of the story, but I know I’m not so different from the other 3,249. Maybe I can make a little noise for all of us.

I once asked my father what happens when we die. We were walking a dirt road in the Deep South, the heat thick as molasses. I was nine. My dad, a scientist in spirit and mind, told me energy can’t be created or destroyed—it only changes form. Since the human body is mostly energy, it too must become something else. That left me with the unsettling idea that I might not become a mighty oak, but a daffodil on the side of a hill. Maybe my life has been a long attempt to be the oak, not the daffodil. But the jury’s still out.

I never planned to oppose a war, and I certainly never intended to write a book. If I had, maybe I would’ve kept a diary—or at least some decent notes. What few I scribbled on barroom napkins or in stray notebooks are long gone, buried in some landfill. Hopefully, raising a mighty oak. But I do remember a few things.

I’ll tell you about growing up on Staten Island—football, beaches, music, and radio. A middle-class kid with few worldly cares and a head full of books. My first dream was to be a radio star. That dream shifted when friends started coming home in body bags—boys who could run, jump, and catch with the best of us, now still forever.

I’ll try to explain how a painfully shy kid found the courage to sit down instead of stepping forward at Whitehall Station—the military induction center in New York City where young men were processed for the draft. The routine was simple: They underwent a written aptitude test and a physical examination to determine fitness for service.

Based on these evaluations, they were classified (e.g., 1-A for fit, 4-F for unfit). When your name was called, you stepped forward to begin your journey into military service. But I didn’t. I sat down. I don’t know if fear buckled my knees or if I’d read somewhere that sitting was the perfect nonviolent act. Maybe it was both. Either way, that quiet refusal marked the beginning of my resistance.

I’ll take you from New York to the mountains of West Virginia, to a woman named Emily who taught me how to live off the land. Then, to a woman older than I was, with three children, about her, and the court fight for custody of her kids and one of mine. I’ll tell you about my arrest in Hollywood and the cross-country ride back to New York, escorted by U.S. marshals. And the old judge who nearly begged me to take one of his get-out-of-jail-free cards.

I’ll talk about meeting Daniel and Phillip Berrigan in prison. And how resistance didn’t end behind bars, as shown by my trips to solitary confinement for refusing to walk the prison lines. I’ll tell you about fellow inmates like Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, and Clifford Irving—and the handful of other draft and war resisters. I’ll finish with life after prison.

3,249 other stories may or may not be told. This one is mine.

Dan Sanders

July 2025

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Rating: 1 out of 5.

Chapter 1: Ties, Offices, and Draft Cards

I need to revisit something I said in the introduction. I called my life ordinary. That was a misfire. Looking back, it’s been anything but. What I should’ve said is that there were ordinary moments scattered through an otherwise extraordinary life. I grew up alongside kids who mapped out their futures with surgical precision—future CEOs, most likely. Me? I had a plan too, though it felt more like a whispered plea to the universe: Please, God, don’t let my life be beige. No cubicle coma. No death by fluorescent light. I’ll tell you soon how close I came to that fate—until I tossed my tie into the Hudson River like a message in a bottle. Still the best decision I ever made.

As I started writing about my life, one emotion kept erupting like a brainquake—volcanic, relentless. It left me slack-jawed, arms limp, staring at the screen like I’d just seen a ghost. If you’ve ever tried writing in that state, you know it’s like trying to type underwater. And that emotion? The gut-punch realization that, holy hell, this is ancient history. Am I really that old? Who was she? Who was he? Did I actually do that? A Ulyssean train wreck of memory and feeling, barreling through time.

From the moment we’re born, we’re shaped by sound, sight, touch, and experience.

I was sixteen in 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis hit—a high-stakes staring contest between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, triggered by Soviet missiles in Cuba. It was the closest we ever came to turning the Cold War into a full-blown nuclear nightmare. But in my corner of Staten Island, the “wonder years” of the 1950s still lingered like the scent of summer on a football jersey. My friends and I spent our days at the beach, dreaming of October and kickoff season. But that October was different. For thirteen days, the whole country held its breath. I did too, hoping the football field would still be there when morning came.

My dad had worked on the Manhattan Project. He didn’t talk much about it, but I knew he carried the weight. He once said the first bomb should’ve been dropped on Mt. Fuji as a warning, not on Hiroshima. That act, he believed, was revenge—rage disguised as strategy. And now, just seventeen years later, we were back on the brink, flirting with annihilation.

Three books helped shape me in those early years. First was Elie Wiesel’s Night—a raw, haunting account of surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Years later, I’d sit at the dinner table with a Tufts professor who’d lived through it. His stories etched themselves into my memory like carvings in stone. The second was Black Like Me, where John Howard Griffin darkened his skin and walked through the segregated South to see what it meant to be Black in America. I couldn’t have known then that I’d one day I’d call Phil Berrigan—a white priest who rode with the Freedom Riders—a friend. The third was Fail-Safe, serialized during the Cuban Missile Crisis itself. It imagined a nuclear war sparked by a glitch. Fiction, yes—but terrifyingly plausible.

Heavy reading for a sixteen-year-old. I don’t know what other kids were reading, but those books rewired my brain. The wonder years ended in 1962. I graduated from high school in ’64, skipped the ceremony, and refused the yearbook photo. Some of my teammates had gone off to war. Some came back in boxes. I didn’t want the pomp. I wanted silence. My mom was quietly heartbroken. My dad understood, though he never said so.

In ’63 and ’64, I had a summer gig at WSLT Radio in Ocean City, New Jersey. Two hours each way from Staten Island, but I had a license and a dream. Sunday mornings were mine—I was king of the airwaves. The worst part was driving through Newark, where the air tasted like burnt rubber and my gum absorbed the pollution. I think of that now, as climate change becomes the new crisis.

I was supposed to start at Pace University in September ’64. Tuition paid. The catch? A lifetime at Cunard Steamship Company. I lasted six weeks. One hot day, I walked into Battery Park and threw my tie into the Hudson. That was my declaration of independence. My boss called. My mom worried. My dad? Not surprised.

I kept the Sunday radio gig.

Meanwhile, the world was shifting. In December ’63, Eugene Keyes burned his draft card on Christmas Day. In May ’64, I got mine—and joined a protest in Union Square. Fifty of us. My mom thought I was with my girlfriend. My dad probably knew better. Burning that card was symbolic. I had a deferment, and I wasn’t headed to Vietnam. But I broke two laws: failing to carry the card and destroying government property. I kept the ashes in my pocket.

I haven’t been back to New York since 1968. But one day, I’ll return to Battery Park. And remember.

________________________________________

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Rating: 1 out of 5.