It is true, at the precise moment when you realize the world is passing you by, you also realize that it already has. This double whammy of realization comes at you, not with a gentle tap on the shoulder and a polite "excuse me," but with a rough shove and a rude epithet.

It doesn't work like lightning, either, presumably striking once and then forever leaving you alone, marked by the wisdom of the experience. I had one of those abrupt moments not long ago while driving my eldest son and a neighbor friend to school one morning. During these drives, my teenage son assumes control of the music that will be played. On this particular morning, he chose Neil Young's "Decade" CD that led off with the very powerful hit, "Ohio."

The boys seemed to know the lyrics to the song, singing softly to the music,

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

I asked if either of them knew what the song was about. They both said no. I asked if they wanted to know and was met with the practiced teenager roll of the eyes, which was my cue to launch right in.

I told them that in the spring of 1970, President Nixon announced the expansion of the war in Vietnam by invading Cambodia. I explained that Nixon's decision inflamed many in the country that was already deeply divided about the war.

I told them that the most outraged were college students, like me at the time, and that the announcement was immediately followed by large protest demonstrations on college campuses across the country.

May 4, 1970, I told them, what was supposed to be a peaceful student demonstration on the campus of Kent State in Ohio turned violent. Members of the National Guard in Ohio turned their weapons on the crowd for 13 seconds. When the firing ended, four students were dead, one was paralyzed and eight others were wounded.

Immediately after the shootings, I told them, Young, who wrote the lyrics, recorded the song with his bandmates Crosby, Stills and Nash. I remembered it being an instant hit, almost like an anthem for that time.

I explained that although it was never determined whether there was justification for the shootings, what followed was a nationwide strike on college campuses that shut many of them down for a week.

I also told them it spawned conspiracy theories that ran rampant on college campuses and added to the unrest. One conspiracy theory I told them about involved the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan. According to the theory, the shootings were inevitable because just three weeks earlier, Reagan, in talking about student protests, had declared, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with."

The silence that followed convinced me that I had successfully imparted some history, history that I thought was important and relevant. I was prepared to answer questions when, after a few reflective moments, my son asked, "Where did that guy shoot all those people at a college not long ago?" While my mind was rapidly trying to change gears, the neighbor boy answered, "Virginia."

More silence. Then he said he was there just a couple of days before the shootings. Well, he said, he wasn't at the Virginia campus, but another one nearby. It was while he was on an eighth-grade trip to Washington, D.C.

That got my son's attention, and he spoke up that he remembered the school from his own trip a couple of years ago. He asked the neighbor boy if they had lunch at that school's cafeteria. He said he remembered it because he didn't think the food was very good. The neighbor boy said he thought the food was fine, but that he was hungry at the time. He said he stayed away from the hamburgers and other junk and that might have been why he didn't have a problem with the food. He said he even went back for seconds.

My son said he didn't know they could go back for seconds, but he wouldn't have anyway because the food didn't taste good to him.

More silence.

In the background, I heard:

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down

Should have been done long ago.

I slumped in my seat and thought my life has become looking at taillights.

— Joe R. Howry is editor of The Star. He can be reached by e-mail at jhowry@VenturaCountyStar.com or by phone at 437-0200.