Review Classic: published on October 13, 1971, VOL. 89, No. 6

Tom Broddle

Topeaking

This is the second semester of “Topeaking”,the sixth semester of study for me, making it the appointed time slow down and look at myself.

Why does a nobody like me write a column telling people what the human eyes of Tom Broddle perceive and what the human brain of Tom Broddle thinks is worth communicating? I’m not a clever person or particularly wise. I’m a country clod. I’m incredibly simple. I catch myself being genuine all the time. Oh, I put people on now and then but it’s just to they’ll try me on too.

Now, just about now, you’re speaking with one of those deceptively logical mind flashes: ” If Broddle is a simple s.o.b. why is he pushing his ago trip off on us?”

Answer: I actually like myself and the house of Earth I live in. My happiness makes impression on paper; they form fibres of experience which sound familiar to your spirit. You’re hungry and you eat at my table once in a while.

But there are drawbacks to putting your ego up for scrutiny. You quickly discover that people in this America aren’t really into free speech — no matter what they say in the Constitution. People play with semantics (as do I) like pigs, laws,dope,corn, etc.

Since becoming an amateur “columnist” for the Review, I’ve made a menagerie of enemies as opposed to a covey of friends. I’ve had good citizen call BIS here I work and accuse me of being a dangerous dope dealer (remember pharmacists have licenses). I’ve had junior G-Men follow me around for days watching for subversive activities like not putting money in parking meters or “mooning” drive-in restaurants or not combing my hair, etc. I’ve received threats by phone, been accosted in the student Union by just-minded vigilantes, and even been called an EX-CON by Citizen Doe at the police department. Imagine. Me.Who never missed s high school box social, who took a date to the baseball games, who learned the Pledge of Allegiance, who heard the grownups brag about cheating on taxes, who wanted to die in a huge vat of boiling apple pie.

Guess what!? I’ve answered my own question again. The fact is I’m a child in a generation of Romantics who grew up on history books of lies and passed puberty at a time of bullets, who now are ready to question every thing that is. So until a person comes along with a strong ego or a simpler mind, I’m here.

…Who is john Galt? You’ve got to give Vern the Viper due credit. He’s shooing from booth Hips, no holds barred, hippies and hard hats strewn in his wake. Recently at KU-K State games, he had his men out busting people who brought liquor illegally into it. We all know that biggest drug problem in Kansas is with Ethyl Alcohol. So it naturally follows that Vern would finally get down to raiding this segment of our drug oriented society. But the catch was this:the people with contraband liquor merely received a warning. The reason being that some pf our highest officials in government were among those busted.

…The way to change out system of drug justice is not to worry about the law and court norms but to encourage the already established junkies known as DRUG STORES AND PHARMACIES to stock marijuana on their shelves.

…Last summer there was a strange incident at a local beer join, which I’ll call” The Topeka Twelve” in which a group of long haired people were standing around the area of 21 st and Gage drinking drugs. The policeĀ  appeared and told them of a law against public display of alcoholic beverage and proceeded to arrest the twelve people, some of whom were taken because they were