On this day in 1968: Bill Ayers arrested at Democratic National Convention

With apologies to The Beatles, "It was forty years ago today, Bill Ayers came to Chicago to play."

Bill Ayers' transformation from the privileged son of the CEO of the Chicago area's electric utility--to Weather Underground terrorist, did not occur overnight.

Ayers was arrested by the Chicago Police on August 27, the famous riot (there were others that week) occurred the following night.

Here's what I was doing forty years tomorrow. My late father, Jack, was at the International Amphitheatre on Chicago's Southwest Side covering the proceedings of the Democratic National Convention for the Back Of The Yards Journal. The real story that night of course was on the corner of Balbo and Michigan in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel. Mayor Richard J. Daley's agressive police had their fill with the protesters--some of whom were throwing plastic bags of feces and urine at the cops--and the boys in the light blue helmets came out swinging with their billy clubs.

I was watching the action on television with my mother and siblings. We kept saying "Is dad there?" Looking back forty years later, what's amazing is how casually we watched it all. Civil unrest and cops beating up rabble-rousers were normal television fare back then.

Bill Ayers would of course go on to bigger and more horrible things.