April 22 was Earth Day. Instead of being reminded of it by a news anchor, I was informed by a friend’s posting on Facebook. Many people check such Facebook news upon arising from, and retiring to bed (some peruse all day, while others “vampirically” peruse all night.

The Facebook share mentioned the fact that 45 years have passed since the first Earth Day in 1970.

I then went for my Earth Day 2015 exercise walk. It was a very windy day, putting it mildly. Nearby tree boughs, and boughs approaching in the distance had the look of “boiling in the wind.” I’ve seen that same look in the paintings of Van Gogh; so perhaps a choppy wind could have been partial inspiration for his “choppy” brush strokes. Who knows?

While walking, I thought about where I was and what I was doing on that first Earth Day in 1970. I was a freshman at Appalachian State University. The number 1970 also takes me back to another time of Disco-themed music, dancing, clothing, footwear and John Travolta.

I now use this space to make public confession of at one time (back then) owning a pair of 1970s men’s platform shoes. I also owned a couple of leisure suits, which my late wife Diane at some point “sorted” (out, not in) when going through old bags of clothes in the attic. I don’t recall seeing the shoes, so they must have been the object of earlier, secretive “sorting” (also out).

In 1970, Appalachian had a fancier, more expensive eating choice known as the Gold Room. We would put together our remaining “monies” from multiple meal books to have a really nice, end of year meal of steak, clam strips, etc. Meal book coupons now seem almost as ancient as the WWII ration stamps I once found in an old black secretary desk in my boyhood home on the Old Concord Road. Its feet were stylistic feline paws, possibly making it a piece of 1920s King Tut Revival furniture.

Nearing the end of our freshman days in 1970, a bunch of us went to the Gold Room, where we sat in Arthurian roundtable fashion, talking and laughing about the multitude of crazy, humorous events of that first year.

Just a few weeks before, the first Earth Day occurred. (Funny how much difference a capital letter makes; otherwise, we’re talking about something 4.54 billion years in the past.)

News had spread by word of mouth and campus paper that the R.O.T.C. was going to do its part for Earth Day by cleaning out the campus duck pond. By my placing of periods after the letters R, O, T, and C, I wish to have the reader say each letter of the group’s name. I never cared for the “ROT” sound in the common manner of its pronunciation, as there is nothing “rotten” about it!

This man-made pond was adjacent Newland Dorm, the oldest stick-built dorm on campus, not being made of the more modern aggregate blocks.

By the time I got there to see what was going on, the ducks had already been carefully removed, to be brought back when the R.O.T.C. had completed its mission.

Unlike Earth Day 2015, and despite being in the mountains of North Carolina, that day was fairly warm and without much wind. As the pond water was pumped out, those present wondered what might appear.

The R.O.T.C.’s draining and cleaning of the campus duck pond revealed no “skeletonic” surprises, but instead old tires, along with beer bottles and beer cans. The latter, especially, made perfect sense, because no alcoholic beverages were allowed in the dorms then, while Boone itself was “dry.”

Post cleaning, the ASU duck pond was refilled with water, and the ducks were put back, seeming happier than before (perhaps my anthropomorphism kicking in).

I know all of this because I was there, an eyewitness to that important (locally) event on ASU’s campus during the very first Earth Day on April 22, 1970; and if “Brian” (another Williams), says he was there too, he wasn’t.