Iowa State: The VEISHEA Riots

VEISHEA was a celebration at Iowa State, usually the week before Dead Week, two weeks before finals. Started back in 1923, it offered cherry pies, bands and musicals, a parade, and a time to celebrate being part of the Iowa State community, a week beloved by the university and the community as a whole.

Me? Meh. Same for many of my friends. What VEISHEA was for me–either a chance to loaf around or to head home for a couple days. You weren’t missing classes and there wasn’t much work assigned leading up to it either. (I do have recollection of spending VEISHEA 87 typing a paper…a serious chore in the days before regular computer access).

So in 1988, what was Foster’s last year, I wasn’t planning on sticking around–especially since we’d just had our Last Supper.

[Note: I didn’t realize until I started writing this that our Last Supper was part of VEISHEA week–and right before our trip to Chicago]

So on Friday, early morning, I took off on an adventure with Brian Olsen, Paul Eichinger (because Paul is part of ALL adventures), and Jeff Arnold for Chicago in my big ol’ LTD. Oh…probably should mention, I only had one cassette for my tape player. Brian, 30+ years later, has PTSD when he hears the Scorpions’ Love at First Sting album. We get to Chicago–three days of Wrigley and pizza…and we have a great time.

** TANGENT:

We were in the CF bleachers on Friday where three of us burned (scarred my arms actually) while Paul just turned brown. Maddux won 3-2. We were in the LF bleachers on Saturday–raunchy and drunk people there…some rude, creative comments about Candy Maldonado, Jeff Leonard, and the recently traded Chili Davis…fee-fie-fo-fum, Leonard is a fuckin’ bum. Hey, Penitentiary Face! …and then the pornographic comments referencing chili and candy. …the bleacher people didn’t care that there were little kids out there. Jamie Moyer, young Cubs prospect, lost to Rick Reuschel, former Cub, on a Jose Who-It-Be homer, 2-1. Sunday we were behind home plate, upper deck. My God it was cold…30 degrees colder and windier there than the bleachers. We bought hot chocolate and passed it around to hold so that our hands didn’t freeze. When the game was over and we left Wrigley, it was gorgeous out on the street again. Wild. Cubs won. All I remember is Sandberg had a triple in the first. After that…I was frozen.

We didn’t pay attention to ANYTHING else while we were there–just baseball, pizza, and having a great time.

END TANGENT

So we get back to Foster Sunday night–and we get asked if we were sad to have missed it. Missed what? *The Riot* We didn’t believe Ed–the first to tell us what happened. Turns out it made the USA Today. Oooh boyyyy.

Destruction in Campustown, caused mostly by out-of-town people coming only to party (a sad reality for VEISHEA’s last 20 years). Cops couldn’t end it–took Johnny Orr and Jim Walden, the b-ball and football coaches. Orr came out, said “Hey, ISU people, you’re making the school look bad.” Students actually left, then the law rounded up the out-of-towners.

In class on Monday, one of the students in my Creative Writing class had been in danger. Rioters took a couch off her porch to throw in a massive bonfire in the middle of Welch Ave. When she protested, the crowd started chanting “Throw HER in the fire.” The couch burned and she barricaded herself in her house/apartment with her roommate.

The ISU Daily had a picture of the bonfire–including a guy who climbed a lamppost and was dangling over the fire. The fire was big enough it melted through the asphalt and I recall Welch Ave being closed to cars for a couple days while they did emergency repairs.

At the time, people figured the incident was a one-off, that VEISHEA would now go back to being its regular self. The thing is–the drinking age had changed to 21 from 19. Off-campus parties grew and were not controllable by university personnel. There was no way to keep out-of-town people from coming to town and going to the parties–and those people didn’t care about anything…drunkenness or damage…after all, wasn’t their town or school.

So there was another riot in 1992–about the time of the Rodney King incident in LA. In ’92, the police provoked it with an over-aggressive response to a crowd on Welch, as they shot tear gas into the doorways of Campustown bars to disperse people. This caused the crowd to grow angry AND increased the size of the crowd as all the bars now emptied due to the tear gas. I missed this riot, too–I took the opportunity to see the future Mrs. Dietz.

And then it happened again in ’94. ’97 saw a stabbing. 2004–damage when police broke up a 400-person party. At that point, VEISHEA was reorganized, suspended for a year. It wasn’t enough. In 2014, another riot/brawl occurred.

And so VEISHEA died. A near-century institution destroyed by people with no interest in it, a plague of locusts descending on Ames and wiping out a tradition. Those people never stop–they wiped out Illinois’ St. Patrick’s celebration and Halloween at Southern Illinois in time, too.

I didn’t really care for being at VEISHEA–but it’s funny to be sad that it no longer exists. I don’t understand the need some people have to destroy. I don’t understand the lack of personal integrity in the people who actively participated in any of the riots/violence.

But selfish me? Selfish me enjoyed three days in Chicago with great friends. I wouldn’t trade where I was or who I was with for any reason (ditto 1992 when I went to see Julie)