I went to Austin today, partly to break the routine on my day off and partly to buy myself a University of Texas hoodie.

I love hoodies, and the only one I have is too heavy to wear except when it's really cold. I had one from my fraternity that I wore for about 10 years, until it was tattered and torn and my wife was begging me to get rid of it. So I hopped into my car and headed across Texas to visit UT.

What's the first thing you think of when you think of the University of Texas?

If you're not from Texas, it's most likely something to do with sports. The Longhorns are consistent national title contenders in football, excellent in basketball and they actually won the College World Series in baseball this year.

But if you're an American of a certain age, you might remember something else. Someone else.

[caption id="attachment_398" align="alignright" width="225" caption="The Texas tower"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ut-tower.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-398" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ut-tower-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

I was 16 on August 1st, 1966, when the news reports came out of Austin. A man named <a title="Charles Whitman" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman" target="_self">Charles Whitman</a> had climbed the clock tower in the middle of the UT campus, armed with several weapons, and had begun shooting at students in the courtyard below.

Before it was over, before he was taken down by a police officer, Whitman had killed 16 people and wounded 30 others.

To a nation, a generation that had been shocked by the Kennedy assassination in Dallas less than three years earlier, this was something different. Presidents get killed for a reason, even if we don't know what the reason is. Most folks who are murdered, there's a reason for it.

This was different. There was no apparent reason for any of the deaths. It wasn't as if Whitman had wanted to kill one person and cover up his motive by taking others along with them.

It was a senseless crime.

In a way, it was the beginning of all the senseless crimes that have followed, the beginning of all the stuff that has happened over the last 40 years or so that has left more and more people feeling like they can't even control their own lives.

Two generations of students have attended UT since 1966, and many of the kids matriculating now have parents who were born in the years since Whitman climbed the tower.

Several books were written about the events, but no one was ever really able to come up with any rationale other than the fact that Whitman suffered from a malignant brain tumor that certainly was affecting his moods. Eventually, of course, Hollywood got involved, and in 1975, Kurt Russell starred in a made-for-television movie called <a title="The Deadly Tower" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072852/" target="_self">"The Deadly Tower."</a>

Forty-four years later, there is a plaque commemorating the heroes who took Whitman down, or who helped save the wounded. It has been a long time, and we forget these things.

But the tower still stands, Deep in the Heart of Texas, and it might just be where America started sliding down that slippery slope.