After reading his fiery letters to the editor, people often want to know: Who is Michael Strange, the man who bashes everyone and everything from President Bush to Mayor Dan Cougill to capitalism?

Is he American? Is he communist?

Is he normal? Is he insane?

“If I were living in Tennessee and write like I write, I would have some redneck coming out to kill me,” Strange said. “I wouldn’t do what I’m doing now if I still were trying to raise a family. I’m 70 years old. What the hell do I have to hide from or to not articulate the ideas I think I understand properly?”

Strange, the controversial letters to the editor writer, believes a nuclear holocaust is now “hammering on civilization’s door” and that Cougill personifies “the embodiment of Chicken Little dressed up as Napoleon and acting like Spiderman trying to defy gravity.”

In appearance, the man contradicts everything readers imagine of him. They envision the intense eyes of Charles Manson and the intimidating, Marxist persona of Joseph Stalin. Ostensibly, Strange is anything but: he looks and acts like any grandfather.

Strange, 69 (he turns 70 in June), is deaf in his left ear and wears a hearing aid in the other. He wears black Velcro shoes. A large magnifying glass rests upon a stack of newspapers.

“I’m rather soft spoken,” said Strange, who worked at Eastern in food services for 18 years.

In delivering his left-wing views, Strange stands neither behind a podium nor on top of a soapbox. He chooses instead to utilize the power of the written word where the audience reading newspapers, Strange says, is more universal.

He wants to educate through his words by antagonizing readers, especially college students, so much that it will drive them to the books. Strange shoots down any suggestion that he aspires to preach to the crowd or gain a following like a televangelist. He wants his readers to be peers, not disciples.

His intent is quite cyclical. He writes so others will read him and possibly read more. Strange reads to better inform himself when writing. To him, literacy is of the utmost importance. He found hope in his reading of Karl Marx, and he tries to spread that message through writing.

His message is often met with friction.

Andy Caruso, a senior English major, was so peeved after reading one of Strange’s letters on Dec. 11, he had a 361-word response letter written by early morning.

Caruso wrote: “In then end, the only conclusion I can make is that you gesticulate wildly, frantically waving your arms in the air screaming ‘look at me, look what I can write.’ Well, with all your vocabulary and word use, you have gained our attention, but have lost out by forgetting the fundamentals of an argument: a clear, concise point.”

Although Strange says his Marxist beliefs rule everywhere he goes, he’s not overt in spreading his message lobbying instead for small group discussions.

“I can read people,” Strange said. “When I see that people are uncomfortable with what I have to say, I back off.”

Beverly Sterling, the residence hall food services director when Strange worked there added: “He was very careful what he said around me, but around students he did speak a little more. I loved to get him to argue and talk to him, though.”

But it’s his written words that leave readers shaking their heads. Shock, confusion and anger are common emotions because Strange writes with the specific purpose of generating more questions than answers.

“He’s not after the majority opinion,” said Rob Woods, owner of Byrd’s Dry Cleaning where Strange has worked for the last 10 years. “He’s after the people who can understand what he’s saying in those letters. He’s after those people, who when they read the letter it makes them think about that topic.”

Strange’s father active in socialist party

When Strange writes about Marxism, his message comes from a childhood raised in poverty, and by a father who was active in the Socialist Party.

He was born in 1934 and raised in Terra Haute, Ind., during the worst years of the Great Depression. His father was a union worker, a laborer, who knew Eugene Debs, a native of Terra Haute, and a well-known Socialist who ran and lost for the U.S. presidency in 1912.

In school, Strange said there was the well dressed, the not-so-well dressed and then people like himself.

“When you’re poor and ragged and dirty and hungry that’s all within oneself,” Strange said. “But when you can see that in the social stratum of your environment, then you learn something. If you don’t know you’re ragged and someone tells you that and you begin to examine that, then you understand where you are.”

What Strange learned was the gap between the rich and poor. His confidence in capitalism lessened because he didn’t think people like himself had much of a shot. That is why Strange is so opposed to the war with Iraq and grilled Cougill on the $16 million spent on a new water treatment plant.

People at the bottom of the economic system tend to drift toward Marxism, a more advanced version of communism, said Dave Carwell, an assistant professor of political science. “Marxism explains why you’re poor, they’re rich and why no matter what you do you’re going to be poor,” said Carwell, who discusses this topic in his third world political ideologies class. “They believe the economic system is fixed.”

At 12, Strange joined the workforce pushing a three-wheel pushcart and selling ice cream. Two years later, he worked at a service station, and two years after that he celebrated the sweet 16 by dropping out of high school and running away from home. Textbooks were too expensive, and his father was too abusive.

Strange’s mother convinced him to return home after two years. By then, his father drank too much and couldn’t maintain a full-time job. The financial burden would eventually fall on Strange’s shoulders to support his wife and children and his parents.

“It’s not one of those sympathetic stories. I don’t want to portray it as that,” Strange said. “Most people will respond that way. You do what you must when that’s the situation you’re confronted by. And that’s kind of the way my political life turned out, too. You’re confronted with those things and you need answers. You seek them, and you can find them if you look enough, long enough.”

His interest in Marxism gained momentum in his mid-20s after he began reading Marx’s books. Working at night as a truck driver, Strange reflected on his readings while on the road. It was how he dealt with the silence, as the trucks back then, he said, didn’t have radios.

Strange desired more job stability and accepted a job at Eastern in dining services. For 18 years, he muffled his true thoughts and beliefs fearing a reduction in job security.

“Everyone I think sort of expected what he was going to say,” said Sterling, an employee at Eastern for 40 years. “You took it all with a grain of salt.”

(subhead) Who is Michael Strange? (subhead)

Who is Michael Strange?

He is a man, with five daughters and two sons, who loathes the role of money in today’s society. His house serves as the grand example of his thriftiness. Strange rummaged through the dumpsters and attended auctions to piece together the core pieces that built his home.

The wooden floor in one room came from two houses that were torn down so E.L. Kracker’s could be built. The drywall, at the university’s consent, was taken from the area where the Gregg Triad computer lab now resides.

About money, Strange said “It’s a trick. Trickery. We have been tricked big time with the aid of all the social morality. We have been told members of the culture that you must have money.”

Strange gladly admits he saved paying for his house three times over by building the house over a 12-year span. He had more time than money.

Who is Michael Strange?

He is a man who doesn’t salute the American flag. Instead, he salutes a red one; because, red symbolizes humanity. He practices Marxist-Leninism communism.

“Patriotism is a horrible thing if you really think about it,” he said.

Who is Michael Strange?

He is a man who expresses himself through writing.

“I think everything in there that Mike writes about is pure Mike Strange,” Woods said.