Don Homuth hopes a few original National Guardsmen show up at the Zip to Zap party Saturday.

If they do, he envisions a "geezers guarding geezers" reunion. This time, they can drink a cold beer together, if geezers still drink beer.

Homuth, 64, is coming from Oregon for the 40th anniversary of the spring break party that put Zap on the map forever.

There's no question, "We really are becoming old farts," Homuth said.

He'd wait 10 years for the big 50th, but who knows who might have a heart attack, or be in a nursing home by then, he says.

"This is the time. Let's get to it," Homuth said.

He's cheerleading a Zip to Zap reunion of others, like him, from North Dakota State University's student newspaper and government. As students, they were all involved in promoting the 1969 Zap-in "happening" that ended with National Guard being called in before dawn on the second day of the event.

That's about when Homuth, editor of the student newspaper, finally arrived. He was too late for the party, in time for the aftermath. He's determined to get it right this time around.

"Some of us have tried to live it down. I've never been apologetic about it," he said.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 mostly college students converged on Zap, a coal mine hamlet in Mercer County. The press was there and worldwide headlines resulted when the Guard moved in and rousted the by-then sleepy kids out of town, causing thousands of other Zap-bound students to turn around.

The Guardsmen were fairly young, too.

Zap has faithfully observed the anniversaries all these years. This upcoming one is no exception.

Everyone is invited to an all-afternoon and evening event, with a duck race, motorcycle run, a car show, food and two bands - one earlier, one later in the evening.

Homuth remembers it started when the student newspaper staff printed a few "gag" stories promoting a spring break at Zap - one famously warning that there might be some "free lovin' and smoke blowing" going on - that caught the attention of mainstream media, The Associated Press and outward from there. What started as an insider's joke at the newspaper suddenly became real.

"It was never political," Homuth says.

But those winds were blowing across the country during the Vietnam era and the establishment got nervous whenever students gathered.

Zap's story is that Norman Fuchs, mayor in 1969, didn't want the Guard to come in. He got worn down in the wee hours by the Guard's repeated offers to restore order, and when reports of public urination on burning buildings started to filter out of Zap, the mayor finally gave in, says present-day Mayor Terry Barden.

David Anderson, 65, of Regent and Dickinson, was wearing his Guard uniform and carrying his rifle, no ammunition, with an affixed bayonet when he jumped off the camouflage truck at dawn the morning after.

His unit had been called in and spent the night at the Mott armory, drilling riot control formations until long past midnight when the order from Gov. William Guy came down to deploy to Zap.

What sticks in Anderson's mind is how well the crowd-control formations - a V-shape with bayonets at point - worked to break up the partiers, though he remembers them as being pretty mellow and partied out by the time the Guard pulled in.

"It was an unorganized group against an organized group. There was not an angry confrontation. I never heard of any hard feelings or bitterness," he said.

One young male student got a bayonet poke in the buttocks, the story goes, but Anderson can't remember which of the Guardsmen was behind the pointy side of the weapon.

He said the official word was that kids from out of state caused the problems - property damage and fights - and that North Dakota kids out enjoying a spring beer bust probably wouldn't have been a big deal.

Anderson was a student at NDSU himself in those days, attending two of four quarters a year so he could work on the family's farm in Regent, and he says he saw a few familiar faces in the student crowd. His own nametag and those of all the Guardsmen were taped over.

"It was an experience I've never forgotten. It was serious, but there was some humor in it, too," he said.

The Guard moved the kids down the road out of Zap and through Hazen and then sacked out for a few hours in a local park, before heading back to Mott.

Anderson said he hadn't given much thought to attending a reunion, but seemed to warm to the idea as he reminisced.

Homuth and a few other former NDSU students - Zip to Zap alumni - will go to swap stories and separate the mythology from the reality. Stories of near riots and burned down buildings are part of the Zap-in folklore, even if it didn't go down that way.

"I was there by 9 a.m. (the day after) and looked around. There was no huge swath of destruction. It was not that big of a deal," Homuth said.

It was and it wasn't.

Many North Dakotans -grandparents by now - can remember exactly where they were on May 8, 1969. They were there at Zap, or they wished they had been. They were a little too young, or a little too old, or they didn't have enough bread or dependable wheels. Or they were on their way until they heard the news on the radio that Zap was busted and it was over almost before it started.

For a generation, it was an event that fixed time. Woodstock happened a few months later; the Kent State shootings were a year in the future.

And Zap, willing host to those restless, carefree kids who did make it to the original Zap-in, will welcome them and everyone else one more time.

Look for Homuth, a self-described "gray-haired, overweight old fart" in search of the younger man he once was, accompanied by a few old friends who fit the same description.

"I just want to hang out, shake hands and wander around. Mostly, I just want to say hello," he said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 701-748-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)