In today’s issue of Dr. Mardy is a link to his website where he lists 10 songs that start with the word “If”. You should visit this page and listen to the YouTube videos of these songs. In particular, and for me the most moving was Pete Seeger singing “If I Had A Hammer” with Arlo Guthrie at Wolf Trap. The reason for me at least that this video moved me to tears is that Pete Seeger (as he did for me below) reached out to the audience to sing. So often this sort of thing fails miserably but Pete Seeger is the kind of person who inspires people. The singing is clear and wonderful and he just stands back and lets it happen. Arlo just stands there too, knowing better than to interfere with this magical moment.
Here is my Pete Seeger story.
Pete Seeger is an American treasure, an icon and a real person. He is 90 years old now and still going. He also played a small but pivotal role in my youth.
My memories of things from my teens are very foggy. Some of you are saying right now, “Uhmmm, yeah I wonder why that would be?” But one memory that stays with me clearly is of my visit with Pete Seeger. It was either (and this is the foggy part) the Fall of 1969 or Spring of 1970, one of my teachers at Walt Whitman High School arranged for some of us to go down to the waterfront in DC to hear Pete Seeger speak about the environment. He cofounded, in 1966, the environmental organization Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, and sailed on the sloop Clearwater down the East coast and up the Chesapeake, then the Potomac River and docked there. Along the way he would stop and speak to students and others working to raise awareness of environmental issues.
We left school driving ourselves down to the waterfront on a cold, dark and rainy day. I wore the typical attire of the times, blue jeans and a T-shirt, no jacket and I was just freezing. Standing there dockside, shivering within arm’s reach of this person who along with and among some of the most influential artists in American music created what is still today my favorite music, I shivered uncontrollably. Pete stopped speaking and just gave me this look. I can still see his eyes and he said, “Son, you are cold. Here, take my sweater.” And he pulled off his heavy seaman’s sweater and held it out to me. I put it on and could still feel the warmth of his body in it. The body heat of Pete Seeger surrounded me with the lesson of what kindness to others really means. We were there for about and hour as he spoke, I don’t remember if he sang, but his warmth? well, I will never forget it.
