I cannot say that I sat around listening to the music of Pete Seeger, but his passing takes me back to my youth and a cold November in Washington D.C. I was a freshman at Michigan State and had just turned 19. I borrowed my Dad’s Plymouth station wagon and we packed about 8 or 10 crazed people into it and drove the Interstates through Ohio and the hills of Pennsylvania down to D.C. for the Moratorium To End The War. I recall standing on Pennsylvania Ave, in the throbbing energy beat of 500,000 people with a PURPOSE, when Pete Seeger, not 10 feet away, came walking down the street with his banjo, in a soft case, strapped across his back, surrounded by an aura of American political and musical history. I could see it and I still feel it now, the incredible feeling of a presence. I remember him singing “Give Peace a Chance,” shouting something like “Can you hear us, Nixon.” Later that night, I made my way to a gathering that turned into a riot. A guy ran up to me and said, “Pick up a rock and break something!” A line of National Guardsmen, with fixed bayonets, started marching, stretched across a four lane city street. The tear gas and pepper gas was flying and it seemed all the moisture in my body began flowing as mucus from my eyes, nose, and mouth. Tear gas is effective stuff and everyone ran in a lust for survival. When I finally became functional again, I realized I was lost and separated from my friends. I spent the long night wandering the streets of D.C. in a city with police and guardsmen on every corner. Pimps were asking if I wanted a woman. I was tear gassed again while standing with some people waiting to cross a street. In some twist of fate, as the faded November sun arose, I heard someone call, “Hey Bob.” It was my friends in the station wagon and I ran with a true feeling of salvation. Two weeks later I sat in my dorm room watching the first draft lottery on TV. Oh to be young and watch the fates roll the dice. My number came up 310. R.I.P. PETE!
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 09:12:35 +0000
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