Picking Up Where Pete Left Off

One of the regrets I have as a musician and as a concert goer is that I never got to see Pete Seeger. Oh sure, I’ve viewed videos. I’ve heard him sing. I’ve joined in with the tv and recorded sing-alongs. But I never got a full in-person Pete experience.

Many people have stories about Pete Seeger. Most everybody knows about the day Bob Dylan brought his electric guitar to the Newport Folk Festival, and how Pete supposedly wanted to take an axe to the sound system. Jay Sweet, the current producer of the festival, tells of how Pete went missing and was found climbing the stage scaffolding so that he could listen to The Decemberists. Kim and Reggie Harris were friends with Pete and have hundreds of tales about their encounters. After Pete passed in 2014, Reggie wrote a song in Pete’s honor called “High over the Hudson”

Arlo Guthrie toured with Pete numerous times and told the story of the time he and Pete were performing at a folk festival in Denmark and 30,000 people all started singing “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” It’s one of my favorite Pete stories, and since I don’t have a personal Pete story, I sometimes paraphrase Arlo’s tale when my wife and I perform it at one of our Wattle & Daub shows. What’s nice is when the people in our audiences raise their voices because they know the song, too. Pete was right. We are indeed stronger when we sing together.

The year that Pete died was the first time I went to the Newport Folk Festival. On my way to Rhode Island, I drove over the Tappan Zee Bridge that spans the Hudson River. It was being replaced at the time, but I couldn’t help but remember the work Pete devoted to restoring the river to its pristine beauty. Some people suggested they rename the bridge after Pete, but the New York mucky mucks decided to honor a former governor.

Still, Pete’s environmental legacy is the stuff of yet more stories. Garnet Rogers claims and his late brother Stan were performing at a folk festival when at the end of the three days they spied a rather tall lanky figure with a large trash bag picking up garbage. They recognized Pete and decided that they better not let this father figure of folk embarrass them, so they joined in. Midwest singer-songwriter Joe Jencks tells a similar story albeit it a different festival and Pete being slightly older. I’ve heard the same story about five or six times, from five or six different performers. Maybe Pete did this all the time. Maybe these five or six people were at the same festival, saw Pete, and joined in picking up the trash. Maybe it really was all separate festivals and Pete just silently went about his collecting and shamed all these people into joining him.

I like to think that Pete did this all the time. That’s why, since I never got to see him live, I want to carry on his legacy a bit if I can. My wife and I love to get our audience to sing along with us, but when I get home to Illinois and I’m out walking, I grab a bag and my pointy stick. It’s not a festival grounds, but I like to think I’m picking up were Pete left off.






This is a picture my wife took of me at our local train station.

So Long, Racine!

March, 21, 2018

After calling Racine home for the better part of five decades, it’s time to say So Long.

I am moving to another state.

I came to Racine to finish my degree at what was then Dominican College in 1970.  There I met my first wife, and we stayed in town.  Three apartments, a house, a condo, two kids and two grandkids later it’s time to say So Long.

In my years here I have been a security guard, store stock boy, machine operator at Packaging Corporation, battery burner at Wisco Battery, substitute teacher for Unified, part time teacher at St. Cat’s, and full time teacher at Burlington High School. Of the largest employers that were here when I arrived, only a few remain.

I could attend a movie at a theater downtown.  When the streetlights changed I could walk kitty corner from the Post Office to Monument Square. The backs of all the buildings on Main Street faced the lakefront.  Establishments suited to holding bachelor parties dotted the city.

The first poem I had published was about Richard Kinch, one of my professors at Dominican.  For three years or so I wrote a weekly column for the local paper.  Literary escapades aside, I spent most of my time in the normal activities of life.  I worked, played some golf, tried to raise good children. You know.  The important stuff.

I don’t regret a single minute spent here.

The first year I could vote, Les Aspin was Representative, Bill Proxmire was Senator, Pat Lucey was Governor.

I would probably have stayed teaching had not Scott Walker and Robin Vos screwed over teachers and unions with Act 10.  Elections do have consequences.  Well, maybe I do have one regret. I won’t be able to vote them out of office in the next election. That, and I don’t get to vote against Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson.

But it’s time to say So Long.

In 2013 that woman of my dreams passed.   She had been disabled for several years, and retiring early had given me a few more of the 40 years we had together to be with her.

There’s a saying among teachers that the kids keep you young.  I believe that.  When my wife passed, I turned to music again. I started writing and playing more, taking up again what I had left behind as life intervened.

In my 35 years of teaching, I have seen my students go on, for the most part, to graduate and lead productive lives.  I am proud of them all.  I am proud of my own kids.

In the past five years, I have met numerous young men and women, creative young minds eager to do something with their lives and their communities.  One of them recently became a county board supervisor.  Another is the new poet laureate of Racine.  Another is working on a new album to release.  Another is … well, you get the idea. If you doubt the future of Racine or Southeast Wisconsin, think again. Plenty of young whippersnappers will do a good job if you give them a chance.

Through these new encounters, I met another woman.  She is, as my daughter says, “age appropriate.”  I am lucky.  I got to marry the woman of my dreams twice.  I feel like Lou Gehrig.  But like every marriage, it helps if both people live in the same house and state.

I’ve sold my condo.  My kids are grown.  Nothing is holding me here or back.  I’m moving to another state.  It’s not that far away that I can’t come back for an open mic or a concert or the holidays.  It’s not that far away that I can’t visit the grandkids or they me.

It’s not good-bye.  It’s So Long.  So Long, Racine.  It’s been good to know ya!