To history's dustbin they're consigned
Along with many other kinds of garbage
Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!
Surprise, surprise, TODAY didn't like the sound of that and never had him back.
My hunch is that more people earned to care about the world, war and peace, justice and injustice from Pete's songs than any of the newspapers and magazine. He believed in and stirred audience participation. It was always about everyone, not just him.
I was privileged to meet and interview him many times with my first exposure back in the fifties at Hootenanies, and concerts like one on Christmas l955 in the auditorium of the old Museum of Modern Art where over the din of rumbling subway cars, he introduced us to South African songs of struggle like Senzenia, and Wimoweh. They excited my interest and led to a journey that drew me deeply into the freedom struggle in that country.
Later, in the 1970's, I sent him a note thanking him for sitting down with me for a radio interview in Boston. I wrote a fan letter dripping with love--a very un-journalistic thing to do.
He responded with the humility and brevity for which he was known. A postcard soon arrived with one word on the back. "Thanks," it said. Signed Pete with his characteristic banjo design scribble under it and, some Japanese words, maybe Toshi's contribution.
I have kept it plastered on my wall ever since, on the wall of fame in the bathroom, the room that gets the most traffic in my apartment as in most others.
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