As most of you did, I awoke this morning to the news that Pete Seeger died. He was 94.
I believe the first time I saw Pete Seeger in concert was in the summer, in the late 1950s. Camp Massad Aleph took us to a concert by The Weavers, the folk singing quartet Seeger helped organize. I recall sitting in the covered stands of what appears in my memory to be a racetrack, with The Weavers performing on the turf in front of us. Among the tunes they sang was one of their hits, “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena,” an Israeli folk song, music to the ears of embryonic Zionists from Massad. It was a song from the days when Israel was young, vibrant and considered by many the paradigm of new socialism, an obvious appeal to the left-leaning Seeger.
Seeger’s career fell into a trough during that time and well into the 1960s because of his political views. Obituaries have noted it was mostly on college campuses that he was able to secure concert gigs. So it wasn’t a surprise when he appeared at my school, Brooklyn College, in March 1969. As an editor of one of the college newspapers, I had pretty good seats to many of the top folk and rock singers of the time who appeared on the stage of Walt Whitman Auditorium, including Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Ponies, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joni Mitchell. I sat close enough to be able to see the writing on Seeger’s five-string banjo—“This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”
Some of the obituaries called Seeger a troubadour, what the dictionary defines as “somebody who sings while strolling around an area such as a restaurant.” I sincerely doubt Seeger tiptoed around tables. But he did canvass our country, indeed the world, gathering folk songs for his repertoire. Among the songs he wrote or co-wrote are “”Kisses Sweeter than Wine,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” and “If I had a Hammer.” He was the creative spirit behind “We Shall Overcome,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” and “Wimoweh”.
Interestingly, when CBS Radio broadcast his death this morning it played a snippet of Seeger singing “This Land Is Your Land.” He did not write that song. Woody Guthrie did.
Past Perfect: I was brought back to my past by several other stories in the news these last few days. Tuesday, The NY Times carried an article on the extermination of Jews in Eastern Europe by bullets in killing fields rather than gas chambers in Nazi death camps (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/world/europe/a-light-on-a-vast-toll-of-jews-killed-away-from-the-death-camps.html?_r=0).
I’ve mentioned before how my father’s family in Ottynia, in what is now western Ukraine, were killed. Here’s how it was described in the history of the society of immigrants from Ottynia:
“We learned from correspondence with Ottynia survivors that the Jewish inhabitants of Ottynia were taken in two groups by trucks towards Tolmitch where a mass grave had been prepared and our people were shot and buried there.”
Snow Job: Reports out of Chicago say the cold and snow are the worst in 31 years.
January is when The National Housewares Show has been held in Chicago. The show was a leading source of advertising for my magazine and its sister publications. Each publication would send about six editorial and sales staffers to cover the show and sell ad schedules.
Getting to Chicago after one of the Windy City’s legendary snowstorms is nearly impossible. Flights are cancelled. Trains don’t run. Forget taking a bus.
In 1979, a blizzard struck just before the start of the Housewares Show. None of our associates could get to Chicago. Even our Chicago-based salesmen could not drive to McCormick Place, site of the exposition.
While corporate officers in New York anguished over the lost opportunity, one determined vice president, David Q. Mahler, demonstrated that where there’s a will there’s a way. From his home in Levittown, Long Island, he traveled down to Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, DC, to board a plane to Japan. Why? Because he knew that flight had a stopover in Chicago and like the postal carriers of old, “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” would stay the airline from canceling its international schedule. David deplaned in Chicago, only to find almost no one else in attendance at the show. It was a glorious trek, ultimately one without financial reward.
Speaking of financial reward, the debate over raising minimum wages for restaurant employees (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/business/proposal-to-raise-tip-wages-resisted.html?_r=0) recalls a similar battle in 1977 when I worked on Nation’s Restaurant News. As I wrote before, I won a company writing award for debunking the restaurant industry’s argument that higher wages would be harmful.
Cleaning Up: Ten days ago, in a Times article on Michael Bloomberg’s return to his company after 12 years as mayor of New York City, the third from last paragraph reported managers in the Washington office of Bloomberg News “recommended that staff members clean up their desks so as not to catch the notice of the famously neat former mayor.”
The owner of the publishing company I worked for also failed to appreciate the disheveled desk of an editor was a badge of respect. Accordingly, during one of my trips away from the office he ordered my desk to be cleaned up. One admin assistant dutifully stacked all of my papers, without throwing any away. When I returned, I exploded, screaming that I couldn’t find any of my notes. I told Barbara I would fire her if she touched my papers again. I was all bluster. A short while later I promoted her, made her a copy editor. One of the best staffing decisions I ever made.
State of the Union: President Obama gives the annual State of the Union speech tonight. I’ve not read any pre-speech commentary, but he no doubt will say the state of our union is strong. I, personally, concur, as far as Gilda’s and my state of the union—today is our 41st anniversary.
