Thoughts.. on Today and Tomorrow in History

                                                   My great grandparents and grandmother!

I got to thinking about the world situation this morning after listening to the news and as usual a song popped in my head.  I was never a hippy or a protester but I was into folk music and that era of quiet protest with songs...too many to remember.  Even today songs like "Where have all the Flowers Gone", "Peace Train" and...to many to remember. But occasionally a song from way back pops up. It brought me back to the days of my youth...The Barge and Poor House in Syracuse and getting together with friends late at night singing songs, playing records and thinking about the world through the eyes of song writers, folk singers and such.

I can still remember Joni Mitchell's lyrics..."they paved paradise and put up a parking lot"...and today its a reality.  Friends are traveling to vacation spots around the world but now everything basically looks the same...little original flavor in many cities...maybe we are too modern.

Today we spend more time on the internet and our phones and not enough time thinking in the quiet...but that's just my opinion!

Everyone has got a beef about something out in the world...we worry about money more than the future of civilization I fear.  Wars and conflict over land have been part of civilization forever. We can tune in to TV shows on the lost civilizations and wonder what happened to them? Do we worry as much about what's happening to us???

Morals have gone out the window, so many think...but we historians can point to Sodom and 

Gomorra, Noah and the great flood, asteroid hits, on and on. Today we do ancestry sites to find where we came from and of course hope for a successful relative or a famous relative or two.  Perhaps we should be thinking more along the lines of what WE will be remembered for?

I can personally attest to the fact that people come back to the museum to find tidbits on their relatives but trying to get volunteers to help provide it is impossible!

Oh well...here is the song I was thinking of...turn on your sound, think about it and smile... as Uncle 

Basil would say "people change...they get worse"...and grandma always said "it only happens to the living!"

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Lead Belly, Blues, Folk Music and Goodnight Irene!

With all of the Ice Bucket Challenges for ALS on line and on TV this past month, I got to thinking about a gentleman by the name of Huddie Ledbetter… better know to us Folk music aficionados as Lead Belly!

Lead Belly was a black man born in the late 1880’s on a Louisiana plantation who ended up in jail for murder and attempted murder and yet managed to leave that part of his life behind…using the experiences for learning… gaining the respect of not only the “Blues” community but also of many of the Folk music world.

I myself loved his renditions of Down in the Valley, House of the Rising Sun, Good Night Irene , Rock Island Line, Midnight Special, and marveled at the man who actually brought the 12-string guitar into the world of my era of folksingers.  He was also proficient at the accordion, mandolin, piano or just about any instrument he picked up.  It was said that he got out of a Texas jail by writing a song appealing to the warden after performing for the inmates and the warden’s friends for a number of years... and his name…well there are many theories or how he adopted it… but Lead Belly stuck.

In prison John Lomax who was doing folk music recordings for preservation as well as a written history of the genre, discovered Leadbetter who eventually toured with him as he lectured at colleges and universities.  Lead Belly’s drinking however, caused trouble and the two eventually parted.  Later in his life he picked up a relationship with Lomax’s son Alan and toured with him.

Over the years he wrote, arranged, and sang hundreds of folk, blues and spiritual standards… that have been adopted by musicians from Folk to rock…but for those of us my age and for me it will always be the popular “Good Night Irene that we remember.  I remember it the most for being my brother’s favorite song when he was a little kid; he made my poor Uncle Lou play it over and over and over when we visited his house..

Lead Belly’s great voice and 12 string eventually brought him from blues to a new set of “folk admirers”, as well as albums and gigs with legends like Woodie Gunthrie, and Josh White. In the end however, the man with iron hands and booming voice, and a figure larger than history, fell victim ALS.  Before he was unable to play or sing he did a much-remembered concert in Texas ending with singing “Spirituals” with his wife.  Another “Legend” felled by ALS!

The true forest, poverty, Gordon Lightfoot and me the old folksinger!

I am totally sick that people can’t see the trees from the forest.  I have a number of FB friends who forward me stories on the homeless and the poor… yet do we really try to do anything about it… and yet things rage in Congress on cutting social programs, people who won’t work... minimum wage.   Nobody wants to live on the street unless they have mental problems... or are poor and unwilling to take a social program... or live in an area where there is no safety net!.

We are happy to pay big bucks to go to a game or movie and look with disdain on anyone who might be standing on a corner looking for a handout.

Other FBers go on and on about people unwilling to work…. without the causes of unemployment or the mere fact that after being down so long they are not fit for public employment because of looks, disabilities or even worse… ignorance. 

We forget that not everyone is born with enough common sense or intelligence to care for themselves...they need help. What if they have no family?

Oh yes let us not forget our red, white, and blue flag wavers who fail to feel compassion for Vets who have come home with mental problems and who “litter” city streets as the homeless. 

As I sat in the cold stoking my woodstove… alone… I thought of a Gordon Lightfoot song I had sung for many years when I was into folk music… and had lots of friends and family.  Got out my old guitar and sang it…I leave the words with you... and I have shared the actual song being played at the end of the lyrics…listen and learn.

Oh the neon lights were flashin'

And the icy wind did blow

The water seeped into his shoes

And the drizzle turned to snow

His eyes were red, his hopes were dead

And the wine was runnin' low

And the old man came home

From the forest

His tears fell on the sidewalk

As he stumbled in the street

A dozen faces stopped to stare

But no one stopped to speak

For his castle was a hallway

And the bottle was his friend

And the old man stumbled in

From the forest

Up a dark and dingy staircase

The old man made his way

His ragged coat around him

As upon his cot he lay

And he wondered how it happened

That he ended up this way

Getting lost like a fool

In the forest

And as he lay there sleeping

A vision did appear

Upon his mantle shining

A face of one so dear

Who had loved him in the springtime

Of a long-forgotten year

When the wildflowers did bloom

In the forest

She touched his grizzled fingers

And she called him by his name

And then he heard the joyful sound

Of children at their games

In an old house on a hillside

In some forgotten town

Where the river runs down

From the forest

With a mighty roar the big jets soar

Above the canyon streets

And the con men con but life goes on

For the city never sleeps

And to an old forgotten soldier

The dawn will come no more

For the old man has come home

From the forest....