As Time Goes By
Seeger wrote a song about it. The Sloop Clearwater. Ever hear it? I liked Pete before I knew what environmentalists really were.
We didn’t build a boat but I remember all the fuss our governor raised to cleanup the Willamette river here back in the 60,s. Sadly all that noise attracted the slime from California and now we are a permanent lefty Utopia like Cali.
Actually, no, I’ve never heard it. I’m sure it’s on Youtube etc.
I grew up in the lower Hudson Valley and at times I really miss it. Especially when it rains: Washington Irving had it right, with his old Dutchmen bowling for 9 pins. Nowhere else I’ve ever been has more thunderstorms, or louder ones. The thunder we get here, I laugh at. From the dry safety of indoors of course. But it’s gutless. Hudson Valley thunder can knock the panes right out of your windows.
I’ve been up and down the Hudson my whole life, from it’s end in NY Harbor, up past West Point, past the dam at Troy and Albany, up to it’s very roots far upstate where you can jump across the spring fed trickle headwaters. It’s a great waterway, and these days you might even be able to eat the fish you catch in it in the lower reaches.
But the Hudson is so much more than just a river. It’s where America was born, or at least where it started to grow up. The history is deep; how many other fjords are there in America, and how many rivers have their own stylistic school of art? And yeah, the environmental movement started here too, pretty sure of that. And the industrial revolution probably, along with the first steamships, railroad, and canals. It’s probably where I got my love of history.
36 Long years ago I chugged up in my yellow 1972 Beetle to a Hudson River revival festival back in June 1977 with a hippie girlfriend and a huge bottle of Sangria + a little “illegal” relaxant, for the nerves of course.
Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie were the featured entertainers.
It was one of the finest Hudson festivals with clear skies and warm temperatures Of course, the Sloop Clearwater was the hot item.
There were thousands of hippies there and the air was filled with that sweet smell of burning “stuff”.
The babes were wearing their “Native American” beads and feathers, short cut-off jeans and NO bras. the dudes were in their fashionable bell bottom dungrees and their cool bleeding Madras shirts. Head-bands of various descriptions were mandatory to keep the foot-long hair out of their eyes. Almost every second person had an acustic guitar slung over their shoulder.
Hell it was a minature Woodstock. Thankfully, I missed that one.
Oh to be young once again..............Life was good.
No reason at all conservative and conservation can’t go together. They both come from the same root word after all.
Posted by irish19
05/19/2013 at 10:41 PM
I was doing conservation, when conservation wasn’t cool. I was a Boy Scout.
As was I. I’ve been more formally involved in it for the last 30 or so years.
Posted by irish19
05/21/2013 at 10:08 PM
05/19/2013 at 03:39 AM
