Singer's unease shows we have more than storms to worry about
By JAN GLIDEWELL
Published October 3, 2004
By the time this column is published, everyone will be sick to death with storm stories, pre-storm stories and after-storm stories. Every last possible vignette will have been wrung from the multiple tragedies that have assailed us, and all of us will be ready to hear other news and other challenges.
It is about one of those challenges that I wish to write, and it is because of the extensive coverage already given to the multiple hurricanes of his season that I hasten to point out that - other than that it was the reason for the subject group coming together - this is not a hurricane story.
This is about another threat to our welfare.
So bear with me.
When it came time to "hunker down" (a phrase we are all also equally sick of hearing) my wife and I and our home were in three different locations. She was in Clearwater with her daughter, who was hospitalized for a condition that turned out to be not life-threatening, and I was in Dunnellon to act as master of ceremonies for a folk concert.
With show-must-go-on determination, the folkies held on until the last minute, hoping the storm would take a sudden turn and the concert could go on.
It was not to be, and, because my motel room was already reserved by people being evacuated from more-threatened areas, I was invited to stay at the home of the concert's promoters, along with the performer, one of my favorites, who was the featured act.
Doesn't it seem like time for names here?
Yeah, I know, but the nature of the last few minutes we spent together makes me uncomfortable with identifying anyone other than myself.
Shortly before we all broke up to go our separate ways Monday morning, and with the last few brisk breezes howling around the house, I heard the folk singer talking about an e-mail concerning an upcoming festival in which entertainers were being asked to please refrain from singing "political" songs.
Hmm ... a folk concert without political songs.
That tickled the last few vestiges of the humorist deep in my soul.
So, what were people going to sing? Blowing In The Wind: But Only in the Correct Direction as Decided and Announced by the Government? We Shall Not Exactly Overcome, But Learn to Live With, Never Question and Never Challenge? Give War A Chance?
Would all the love songs be about lifelong commitments between one man and one woman, all of the songs about our nation's scenic beauty be sure to incorporate references to the aesthetic appeal of pipelines and offshore drilling rigs? Would we sing Florida's state song in the original (and still official by state law) offensive minstrel-show blackface parody of African-American dialect in which it was written by a man who never saw the Suwannee River?
It got, for me, unfunny in a hurry.
What I saw next gave me further pause.
This folk singer and her partner are not of the vague, fuzzy-thinking idealistic stereotype into which the political right would lump all of their (our, actually) ilk.
They are women on the edge of middle-age, veterans of battles across the nation in the cause of civil rights, freedom and peace. Their hearts and their money are right behind the song lyrics when it comes to backing up what you say with what you do, and I have never seen either of them remotely afraid of anything in the five-or-so years that I have known them.
The folk singer was placing a small bundle in her instrument case when I saw her pause, undecided.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm wondering if it is a good idea to carry this," she said. "I'm thinking Homeland Security. I'm thinking Airport Security, and I'm thinking I hate that I have have to think about this at all."
I wanted to respect her privacy. Plenty of people have things to pack when they travel that they do not necessarily want to share information about with their friends or their government.
But I couldn't help sneaking a peek at the bundle that this brave woman was afraid the government would find in her guitar case because of the possible ensuing difficulties.
The answer showed me that we have a lot more than storms to worry about, folks.
It was a packet of bumper stickers ... each of which read: "Peace Is Patriotic."
