That land called Honah Lee

The universe has a funny way of circling back on itself sometimes. The news of Mary Travers death yesterday came as both a shock and a reminder. A shock because I didn’t know she was sick. I’m not sure many people did. A reminder because Peter, Paul & Mary was a large part of my childhood. Some of my earliest memories are of my father singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” to me as I drifted off into sleep. Mary came from a time when folk singers wore button-down shirts and tweed jackets, but spoke about revolution and a better world. They sang about changing the world with nothing more than a hammer and the will to swing it against what needed fixing. Mary’s voice was big and urgent, filled with both fire and ache. Throughout her life she used it to both lift it in song and against injustice.

My parents had all their albums and my father in particular, with his Martin guitar and own tweed jackets, would often sing their songs to my sister and me at bedtime. He died five years ago this summer. In a few days, my sister is expecting a baby – my first nephew and my mother’s first grandchild. While my dad won’t be there to sing “Puff” when he arrives, I know that Mary and the group’s music will still be there to serenade him about strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff. Yesterday, when I came home I also found the paperwork for my father’s scholarship fund in the mail. My family has worked for five years to set up the fund, a modest but hopefully helpful endowment. Perhaps it will give that student just enough to find his or her own hammer. And, as I sign it and put it in the mail today, perhaps I’ve found mine as well.

If I Had a Hammer


Puff the Magic Dragon

Thanks, Mary. May you frolic in the autumn mist forever.