It's a moment of (selfish) grief for us. It's a little hard to absorb. Like hundreds of thousands of others, we claimed Pete as our own. :"Papa Pete" we said. We feel kind of helpless in this moment--how will we do it without him? But one thing we know is that Pete wants us to keep on keepin' on.
It's hard to think Pete won't be there--the Clearwater, the Strawberry Festival, the Corn Festival (he named it the "Buck-an-Ear" Festival), the Pumpkin Festival... . Pete was a sage, a life-guide. Pete's spirit reached into our souls and found our music.
We'll miss his stories, his voice, his hugs. But in his name we've got to "Keep On!"
At the last Pumpkin Festival in Beacon, not only did Pete sing, but he handed out hand-written copies of the Emancipation Proclamation to the entire audience and we all recited it together--Pete himself knew it by heart.
Then, at a memorial for Toshi last October, at the Center for Ethical Culture, Pete raised the roof with song. What can we say--the longer he was with us, the longer we wanted him to stay.
Pete was fierce. It seems a cataclysmic moment in time that we just lost Mandela, and now Pete. We've definitely all gotta step up.
We've attached a few letters ,notes, cards, pictures of Pete when he came to sing in the JD Wilson Garden, his recipe for "All American Strawberry Short Cake", songs, the hand card on "How to Build Global Community." he loved to give out.
Love,
Haja and Cindy
