Rev. Mary Lou Gilbert, Buchanan, GA, 14 Jan 2003
[from a response to Pastor Gilbert:]
As far as how long I studied with Pete......well, I'm not sure how long.
I guess I'm still studying with him and with you and with everyone else I know.
I didn't really sit down in his classroom for eight years.
He was my mentor starting sometime after 1965, I think it must have been.
After hearing his songs for years I met him in summer 1969 at a Broadside workshop
at the Newport Folk Festival but only briefly and very casually.
It wasn't until Oct. 1971 that I spent about a week or ten days around him on the sloop "Clearwater"
which was moored at and sailed from Poughkeepsie, NY. On the final night we sailed down to Yonkers.
While I was supposed to be on watch, standing at the bow, we ran over a bouy!
I was pretty startled. I felt stupidly inattentive, but frankly had not been adequately prepared to 'watch.'
That's how it often is around Pete, his wife Toshi and some of the other idealists: one is not really prepared
for what one is expected to do. I think magic or something like it must be highly valued by that 'community!'
I'm quietly chuckling as I write this remembering those days of trusting the blind to lead the blind.
May God lead us so that the blind can follow, too.
-SS
PS I hope that doesn't sound too presumptuous. I certainly take no credit.