When I heard the news about America and Israel attacking Iran I was too upset to stay in the house so I went for a walk. I remembered the first anti-war march I went on in 1963 when I was fourteen. My father and I and a few thousand people marched on Market Street in San Francisco to protest American military involvement in Vietnam, what would become known as The Vietnam War.
Most people in America hadn’t heard about the war in Vietnam in 1963 and several times during the march someone among the people watching from the sidewalk would call out to the marchers, “Where’s Vietnam?”
That war ended twelve years later in 1975 after taking the lives of millions of Vietnamese people and the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, mostly young men. Over 600,000 American men moved to Canada to avoid going to that war.
For two days after this latest war got started by our terrible president and his terrible minions, I went to Peter Temple’s studio and worked on an album of songs with Peter Temple and Sarah Larkin and Sarah Ryan. The Sarahs are both marvelous singers and harmonizers, and Peter is a wizard of a sound engineer. We had a good time and did not talk about the war, though several times during the recording sessions I thought about the war and the innocent people suffering and dying for no good reason.
Peter has two cats who like being in the studio with him.
Saw my first big bumblebee of the spring in our garden a few days ago. Bees give me hope.
Soon we should be seeing baby quail born of beautiful mother quail.
Our prune plum just sent forth her first blossoms. Some years our prune plum tree produces lots of plums, some years not so many. We will hope for great blooming and pollination and fruiting. And we will hope for a speedy end to the bombing and needless killing.
Fin
Broke My Heart from Todd’s CD 43 Short Piano Improvisations