60’s Nostalgia- Peter, Paul and Mary

The 60’s were a life pivot for me.

I left my rural home for college in the big city in the fall of ’59 and left graduate school to start a career in California in February ’70. There was a lot of transition during that decade. There was a lot of music providing a background for life changing experiences and events but forget the Stones and the Beatles; turn down the Dead and Iron Butterfly; because the  musical group that held my hand and kept me going during that decade was Peter, Paul and Mary.

Yes- the pseudo folk group.

It is easy to trivialize the Peter, Paul and Mary. They dressed nice- of course all the groups dressed nice at the beginning of the 60’s. They were inspiring- in a not-so-threatening way. They were hummable. They were hard to resist.  I probably first heard them on WFMT- the great Chicago FM station. It was a Saturday tradition for my circle of nerds to take a break from study to listen to a folk music-comedy review called the Midnight Special. There I first heard Bob Newhart, Nichols and May, Pete Seeger and, of course, Peter, Paul and Mary.

The Haunting and Trivial Lemon Tree

It probably started with Lemon Tree, a catchy song with a lesson of sorts. Peter, Paul and Mary represented folk music to me. Yes, I knew that real folk music was sung by real folks far away from recording studios. Still, it was attractive and far from the hayseed country music my father liked.

The heart wrenching Leaving on a Jet Plane.

Peter, Paul and Mary filtered many songs with raw origins into a more sophisticated sound that pseudo-intellectual college kids could handle. They continued their magic through the troubled 60’s and then beyond. But what really captured my heart was the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane,’

That song was ringng in my ears as I left my wife to be on the East coast on a snowy morning to head for my future life in California. I didn’t know what I wanted. I was afraid of commitment and my wife to be still had more than a year before getting her Masters. I didn’t know if we would ever see each other again. And yet I had a stronger connection with her than I had ever made before. I was torn but I left her that day.

I didn’t leave on a jet plane and my life work wasn’t making music but I knew I was leaving something important that I might never have again. Mary was singing my story even if the details were wrong.

I think everyone living through the 60’s  will have a Peter, Paul and Mary story.  That was mine.  Now, I would love to hear yours.