Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,
The song this cycle is Stand Together, drawn from way back in the archives. Pammy and I were in Bangor today to visit our dear friends Dennis and Kathehrine who were celebrating their recent 50th wedding anniversary. We've been friends for nearly forty years, through work, kids, community and peace efforts.
When I was remembering how we first met, this song came back to me. In the mid 1980s, our landmate Scott had occasionally been transporting refugees from Central America who were seeking asylum into Canada. He had been in the Peace Corps in Guatemala some years earlier and was fluent in Spanish and culturally attuned. Because the US was financing some of the repressive governments there at the time as part of the Cold War stasis, it wouldn't recognize asylum claims from El Salvadore or Guatemala. Canada was willing to accept folks but ideally wanted refugees to stay in the States for the month or so that it would take to do background checks and sort out the claims.
When Scott would show up in St. Stephens with a refugee, Canadian border police would phone their counterparts back in Calais to make sure that it was ok to send folks back to the US after the initial Canadian asylum claim - otherwise they would grant temporary asylum in Canada. Usually that communication was above board. On one occasion, when Scott crossed back into the US, expecting cooperation, he and the refugee were arrested and put into federal custody and transfered after a day or two to Bangor.
Some friends and legal folks from Downeast gathered to hold a protest outside the Federal building in Bangor. I wrote this song to take with us, thinking we might have a dozen of us or so. PICA - Peace In Central America - was quite active at the time in Bangor and Orono, Dennis and Katherine at the heart of its founding and operation. Dozens of folks from PICA joined us at the Federal building for a rally and protest and sing. Scott and the Guatemalan refugee were released later that day.
A couple years later, Scott and I shared the organizer job at PICA, where I stayed for three years, staying most weeks overnight with Dennis and Katherine. Long story and so many connections, but seeing folks today keyed me to find this very early recording from cassettes and overdubbing. Sorry for the quality but I still feel the spirit so and savor the community efforts that Dennis and Katherine and so many others have put heart and soul into.
My best to each,
Brian
I'm sending you a monthly offering from original music I've been writing over many years. I've been so bold as to add your email to my newsletter list. You can unsubscribe at any time (link at the bottom of the email).
Many songs are recorded solo, some are from different musical twinings from over the years - all are original tunes, with some occasional collaborations.
Play your favorites!
I've also added a Favorites feature so that, as the playlists grow, you can mark those songs you particularly like and just listen to those, again from using the drop down filter at the top of the playlist. Right now it's a two-step process. You have to click on the song you want to mark on the playlist and then go to the side bar (bottom on phone) and click the gray heart so select; click again to deselect.
On the technical side, the favorites function relies on you not clearing your cookies, often the default setting. Favorites will be lost if cookies are cleared. I hope to add a login feature that would allow you to keep your selections without cookies.
Finally, realizing that many people no longer have a CD player, Leonore and I made our three albums available for free here on the site in playlists. There's a tab, Albums, on the top menu. Select the album you want to hear from the dropdown and enjoy. Songs are free to download as well. We will make some CDs for those who may want that medium - if that is your desire, feel free to contact me.
