“On the Day After Christmas” – a story and a song…
It was 1978. Our home and we survived “The Blizzard”. Disco was “stayin alive” -big time. There was a band called SeaBright with lots of songs and relatively wholesome musical fun for family and friends, performances at Club Passim, a little WCAS Cambridge radio airplay. Life was good indeed, musically and personally - especially since Joe, Lois, Bob and Robbie were safe after a harrowing Hull Gut boat capsizing. Cosmic Whew!!!!!!
For several years Cyndy and I had been planning a motor-home trip across North America with Joe. Ours would be an upscale version of our friends David and Susan Haletky’s odyssey; they traveled with a tiny pull trailer for 2 years and had a baby while on the road! After renting our home, selling our cars, taking job leaves, arranging Joe’s “curriculum”, buying/road testing/provisioning our 24 foot El Dorado, a round of good bye concerts, parties and teary farewells on Sept 12th we left the “gone fishin” sign in the driveway and cast off on our ”Getting the Fun Out of the Way Tour” … Traveling down the East Coast, Gulf Coast and Southwest we shared reunions with friends (Katie Turner’s birth in Livonia, NY, Halloween with Brad and family in Carolina, Thanksgiving with the Roper-Joneses in Gainesville, Fla., and so many wonderful and moving natural and historical experiences.
Along the way there were two cautionary man-made disasters- the alarming Three Mile Island Pennsylvania. near nuclear melt-down, and the horrifying “People’s Temple” /Jim Jones led cult mass-suicide in Guiana, Central America. Many of the tragic victims had come from around San Francisco.
We arrived in a still reeling San Francisco about two weeks before Christmas, settled in with our lovingly generous and exotic friends Bob and Jim in their Juri Street apartment in the very culturally diverse Mission district. This was our first ever Christmas away from our Quincy home, but we were making a home away from home with our Californian family and friends. The trip across country had been very stimulating for my song writing and here in the city I started doing open mic performances, arranging little gigs, networking, researching how to produce an album (those “giant black vinyl CD’s”) and writing more songs about new people, places and experiences encountered. On Christmas Eve, with Cousin Pat and family we attended an outdoor Joan Baez concert at City Hall, partly a memorial to the Jonestown victims. Much of it was a candle lit shared singing of folk anthems and Christmas carols. The concert was a balm for the 25,000 there and it seemed like a wave of good will would spread ever outward bringing a measure of healing and peace to the city.
We had a great Christmas Day celebration; talked with everyone back home- everyone was blessedly happy and healthy. “All was calm; all was bright” on Peterson Road, Shoreside Road and other beloved byways.
On the morning of the 26th I went for a run (today it would be a walk) and was taken aback to see some Christmas trees already out in the trash. I returned to the apartment and quickly wrote my only Christmas song … “On the Day After Christmas”.
“On the Day After Christmas”
(12/26/1978- San Francisco)
On the day after Christmas everyone goes back to work.
There are trees on the sidewalk: there are ribbons in the dirt.
And the stores all re-open for their clearance and returns.
For the usual business it appears.
On the day after Christmas the headlines all read the same-
Someone is hurting someone in someone else’s name.
There is waste. There is wanting and so many kinds of pain.
Is there ever a trace of true change?
On the Eve before Christmas, on the steps of City Hall,
25,000 voices rose in good will to all.
And they lifted their candles in salute to a dream-
Will this be the year we live in peace?
May this be the year we live in peace!
Live “in heavenly peace”…
*****************
Merry Christmas 2005 -
Peace…Joy…Love…Hope - Mike
It was 1978. Our home and we survived “The Blizzard”. Disco was “stayin alive” -big time. There was a band called SeaBright with lots of songs and relatively wholesome musical fun for family and friends, performances at Club Passim, a little WCAS Cambridge radio airplay. Life was good indeed, musically and personally - especially since Joe, Lois, Bob and Robbie were safe after a harrowing Hull Gut boat capsizing. Cosmic Whew!!!!!!
For several years Cyndy and I had been planning a motor-home trip across North America with Joe. Ours would be an upscale version of our friends David and Susan Haletky’s odyssey; they traveled with a tiny pull trailer for 2 years and had a baby while on the road! After renting our home, selling our cars, taking job leaves, arranging Joe’s “curriculum”, buying/road testing/provisioning our 24 foot El Dorado, a round of good bye concerts, parties and teary farewells on Sept 12th we left the “gone fishin” sign in the driveway and cast off on our ”Getting the Fun Out of the Way Tour” … Traveling down the East Coast, Gulf Coast and Southwest we shared reunions with friends (Katie Turner’s birth in Livonia, NY, Halloween with Brad and family in Carolina, Thanksgiving with the Roper-Joneses in Gainesville, Fla., and so many wonderful and moving natural and historical experiences.
Along the way there were two cautionary man-made disasters- the alarming Three Mile Island Pennsylvania. near nuclear melt-down, and the horrifying “People’s Temple” /Jim Jones led cult mass-suicide in Guiana, Central America. Many of the tragic victims had come from around San Francisco.
We arrived in a still reeling San Francisco about two weeks before Christmas, settled in with our lovingly generous and exotic friends Bob and Jim in their Juri Street apartment in the very culturally diverse Mission district. This was our first ever Christmas away from our Quincy home, but we were making a home away from home with our Californian family and friends. The trip across country had been very stimulating for my song writing and here in the city I started doing open mic performances, arranging little gigs, networking, researching how to produce an album (those “giant black vinyl CD’s”) and writing more songs about new people, places and experiences encountered. On Christmas Eve, with Cousin Pat and family we attended an outdoor Joan Baez concert at City Hall, partly a memorial to the Jonestown victims. Much of it was a candle lit shared singing of folk anthems and Christmas carols. The concert was a balm for the 25,000 there and it seemed like a wave of good will would spread ever outward bringing a measure of healing and peace to the city.
We had a great Christmas Day celebration; talked with everyone back home- everyone was blessedly happy and healthy. “All was calm; all was bright” on Peterson Road, Shoreside Road and other beloved byways.
On the morning of the 26th I went for a run (today it would be a walk) and was taken aback to see some Christmas trees already out in the trash. I returned to the apartment and quickly wrote my only Christmas song … “On the Day After Christmas”.
“On the Day After Christmas”
(12/26/1978- San Francisco)
On the day after Christmas everyone goes back to work.
There are trees on the sidewalk: there are ribbons in the dirt.
And the stores all re-open for their clearance and returns.
For the usual business it appears.
On the day after Christmas the headlines all read the same-
Someone is hurting someone in someone else’s name.
There is waste. There is wanting and so many kinds of pain.
Is there ever a trace of true change?
On the Eve before Christmas, on the steps of City Hall,
25,000 voices rose in good will to all.
And they lifted their candles in salute to a dream-
Will this be the year we live in peace?
May this be the year we live in peace!
Live “in heavenly peace”…
*****************
Merry Christmas 2005 -
Peace…Joy…Love…Hope - Mike
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