Yarrow’s message still resonates

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Sometimes the wisdom of an earlier time has the power to heal, even at a time when many are feeling the accentuated stress and loneliness of the holiday season. Such is the case for me and the 1960s.

 “We were young.”

So said Abbie Hoffman, later in life, when looking back on his rebellious youth. He had been at the center of all the trouble. I don’t associate him so much with Woodstock as I do with the more cerebral currents of the hippy generation. He wrote a book. It was called, “Steal This Book,” which would mean his revenue stream was roughly equivalent to my own. But he was a political organizer through and through. That much I know.

In the summer of 1981, I sat around a campfire on the shores of Wellesley Island, which is in the St. Lawrence Seaway of western New York State. I was part of a traveling children’s theater company and we had performed in that community. At the evening progressed, I learned that Abbie Hoffman had lived there when he was underground avoiding the federal authorities and that in his disguised persona, he had played a leading role in organizing to save the river that ran by.

Such is my personal connection to the 1960s. I was born a little late for the rest of it. Last week, however, while watching PBS, I saw Peter Yarrow introducing a segment of his special on his folk group Peter, Paul and Mary.  They had a story to tell of their evolution as a group and their political activism, all accompanied by a spirited soundtrack. 

In part, Mr. Yarrow was pitching for the television station, but in the process, he called upon viewers to remember what was best about the 1960s — the spirit of peace and love that characterized much of the period.

His presentation rang true with me. For some time now, I have been battling my own demons that have nothing to do with the Vietnam War or racial segregation. They are all inside of me, created, as best as I can tell, by chemical screw-ups in my brain. Still, Peter Yarrow’s heartfelt reminiscence hit home. “Peace and Love:” by the time that era waned, it had become a cliché, associated with greying pony tales and backwater communities stuck in the past.  But to me, Peter Yarrow’s expression of the sentiment proved useful.

As best as I can tell, no one completely understands psychotic symptoms, or if they do, they haven’t shared their insights with me. That is not to say I have not been treated, and it is not to say I haven’t gotten better. I have.  Maybe the doctors and therapists are keeping their treatment secrets to themselves. The only thing I have been left with as an approach to dealing with these disconcerting manifestations of my illness is right in line with the spirit of Peter, Paul and Mary and the early days of the 1960s, “Peace and Love.” They, too, may have been “young,” but their sentiment was beautiful.

Josh Greenfield is an author who lives in Riverdale. His most recent book is “Homeward Bound: a novella of idle speculation.”

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