"Quite a Journey"

In my 69 months in Jordan, I have eaten at a place in nearby Madaba easily 100 times. Haret Jdoudna is our go-to place for an evening out, with guests, with new colleagues, or simply to have the best in Arab cuisine. Last Sunday I found myself at Haret Jdoudna, which we call “HJ” affectionately, but this time I was sitting across from Peter Yarrow. That certainly makes this visit to our favorite haunt even more special sitting across from Peter of, yes, indeed, “Peter, Paul, & Mary” fame.

 

Last summer Peter Yarrow presented at a conference for young leaders, as he has many times, near his home in Telluride, Colorado. Eight of our students from KA attended this leadership conference, and evidently when these students told him, “You know, you should come to Jordan and see our school!” he took them up on the offer!

So last weekend Peter Yarrow arrived, spent time with a group of faculty at a Jordanian teacher’s house, spent time visiting people in a refugee camp and community center, went out to dinner with some history teachers, then spent a day doing assemblies and speaking with, and singing for, the KA community. While the assemblies were exciting, sitting across from him at dinner and watching him ask questions and answer our questions was perhaps the most thrilling.

A few weeks ago I realized that adult Jordanians did not know who “Peter, Paul, & Mary” were…in a senior staff meeting we discussed Peter Yarrow’s upcoming visit and virtually none of the adult Jordanians knew of them. It surprised me since I don’t know of a time that I didn’t know about “Peter, Paul, & Mary”! Sometime in probably 1971 my older, quite sophisticated and worldly cousins Barb and Deb in Chicago had the Peter, Paul, & Mary: Ten Years Together album and when I returned to Cincinnati I insisted that I have the album as well. As cliché as it sounds, I nearly wore out that album playing the “Peter, Paul, & Mary” songs! But I had also kept up with the group over the years. I remember their activism and work against apartheid in South Africa, especially in the 1980s during my college years when apartheid was the most explosive political issue of my college generation. I remember watching them in PBS specials, impressed that they did not just peddle nostalgia for the 60s, but worked with children and created new generations who would sing folk songs.

But mostly I remember seeing the footage of “Peter, Paul, & Mary” performing at the historic March on Washington for Jobs on the Mall in August, 1963—before I was even born. So when I got invited to dinner at HJ with Mr. Peter Yarrow, yes, I was excited!

Peter Yarrow will turn 75 this month, and while he could easily be a name-dropper (it seems every rocker for the last 50 years has been his friend or wanted to be his friend!) he was supremely interested in the work we were doing at the school, what we hoped his visit might achieve at the school, and also about plans he has to highlight and perhaps heal the problems of the Israeli-Palestinian tension. Peter Yarrow, like many celebrities, knows that people don’t know what to say to him, so he simply asks questions to break the ice. He asked about why we came to Jordan, how long we have been there, how had we seen the situation change. He spoke about the KA students he met in Colorado, how impressive the campus is, how much he loves the food in Jordan. After he had asked questions and made each of us feel very important, he asked us about how we teach history, about if we discuss the power of music in history, how we saw ourselves as agents of change in the evolution of this school. He emphasized, “My mother was an English teacher for 35 years in the New York City schools. I love teachers. I like to think I am a teacher too. I just travel a bit more.”

By this point we were all so comfortable talking with him, it was then easy to pepper him with questions about his activism, about what the “1960s” means 50 years later, about presidents and leaders has met and fought with, angered, supported or inspired. It was clear this is a charismatic man, but not one who needs a stage or wants to be a ham. He simply enjoyed sharing his stories and our handful of dinner guests felt a keen mind and a kind heart. I told him about meeting Unita Blackwell in 2000, an activist from Mississippi, and about how our afternoon together gave me a whole new understanding about the 1960s civil rights era and the effect of music in that movement. He said, “John, I say this all the time, but it is so true—when you hear people united in music, you feel you are not so alone.”

As we walked out to the parking lot, he said, “You know John, we are a lot alike. After hearing you talk about your passion for history education and teacher, it is clear to me, we are a lot alike. Can I have a hug?” Yes, of course! As we walked to the car, I spoke about the 1963 March on Washington and the other times I had seen him at work, tirelessly promoting causes of peace and justice, and he looked at me, and the nearly 75 years of life on earth looked a little ragged on him, and he whispered to me, “It’s been quite a journey.”

I have enjoyed dozens of dinners at HJ with wonderful guests, and this was certainly memorable.

The following day at school he did an assembly with our students. I was nervous about this since I had no idea how our adolescents would react to an aging hippie and his guitar and collection of stories. I needn’t have feared—even though this was perhaps their first time to hear about “Peter, Paul, & Mary,” the issues of inclusion, justice, peace, harmony and love still have their charms. The Palestinians know of oppression and injustice. He doesn’t have to tell them they still exist.

Peter Yarrow began with “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and asked the students to analyze Bob Dylan’s poetry. Several students offered wonderful interpretations of what the words mean, and one of my favorites was, “The answers are there, but we never seem to be able to grasp them—we need to outrun the wind and grasp the answers for ourselves.” He asked the adults over 30 to stand and sing the song. One student felt we sang the song with a deeper appreciation of injustices we have witnessed. Peter did remind us not to sound so sappy about the song. He warned us, “Don’t’ just sway and enjoy the song! This is a song about action! It has an urgent message!”

How many times has he sung this song in the last 50 years? He spoke about a foundation he heads about working in schools against bullying and rattled off some statistics of the number of schools and school children he has met since founding “Operation Respect” in 2000. He sang a song about it and explained the song and looked at how we might curb bullying. Of course we also sang “If I Had a Hammer” and “Puff the Magic Dragon.” He talked about writing that tune over 50 years ago on his Cornell University typewriter and what the song means. “It is about unity and fighting the dragons.”

Throughout his assembly, and then later that evening at another assembly and sing-along, he just was. He didn’t pose. He didn’t try and simply live in the past. He also loved to connect with people. When I came into the auditorium to speak to him before the concert, he was there with a coterie of students around him. One he was showing something on the guitar, with others he was asking about their college plans and their plans for how the skills and tools from this school would shape their choices for the greater world.

It is easy to access to footage of “Peter, Paul, & Mary” on Youtube, from all over the world, especially on that day in August, 1963, but I loved this moment where he was connecting with our kids, and they enjoyed his sense of calm and ease and crisp, resonant guitar. I couldn’t help think that if “a picture is worth a thousand words,” then memorable music is worth a thousand memories. Pure power.

Peter lovingly spoke of Mary and Paul – inviting us to “sing their parts” (a most ingenious suggestion to those who ever fantasized sounding like “them” during playback sessions of Ten Years Together.

At dinner Peter spoke about his mission to create a two-night concert event, one night on each side of one of the Israeli settlement walls to highlight, and try and heal, the tensions and divisions between Israelis and Palestinians. This is the one time he did a little name-dropping. He said, “I am speaking with President Obama about this, because I need to get him behind this and then it will be easy for Sting and Bon Jovi and Bruce to join in.” He didn’t say this in an inflated way—he said this simply like an excellent teacher planning for the execution of a great lesson. He knows what has to happen, his people can make other people do things.

He had been in Jordan before, he said, in 1989, but now that he knows our school is here, he says he wants to come back. It’s hard to explain why he was so moving to sit across from at dinner. It’s not just the proximity with history he has had, but rather his desire to greet everyone with a smile and end every conversation with a hug. Sentimental hogwash, some may say. Not me. I will treasure that dinner at HJ, treasure the smiles and comments and hugs. This was so much more than a “concert” or PR event: it was a reunion of familiar strangers united by music louder than words.