Pete Seeger Turns 86

The Nation has a great piece by Studs Terkel celebrating Pete Seeger's 86th birthday. (Also check out the Pete Seeger Birthday Celebration website).

My friend Roz and I ran into Terkel and Seeger (10 years ago? 15?) at a Bread and Roses Conference. Roz chatted them up, and then, even before they were out of earshot, announced, "Wow! They're getting old!" (Roz must have been in her 60s, which seemed old to me at the time, and like many people whose hearing fluctuates as they get older, she was practically shouting.)

The highlight of that conference, by the way, was a workshop led by Sue Coe, who showed us the sketchbooks she had been working on depicting the murder of cows in slaughterhouses — I became a committed vegetarian for two full weeks after that — and then she talked about how she lived with hundreds of white lab rats, for whom she had built intricate walks and slides. "There's nothing better than waking up on a cold winter's morning covered in rats!" (I don't recall exactly what she said, but the word "toasty" was definitely used.)