Some forty-odd years later, one can look back and even be slightly bemused. At my first University of Chicago Folk Festival (was it 1960, Art?), I recall observing from the stage that "no one has sung a protest song yet!" So I gave them one I'd learned from Ewan MacColl during the year my wife and I had spent in England -- I sang "Four Pence a Day." Not exactly one of your "let's join together and overthrow it!" bombshells, but a protest song for all of that.

About a year later, I met a chap who lived at the end of the block where we were staying. A civilian by then, he told me that he had been in the Army the year before, assigned to Intelligence (favorite oxymoron - Army Intelligence!), and had been sent to cover (undercover) the folk festival. He had dutifully reported, he told me, that I was the only one to sing a protest song. I've never asked for my FBI files under the Freesom of Information Act, but I can see it now: suspicious character sings 19th century lead miner's protest song! Clearly, an attempt to stir up anti-management feelings amongst the academic rabble in Chicago. But the John Birch Society and their organized "Minute Men" were a good bit more intimidating. Perhaps I'll get time tomorrow to add a story about crossing swords with a local chapter of these fellows. But that came later.

Sandy