To Ron: It makes me sad that Mary Travers of Peter, Paul, and Mary has died. I used to love their music and still do. What I feel upon hearing of her death is a far cry from what I felt when Michael Jackson died. She was much better, but I dare say that her death won't receive anywhere near the attention as MJ's did. She deserves more.

I was not aware until I saw the news of her death that she had leukemia. In one of the short video strips she was walking with a cane. For some reason, I had always thought of her as being much younger than I was, but today they announced her age as 72, which is just four years short of my 76. -Charles

From Ron: During the turbulent times of the 1960s when young Americans were dying by the thousands in Viet Nam, and African Americans were struggling for their civil rights in the US, the songs of Peter, Paul, and Mary gave comfort and hope to millions. They don't write songs like "If I had a Hammer" anymore. Instead, we must suffer entertainers with nasty lyrics, and normal people misbehaving badly in public.

Music and poetry are the soul's best medicines, and if we are have become socially and politically sick, we need to return to the finer arts that nourish and enlighten our spirits instead of those politics that enrage our anger and turn us toward adolescent behavior. How good it would be to have Peter, Paul, and Mary singing about gay rights in our time. Indeed, where have all the flowers gone?

To see a 1963 clip of Peter, Paul, and Mary Travers singing, click on: If I had a Hammer.