Where have all the flowers gone?
As a kid I heard about the Weavers as the group Pete Seeger played with, but I never knew they were so funny. My dad had a few Pete Seeger albums and one of the Weaver's Albums. I think I also heard them play on the Midnight Special with Studs Terkel. I miss that guy, but that's another story.
We are going backwards in history. Usually I choose some songs from the artist's youth first and later end up with one of the last performances. This time I'm starting with the Weaver's reunion concert and ending with one of Pete Seeger's earlier television appearances.
When he was laid off in the 80s, my dad would turn off the lights and listen to this song again and again with "What did you learn in School today" and "Henry my Son". It was his time of inner reflection, but for me as a small boy it was curiosity. How can this silly music help him feel better?
As i got older and listened I found that these old folk songs are not silly songs. They all have a message if you listen carefully. They had to be careful or the censors would catch them.
According to history.com the weavers were banned from NBC television. I remembered them as cute old people that sang, but they were a lot more than that. This was a hilarious reunion concert at Carnegie Hall according to the Washington Post.
Oh my how a kids song can be so accurate.
And the people in the houses all went to the university
and they all got put in boxes, little boxes all the same
Why does this song make me cry? So many years this cycle of boxes and being put in boxes has continued it's cycle and spread to all the nations of the earth.
Maybe it's a reaction to my son's test scores in school. I looked over the test papers and the questions were all screwed up to make sure the kids got low scores. Only a select few will get a chance to go to universities in the capital so the teachers need to know who they will help and who they will ignore.
My son showed me the group chat of his classmates and they are GIFs and MEMEs of suicide. They spend a lot of time and money in private institutes to prepare for the tests but the school makes sure they can't answer the test questions. I think it is counterproductive teaching, but it is the only way for the school to receive funding. When they get a top student to enter a top university they are funded well and stay in business. But when they help students to learn it's considered a blow off school and they are on their own.
The song is not so much about education as the industrial world molding people into positions that compromise their humanity for a fake world of houses, golf courses, martinis, summer camps universities and little boxes.
The Peaunuts character of Linus really hits the point about the purpose of life here.
From 1955-1962 Peter Seger was blacklisted by the FBI for not discussing his political affiliations before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Woody Guthrie was also blacklisted for contempt from 1957-1962 as part of the Red Scare.
These folk singers were anything but UnAmerican. They loved the country and knew the heart of the people.
Pete Seeger introduces Woody by singing one of his songs, "Hard Travelin'. Pete can sing it, but he couldn't have written it. Woodie was the Troubadour and the tributary of folk music. He was the one that sat in box cars and played guitars and roamed and rambled across America.
In the video, Woody is singing "The Ranger's Command". It was a song to be courageous. He was courageous and fighting Huntington disease.
I guess what I'm saying with these three is
remember where you came from
and
don't be afraid.
The pictures and story are my own 
