Pete Seeger, Quite Early Morning
Pete Seeger at the Garrison Institute in 2010
by Steve Kent
The world awoke to the news that Pete Seeger died last week, still somehow shocking and surreal even though he was 94. It never quite computed to imagine the future of this area without him and his wife Toshi, who died six months earlier. But now, suddenly, it’s here. Pete, whose Beacon, New York homestead where he lived for 65 years stands a couple of mountains north of us, was a generous friend of the Garrison Institute’s, performing at our opening ceremony in 2003, and at other times throughout our history.
In fact, he was a generous friend of organizations and people too numerous to count. His work and his guiding spirit pervade not only our part of the world, but our time in history, and his passing makes his gigantic presence if anything more deeply felt.
No one seems to be aware that Pete had a small replica of the Clearwater sloop, built for his personal use. It measured no more than 20′ LOA, and was rigged so that he could single-hand it. I happened to meet him one Saturday morning in the early 1980’s. I was staying at an Inn (The Spread Eagle Inn, as I recall) in Garrison, NY. I walked down the lawn to the river just as Pete was landing his boat for a short rest stop. Since I had recently built and launched a 19′ Lightning, we talked for about a quarter of an hour about the rewards and pleasures of boat-building, after which Pete resumed his course up the Hudson.