The Yankee Diner is “bare Americana” – performed in the back room of a printing plant; no studio recording, this is garage music, bare Americana, featuring H.R.Debs with The Evening’s Entertainment. (c) (p) 2026, H.R.Debs
Beta version, share link for limited time in advance of distribution. Enjoy! https://on.soundcloud.com/wjW5BlZWouFMYrizsC
Pete Seeger: A Personal Reflection on the Life Lesson He Left Behind
This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender [“Pete’s banjo head.” Photograph of Pete Seeger’s banjo by Tom Davis (tcd123usa), via Flickr, licensed under a Creative Commons License.]
On July 14, 2013 I went online to the Woody Gurthrie.org website. It was Woody’s birthday after all. I was stunned to see a note of condolence to Pete on the loss of his wife Toshi. She had passed away just days before. I immediately composed a sympathy letter and sent it and less than three months later I received the postcard from Pete thanking me for my thoughtfulness…
When I first arrived in Boulder
I remember heading to the Deeter’s
boarding house—that was
almost sixty years ago,
on the “hill” as it was called,
an eager student looking
forward to the future.
I saw the Flatirons for the first time
the welcome-to-the-Rocky-Mountains range;
being a boy from Illinois, the Prairie State,
the giants put me in my place,
a small presence within mother earth’s
landscape; I recollect
staring out from one of its peaks
looking down on the city
then much smaller, now grown
a consequence of its appeal to those
free-spirited, nature-loving,
gentle souls who chose to call it home.
I think back to my first winter there,
the thermometer showing in the teens
yet a sweater kept me warm,
the air so crisp the humidity so low;
I recall plodding through the snow gleaming
in beams of streetlights, my new
knee-high army-surplus canvas mukluks
serving the purpose the Inuit people intended;
heading back to my room from a coffeehouse
after listening to locals cover the tunes of
Odetta, Joan Baez, The Weavers,
that night serene and still—
from “Boulder feels like a bubble. And the bubble burst.” first published in Topical Poetry
https://web.archive.org/web/20210425211223/https://topicalpoetry.com/boulder-feels-like-a-bubble-and-the-bubble-burst-ryan-borowski-boulder-mass-shooting-survivor/
Howard Richard Debs 