By way of introduction, here’s an interview, excerpted and edited, from the book “Chopping Wood” by David Bernz.
I was a part of a culture that came about in the 1960’s that became known as the Hippie Movement. My parents grew up in Berkeley, California, and there was a lot of interest in folk music there at the time. My mother had gone to a little prep school in Stockbridge Massachusetts and her professors had taken the students to see Pete Seeger concerts. After she became a young wife and mother, she had a guitar and a Joan Baez songbook, so I was soaking that music in from a very young age. She had Folkways recordings and Weavers albums, and I loved listening to them.
Fast forward to when I’m coming of age. I was born in 1958, which makes me the tail end of the Baby Boom generation. When I was a teenager, my peers who were a few years older seemed to be having the time of their lives protesting,dropping out, joining communes and saving the world. Come to find out that by the time I graduated from High School, popular culture had moved on.
I was crest fallen.I was looking forward to this great experience of being a Hippie and saving the world, and instead I was presented with Disco music and the Rat Race.
I really didn’t want to be a part of all that, so I was looking for alternatives, and that’s when I found the Clearwater. I was working at a survival school on an island off the coast of Maine, having all kinds of fun sailing in small open boats, and I heard that there was going to be a big anti-nuclear protest at a place called Seabrook, New Hampshire, and that the Clearwater was going to be there. I drove myself down to the site and found this huge encampment of people. They were dividing up all the jobs to be done. I said, “Well, I want to go down to the beach and pass out flyers to the local people.” I really wanted to see if I could find the Clearwater. I was passing out anti-nuclear flyers when I saw this big beautiful sailboat sailing by. I got myself on board and there was Pete Seeger!
Cleawater welcomed me. I volunteered to be an apprentice for a month that October, and I just stayed. That was 46 years ago, and Clearwater has been my main community ever since. I know it’s supposed to be the people’s boat, available to and owned by every citizen who joins, but for those of us lucky enough to be on the crew it is a community, a way to learn about living in a group, a way to learn about living outside and using the weather, being in the natural world, dealing with the huge environmental forces of the winds and the tides, dealing with the public, and teaching little kids. It was a really great place to grow up, and actually to fall in love, because that’s where I met my partner whom I was with for thirty-three years.
Pete and Toshi were a huge part of that. They were mentors and teachers, and they were welcoming and encouraging to everybody. The philosophy that the Seegers had, their worldview, their ethics, and all the projects that they put their heart and soul into were great teachers for me, and great examples in leadership, community involvement and activism, and working together to get things done. I love to sing, and the Clearwter provided an outlet to sing in a group with my friends, to learn how to perform, how to be onstage, and basically to be a folksinger, which is one of my great pleasures in life. I’ve got a lot to thank Pete and Toshi and Clearwater for.
Journal excerpts mark my progress, with its ups and downs, that first month in getting to know Clearwater and finding my community there. I prepared to leave the remote Maine island where I’d been living and join the crew as an apprentice for the month of October. I diligently studied the little booklet “A Sloopers Handy Guide” to familiarize myself with the vessel, which I had only visited briefly up to this point. I was nineteen years old.
September 28, 1978
I now know all about belaying pins and even understand the topping lifts and the sister hooks! My duffel bag weighs about a hundred pounds. By tomorrow night I should be in New York City, and the next day I’ll get up at 6:00 am and get myself to Nyack and get on board. And let this newest fantasy wrap its arms around me.
October 1
I have just spent a silly, silly day in Nyack, questing for the Clearwater. Took two trains and a bus from Brooklyn, stashed my weighty gear under a hedge at a condominium and walked all over creation looking for her in the rain, asking directions, hitchhiking, phoning, sneaking across rich people’s backyards and falling into the Hudson. Now my prize is in sight. She’s sailing, and in an hour should return to the pier where I am resting in the sun. Hope they aren't peeved that I’m late. I was supposed to be aboard for the sail that they're doing now. The Hudson looks lovely even here so close to the city, and I know I’ll soon come to love it.
Right now I’m sleepy and thirsty, but I'm warm and dry and my body is at rest, my socks and sneakers drying, and the mending necessitated by this morning's scrambles is done. Maybe I can flag down a passing speed boat and get them to take me out to the Clearwater.
Oct 4 . Boat living. Been too busy to write. Salty decks, blisters, halyards, tiredness, talking, eating, raining. I love it. I’m lonely, jealous, insecure. Tomorrow is the new moon.
Oct 6
Sitting in the main cabin listening to the cacophony of a mandolin, fiddle, harmonica, recorder and flute tuning up and attempting to play an anti-nuclear protest song. Muscles tired,belly full after a beautiful night sail from West Point to Con Hook. I’m feeling more at ease here, falling into a role, insecure sometimes too. Trying to work hard. Not as motivated as some of the people I see around me. Ignorant and learning. The captain is a tough nut to crack. Never sure what he thinks of me, but I haven’t screwed up too badly yet. The people are all friendly and fine. Even the dog isn’t too obnoxious. And I’m learning.
Oct 11
The moon swells and grows. We’re in Albany after an idyllic day’s sail up from Hudson. I have got to start making an effort to learn more about the boat now instead of falling into a comfortable slot. The experienced crew are thinning out, going home for the winter, and leaving the work to us newer crew, which is exciting. I feel confident here. It is very, very good.
Oct 18
We are in Saugerties. The moon is almost full and we’ve seen it every night in this clear weather. Pumpkins abound all over the deck. Good music, pretty women, pumpkin pies in ridiculous quantities. River living.
Two guitar playing women with long dark braids are singing and strumming lovely, soothing music on the quarterdeck. First mate Patrick is rasping,lovingly, some new chafing gear for the bowline. Johnny-O, the cook, is making soup on the woodstove. Bosun Louise and some others are practicing juggling ashore. The coast guard, our hosts, watch us out of the corners of their eyes.
Honey, the pretty white dog wearing a yellow collar and bright pink bandana, curls up at her master's feet. The musicians play the John Prine song “Newlinburg County” and it brings back memories of learning, hearing, singing and teaching that song.
Oct 21?
Don’t really know what day it is. Am feeling glum and lonely right now, sitting at anchor off Beacon. I need some hugs and friendliness. Feel like curling up into a ball somewhere. Feeling peevish and unwanted and like the Clearwater is a dumb boat to live on. I sort of feel like leaving today. Got the proud and shy and lonely blues.
Oct 22
Feeling better. Sitting down in the main cabin hiding from the rain and the norther blowing outside, with the little sloop “Woody Guthrie” with the Seegers rafted up to us, bobbing up and down like a rowboat. The big boat is full of good people, pumpkin bread to cook, lasagna, clean hair, jugglers and a banjo player: a motley crew. We're at Cold Spring. Loaded our last five tons of pumpkins today. Feeling happily lazy at the moment. Silly old Clearwater.
Oct 25
Spent a very pleasant night last night sailing on the Woody Guthrie from Verplanck down to the Tappan Zee bridge. Pete Seeger was aboard, with four other crew besides myself. It was fun! We sailed until after midnight, then anchored near the Clearwater and slept on deck in the open air. Now I’m back home on Mama Duck. It does feel like home. We’re anchored off of Dobbs Ferry and will visit Piermont later on today. We’re almost back in the claws of the city.
October 27
Roberto Clemente State Park, the Bronx.
Last night was a very happy, golden night. Running around in my apron cooking beef stew and pumpkin cheesecake, the boat filling up with Seeger groupies and the man himself. Lots of friendliness, wantedness, family-ness among us crew, and then, since I had cooked, Seeger asked me what song I’d like to hear. I asked for the ballad “A Rich Irish Lady” which I used to listen to on a Seeger Family record as a kid. And he said. “Oh, I’ve forgotten the words” but I said I knew them. So he played and I sang. It was magic. A moment to be remembered. And then, after he went back out to the “Woody Guthrie, the rest of us sang until midnight.
Today, hair-raising navigation amongst all the bridges of the Harlem RIver, selling and giving pumpkins to a million screaming Bronxite kids, city children, thin, wise, and fragile. Here comes the weekend, maybe my last one on board. Days are getting fewer and fewer before this craft is bedded down for the winter.
Oct. 31
The old first mate came by this morning, and the gang drank a bottle of Myers and played poker. Then we did some heavy transporting of gear between the office and the boat.
The mate in a fit of mock fury threw a roll of oakum, which he claimed to be of inferior quality, into the Hudson. He and Johnny-O had a wrestling match in the main cabin, and Johnny threw a temper tantrum during which he vented his rage on the rubber chicken. Utter insanity in this mild undeserved weather. It’s beyond fun to be a part of all the antics here, the playfulness of a carefree society’s children. Our little fantasy world, our one small stronghold in which we hold off the twin perils of Winter and the Rat Race, both of which are lying in wait for us ashore.. Water laps greedily at the transom. There is a quietness among us as we realize, and savor reluctantly, the nearness of our dispersal. Why can’t this go on forever? This is the way in which people are supposed to live, leaning on each other, strengthening each other, feeding and laughing and arguing with each other. The family, the tribe, the crew. The way it’s supposed to be.
It seems like a long time since I have felt this happy. It’s wild, like a fairy tale. I am a member of a small community of crazy, energetic, supportive people living in a demanding, beautiful, diverse environment. All these people are my friends. I deal with them openly, directly. We accept and revel in each other. Our crazy, colorful, haphazard lives converge on this home, this vessel. And I am a part of it all.
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