Farewell, Mary Travers

It's funny, I wasn't really aware that she had a last name. Or else I thought her last name "Of Peter Paul and Mary." One of my blog-buddies, Adopting M.E., posted about the passing of Mary Travers. I had tweeted last night about Mary's passing and about some of the immediate song memories that flooded my brain. My first car (that I owned without parental help) was named based on a PPM song- "Puff the Magic Dragon." I was taught by friends that you name your car by turning on the radio when the car first officially becomes yours. Flip to you favorite radio station. Whatever song you hear first contains the name of your car. I got into my Toyota ECHO, flipped to the local oldies channel, and Puff was on. So my little white car was affectionately called Puff for her years of service to me. On my phone right now- on a short list of songs- I have 2 PPM songs. "For Baby" and "Early In The Morning." "For Baby" is Zach's song- I've sung it to him since he was born. When Teagan was a baby, she required a lot of singing to calm her. So I had a list of songs that were "hers" and sometimes that meant singing the entire "10 Years" album by PPM. "Stewball" and "Lemon Tree" were favorites. "Blowin' in the Wind" was a favorite of hers as she got older, as was "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." And I admit that I can still be found belting out "If I Had a Hammer" on a day when I need a pick me up. PPM turned me on to folk music when I was growing up. So this feels like a loss- a personal loss as M.E. said. It's different than just a celebrity dying. It feels like a piece of my childhood that I have passed on is gone. But the beauty of music, of being a musician, is that it lives on and on and on.