THE KINGSTON TRIO - TODAY

Back in the 60s there was a musical group called the Kingston Trio out of San Francisco. Can't remember what club they hung out in, the background for the photos was a brick wall. Years later when I worked for an airline I flew out there, and caught their act in that club. Loved it, they became my heroes. They had a signature song.

     Now, in my mid 70's I find myself humming it again, because so much of what goes in around me, in my neighborhood, in my town, certainly in America, and now in the world - brings back the uneasy, unsafe, jittery world of the Kingston Trio's song.

     " They're rioting in Africa ding, dinga ding, ding. ( musical notes.) Their starving in Spain. There's hurricanes in Florida - dum, dumde dum dum, ........and Texas needs rain. 

      The whole world is festering with unhappy souls: the French hate the British, the Germans hate the Poles. And we will be happy, and tranquil and proud, for man has been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud. 

       And, some happy day, when someone will pray, I will set the spark off ---and we will all be blown AWAY.!!!"

      (Reprise)

      We all felt that way in the mid 60's when Johnson sat in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Funny, now, that " The Amateur" as author Ed Klein paints him (into a corner) our national conundrum seems oh, far worse? 

       " they're rioting in Africa........'

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