PASS IT ON!_®

Playfulness, Courage, and Luck: 
An Interview with Bob Blue 

Conducted by Phil Hoose

From Pass It On! Issue #38 (Spring 2001)

Bob Blue has been near the heart of CMN, and many of its members, for many years. As a parent, teacher, activist, songwriter, and performer, he has long used music to make life more fun and meaningful for children—and for himself. Though the “progressive” effects of multiple sclerosis have made it impossible for him to perform his music anymore, an award-winning video documentary (What Matters, by Shoshana Hoose and Ann B. Morse), several recordings, and a host of performances by top-flight musicians are steadily moving Bob's work into a national spotlight. He is widely admired for a distinctive ability to craft songs that make universal, often ethical, statements through small, personal episodes. In one song, “Courage,” for example, a schoolgirl's hesitation to invite an unpopular classmate to a party is likened to the courage historically required of citizens to stand up to brutal regimes.

For 24 years Bob was a classroom teacher. He formed loving and respectful relationships with most students, but the sailing was not always so smooth with administrators. He was strongly encouraged to leave his first four jobs before hitting his stride as a teacher of second- and third-grade students in New York and Massachusetts. There was always a piano in Mr. Blue's classroom (“It would have been like teaching without a chalkboard for some”). During the school year he made up songs to help his students explore all sorts of things, from spelling rules to how they dealt with their feelings. In the summers Bob wrote them musicals, arranging scripts so that as many children as wanted to could play the lead. Though he retired from teaching in 1994, he still loves the classroom, and volunteers 3 to 5 days a week in the Amherst, Massachusetts, public schools.

Bob was present at CMN's organizing meeting, in Hartford, Connecticut. A year or so later, when 12 women announced that they were ready to form CMN's first board of directors, Bob turned to a friend and said, “Well, it isn't only women who work with children is it?” and volunteered to serve. Later he also became the editor of Pass it On! Though traveling has become increasingly exhausting, Bob still sometimes manages to attend CMN gatherings. Upon arrival he is surrounded by children who want a scooter ride. Once settled delicately onto his lap, a child looks back and asks Bob if (s)he can drive. Usually, he nods. Away they lurch, sometimes with an adult sprinting in pursuit and an open-mouthed crowd watching through fingers.

Several of Bob's songs have become classics. “The Ballad of Erica Levine” has been performed by Peter, Paul and Mary, among many others. “Their Way,” a satisfying treatment of academic bullying, was sung on “A Prairie Home Companion.” Last year, “My Landlord” was one of six winners of The Great American Song Contest, sponsored by Songwriter's Resource Network. In the same contest his Halloween song, “I'm Not Scared,” received an honorable mention award.

Bob Blue, 53, lives in a small home in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he is frequently in the company of one or more of his five personal-care attendants, his many friends, and, sometimes, by his daughters Katie and Lara.

This conversation took place throughout the winter of 2001. In grand CMN tradition, it is a quilt of 11 e-mail segments and a telephone conversation.

PIO!: You're in all sorts of families, but tell us about the one you grew up with.

Bob: I grew up in Huntington, New York, with my parents and brothers Howie and Richie. We lived in a suburban housing development, but we had just enough wooded land to make us think we were out in the country. Our development was called Audubon Woods, because it had been built on what was once a bird sanctuary. My mother gave us a rotating schedule of chores—things like feeding and walking Chipper (our dog), cutting the lawn, raking leaves, weeding the garden, feeding the animals and collecting eggs.

PIO!: What animals were there besides Chipper? 

Bob: We had ponies, a lamb, a goat, and 21 chickens. My father bought the ponies so we could earn our way through college by selling rides or renting out the ponies for birthday parties. Howie rented out the ponies a lot, and brought some of them to fairs and other gatherings. I preferred driving a pony and cart into a neighborhood, shouting out “Pony rides!” and gathering children to buy rides at 25 cents a ride. I wore a cowboy hat, a cowboy-looking shirt, and cowboy boots. I spoke with what I thought was a Western drawl. I fancied that I was more popular than the ice cream man.

PIO!: So was your dad a farmer? 

Bob: I think my father wanted to be a farmer, a history professor, or something else, but instead he owned three clothing stores: Blue's Boys' Shop, Blue's Boys' and Men's Department Store, and Rick's Roost. The first two were in Richmond Hill, New York, and Rick's Roost was in Huntington. I didn't spend much time in any of the stores. I was allergic to formaldehyde—which I think was used to make permanent-press clothes—and besides, I didn't like clothes. I still don't, but I realize that they're helpful. But the stores were a big part of my childhood. Partly because all my clothes were chosen for me, but mostly because it made me not have my father at home much.

PIO!: You must know a million songs. Did someone sing to you a lot when you were little? 

Bob: My mother tells me that when I was born, she immediately sang a Yiddish lullaby: “Shayn Videelah Vunah.” She sang a lot as I was growing up. She told me her favorite songs were “Cheek to Cheek,” “The Isle of Capri,” and “It's June in January.” And I learned to play them on the piano. She requested them a lot.

PIO!: When did you start playing piano? 

Bob: I was three. Actually, I was playing the organ of our next door neighbor, Mrs. Gural. My mother walked by their house and heard someone playing the organ. She asked Mrs. Gural, “Who is that?” She answered, “That's your son, Bobby.” So they got me a piano. She encouraged me to practice, too. I liked playing piano; I loved it. But I did not like taking lessons—practicing Clementi sonatinas or scales. So as I practiced, she listened, probably as impatient as I was. The piano was in the living room, right near the kitchen, and when I drifted from practicing to playing my favorites (and hers) by ear, she'd say, “Bob-by—” with a mock-disciplinary tone of voice. But I don't think she really wanted me to go back to playing scales.

PIO!: What are some of the earliest songs you remember? 

Bob: “My Little Gray Pony,” the camp song of the Pineview Camp (my grandfather's camp in Loch Sheldrake, New York), “A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” “No Two People Have Ever Been So In Love” (Danny Kaye), “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” (Doris Day), and “When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter” (Gene Autry). I listened to records a lot—Broadway Musicals, mostly. My parents never took us to musicals; they bought original cast recordings: Burton, Andrews. and Goulet in Camelot; Robert Preston in Music Man; Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady; Theodore Bikel and Mary Martin in The Sound of Music; Richard Kiley in Man of La Mancha. I listened to the soundtracks a lot. I was crazy about Danny Kaye. And I loved the people who made little 78-rpm records for kids—Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Gene Autry, Burl Ives, and later, Walt Disney Productions.

PIO!: When did you start writing songs? 

Bob: This is embarrassing. The first song I wrote was called “The Great Society.” It was a satire on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society idea, but it was written from the point of view of a Young American for Freedom who wanted Barry Goldwater to be president.

PIO!: Were you for Goldwater? I know all sorts of people who were fired up by Barry Goldwater. Most of them became lefties. 

Bob: Well—I was an adolescent. I had the feeling something was very wrong with our government. Then I read a book called “Conscience of a Conservative,” by Barry Goldwater. It seemed so logical and right to me! Besides (and maybe more to the point), my parents were shocked! What better endorsement? I could work for what I thought was “power to the people” and against my parents, at the same time! For about a year, I was a young conservative.

PIO!: There's a part in the video you where you say you knew you wanted to be a second-grade teacher in second grade. That really amazed me—what a precocious sense of vocation. Why'd you want to be a teacher? Why not an astronaut? 

Bob: It's true. I had a second-grade teacher named Mrs. Keedle. I loved her, and for about a year, I wanted to be a second-grade teacher. But if Mrs. Keedle had been a banker, I probably would have wanted to be a banker. Anyway I soon realized that my destiny was to be a doctor. That's what my father hoped, and I dutifully hoped so, too. I thought it would be my way to help people. But I later learned that science was important for doctors, and I didn't like science. And in seventh-grade biology we dissected frogs. Being allergic to formaldehyde, I couldn't do that. So I gave up on being a doctor.

PIO!: Looking back, how would you describe the 15-year-old high-school student, Bobby Blue? 

Bob: I spent lots of time alone in the woods, wishing I were someone else. I thought I was unpopular, and I tried to believe it was because I was “smart” and into music. There were lots of other kids who felt unpopular, and we often hung out together, not realizing that we had the power to redefine “popular” so that the word would include us. It wasn't until my senior year, when I was the lead in the senior play, Annie, Get Your Gun, that I started to feel popular. Songwriting didn't help because I didn't write my second song, “TV Child,” until 1972.

PIO!: There are plenty of other service professions that don't use formaldehyde. Why did you finally return to teaching? 

Bob: In college I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, partly because I really did, and partly because my wife was going to have a baby, and I heard that teachers earned some money.

PIO!: So did you turn out to be a natural teacher? 

Bob: Hardly. I got a job at Turner High School, in Beloit, Wisconsin. I taught 12th-grade English. I was 21, and many of the kids I taught were taller and tougher than I was. Many things set them off laughing and giggling. Every time I used the word come, the kids would start giggling. One kid named Dan decided to put the liberal college-educated hippie (me) in his place. He did no classwork or homework. I gave him an F, but that didn't stop him from graduating; the principal changed it to a D, to get rid of him. Dan is about to be 50, if he's still alive.

PIO!: What do you think the chances are he'll read this and get back in touch?

Bob: Not good. Two years later I started teaching elementary school. I loved it, but classroom management still did not come easily. My classroom was a zoo—a real zoo. I had no idea how to establish order, let alone maintain it. When I said, “May I have your attention, please?” and they wouldn't give it to me, I was crushed! Do I have to be authoritarian? I wondered. Then one day a volunteer came into my zoo to get the children to go to gym class. And she said, “Would you all please line up here?” and I saw all the different creatures in my zoo line up in a straight, single-file line. I was humiliated. I could never get them to do that, and all she had to do was say those few words.

PIO!: So what did you learn from that episode? 

Bob: The lesson at that time was: I just don't have it; she does, I don't. I give up. I want to be as good as her someday. I was extremely discouraged.

PIO!: What made it get better? 

Bob: I guess I got older and I learned a few tricks. One was, “Put your hand up if the person next to you is paying attention,” and, “Now put your hand down if you are also paying attention.” After awhile it got so I could just say, “Could I have your attention please?” They knew that if they paid attention I might do some interesting stuff, or I might give them some interesting stuff to do. They're more likely to pay attention if something good is about to happen.

PIO!: What grades did you teach? 

Bob: Every one but sixth, but mostly second and third graders. They were a perfect match for me. They were too old for the stuff that I didn't want to teach them. They already knew when to use the bathroom, and that people are not for biting. They could tie their shoes. And they were too young to learn some other stuff I didn't want to teach, like calculus and sex education. They loved to sing. My first year teaching second grade I was on the piano one day and they were singing “High Hopes,” and I really liked the sound of children singing. So I said to myself, Why don't you write a song? It was almost Halloween, and they were all asking each other, “Are you scared about Halloween?” and answering, “I'm not scared.” So I wrote them a song called “I'm Not Scared.” They liked it, and they learned it really fast. They performed it for their school, and a few other teachers learned it. By the time my daughter was old enough to sing it, she thought it was a standard. Years later, as an adult, she said, “You wrote that?” I said, “Yeah.” “You couldn't have written it,” she said, “I learned it in school.”

PIO!: How important to your students was the chance to perform the songs they had learned? 

Bob: Children love performing. I wrote several plays for children, too. Sometimes a child says, “I don't want to perform. I don't want to be in front of other people.” And I say, “Okay, you don't have to.” Then they watch the rest of the class being in front of people and later they say, “Can I do it, too?” And I say, “Sure, but I thought you didn't want to.” And they say, “Well, it looks like fun.” The children who performed in those plays were dear to me. I can't imagine thinking anything could have been better than having Emily Ball play the good witch of the north, or having Abigail Joseph play Alice, in Alice in Wonderland.

PIO!: So Abigail was one-sixteenth of the Alices? 

Bob: Yeah, I guess you know that story. When we did Alice in Wonderland, I asked who wanted to play Alice, and 16 children raised their hands. So I scripted it so that each one got a chance. If figured if 16 kids want to play Alice, then 16 kids will play Alice—or Dorothy, Winnie the Pooh, Charlotte, or whoever. Lots of kids want to be stars. I did, didn't you? And for one scene, at least, every child who wanted to be Alice got to be a star. Some people say that is pandering to egos. Maybe it is, but egos get crushed enough.

PIO!: You seem to have used music a lot as a teaching tool, even though you weren't a music teacher. Why? 

Bob: Music is a powerful way to learn. Some children who have a lot of trouble learning in other ways can do it through music. And children who learn well in other ways nevertheless love learning through music, or just making music. We should help teachers feel more comfortable using music in their classrooms. We support teachers who have other difficulties. No elementary-school classroom teacher could get away with not including reading or math in the curriculum. You don't hear a teacher say, “I'm just not a reader,” or, “I don't do math,” but so far, “I'm not musical” is acceptable in our culture. If a teacher decides to take lessons or something, that's considered extracurricular, and there's no time or money donated by the school system. It's like an impossible dream, and if King George W. gets his tax cut, it'll be even impossibler.

PIO!: How did you get from Barry Goldwater to “Erica Levine?” Here we get to see a girl develop a sense of independence during several encounters with boys and men in her early life. We're there for her first kiss, with her at the prom, meet a couple of guys who try and fail to possess her, and finally overhear her calmly discussing the terms of her upcoming marriage with Lou, someone she loves. Why'd you write this song? Was there a real Erica Levine? 

Bob: I wrote it for the wedding of two friends—Bob McCorkle and Meri Cayem. It was very autobiographical—all about my personal growth in relating to women. When I first taught second grade, there was a girl in my class named Diana McKearney. I wanted to use her name but it didn't fit the meter, so I used her sister's name, Erica. And shortly after that I met a girl named Jessica Levine. They were both spunky kids and Erica Levine was based partly on them, partly on lots of wise women I've known, including my ex-wife Sandy. Incidentally, a teacher at Fort River went to a folk concert and the performer's name was Jessica Levine. I asked her to try to find out whether it was the same Jessica Levine I'm referring to. If so, her parents were Joan and Jim. Sure enough, it was the same Jessica. I found out her address and mailed her a tape. We'll see what comes of that.

PIO!: The first time I ever saw you, at a People's Music Network gathering in the mid-1980s, you were singing with a band. I think it was The Nice Jewish Boys. 

Bob: Yup. In 1982 I wanted to perform my song, “You Can't Grow a Beard If You Shave.” It was my attempt to do a country song, and I thought it would be neat to have a fiddler, a banjo player, and all. I happened to know them. They were Matthew Weiss (who later died in a car crash), Sandy Pliskin, Russell Aminzade, and Aram Hollman. They were all nice, all Jewish, and all male, although technically we were men, not boys. We had a lot of fun. When we were done performing that song, I thought we'd break up, but we stayed together for a few years. Matthew thought we should call ourselves “The Kosher Nostra,” Russell thought we should be “The Boys of the Lox,” but we stuck with “The Nice Jewish Boys.” Our motto was, “Musical Chicken Soup for Sick Times.” We broke up in 1985, because my second wife thought I should stay home more. Some of the “boys” referred to her as our Yoko Ono.

PIO!: Did you ever really go for a career as a performer? 

Bob: I never aspired to a career as a performer, but I would have loved having audiences all over wish I would be one. Anonymity is fun if enough people know about it. Actually, now that I can't sing or play instruments, it seems as if people wish I would!

PIO!: Which brings us to MS, the reason you can't sing or play anymore. When did you first know you had it? 

Bob: I was diagnosed with “some demyelinating disease—possibly MS” in February of 1978. I spent about eight years without symptoms. In 1986, I started having trouble walking long distances, and by 1994, I had to retire; I didn't have the energy to teach.

PIO!: I often wonder what it's like for you to experience MS, and I really don't know how to ask. Is there anything you'd like to say about it? 

Bob: I was once interviewed by a reporter for the Boston Globe. He asked, “Could you make a comment about your MS?” and I said, “I want to go on record as being opposed to it.” . . . Well, let's see. It's something that I have to keep learning to live with, because every time I learn to live with some stuff, I get more stuff. Like first I had to get used to the idea of walking with a cane. And so I did. It was fun for awhile having a cane. Once in the hall in school a parent was trying to reach a hat high up on a shelf, and I speared it with my cane. But my last year of teaching I started using a wheelchair that I had found in the trash. I did a little work on it, and it sort of worked. Kids enjoyed rolling me around in the school. Then I got an electric scooter, and then I found I couldn't walk without one except for a few steps and then the few steps went away, and so on. I love joking about it. People think, “Wow, he's brave, he can joke about it,” but they don't know I have to joke about it. Am I supposed to be depressed about it? I don't want to.

PIO!: So you've really chosen not to be depressed about this . . . 

Bob: Well, it's not really a choice. It's the way my life has gone. When people are depressed, it's not because they've said, “Oh, I think I'll be depressed.” I was depressed for awhile, but not about MS. I find that with each passing year I can do less and less, but I can do it better than ever. By the end of my life I'll be able to do nothing perfectly. I have to keep making adjustments—in my diet, my lifestyle, my medications, and my home, as MS “progresses.” It was important for me to have my own house, so that I can have a live-in PCA (personal-care assistant) when I need one—actually, when I admit that I need one. Right now I have five PCAs, and I hire more as insurance allows me to. So far, I've been very lucky (Catharine Haver, Wendy Robinson, Amy Mohr, Reuven Goldstein, and Kathy Spence, I hope you're reading this). And friends and relatives have helped me a lot, too. And when I started to be unable to mail tapes, books, and videos, Catharine Haver volunteered to do it. She thinks my stuff should reach more people, and she works hard to make it happen.

PIO!: MS has eliminated piano, reduced singing, and made songwriting much slower. And yet you're still Bob Blue, a fundamentally creative person. What are your creative outlets now? 

Bob: I compose on the computer, with one finger. I write parodies, and sometimes I collaborate. Mostly, I write prose. In November of 1994 I started writing articles about teaching and children for the Wellesley Townsman newspaper. So far I've written 1,034. I distribute the articles on the internet. (PIO! readers can contact me if they'd like to be on my distribution list.) Since I can't travel to concerts much any more, I now have concerts travel to me. In December of 1999 I started a monthly concert series in my living room, called “Stone Soup.” I can seat about 25 people. It's very cozy, but cool in the summer. Performers volunteer, and we pass a cup around for them.* It's friendly and homey. I'm booked until December of 2002. It's just another way I'm lucky.

PIO!: You have a CD of your children's songs coming out, right? 

Bob: There will actually be two CDs—one intended for children and one for adults. They will be available when they're done—probably May. My friends Catharine Haver, Joanne (Olshansky) Hammil, Verne McArthur, Anne White, Eric Kilburn, and many more have helped make it.

PIO!: One of your songs that I really admire is “Courage.” It discusses the moral responsibility of nations and individuals through the story of one young person who struggles to decide whether to invite an unpopular classmate to a party. How'd you come up with the idea? 

Bob: The mother of one of my former students proudly told me the story. Her daughter was invited to some big social event and her unpopular friend wasn't. Risking ridicule, she invited her friend. At the time she was in fourth grade, and her teacher had been using the curriculum, “Facing History and Ourselves.” I'd also recently read While Six Million Died, by Arthur D. Morse. It all came together into a song.

PIO!: I understand you've changed the ending a bit. 

Bob: I changed a line “no one cried out in shame” (referring to the My Lai Massacre and the Holocaust) because many people did cry out, and their courage should not go unsung.

PIO!: You've been part of CMN from the very start. How'd you find out about it? 

Bob: Sarah Pirtle and Ruth Pelham told me about it at a People's Music Network gathering in the mid 1980s. They said that a bunch of people were going to get together and start a network about children's music. I liked the idea right away. I was isolated. I was thinking, “I'm such a strange guy: I like to make music with children, and I don't think it's mere entertainment, or a distraction for them. I think that it helps me teach. It's an educational thing to do.” I could sense that people thought about me, “He's neat, he sings with the children. He doesn't really teach them anything, but at least they have fun with him. He really oughta be a music teacher.” Or, “Why doesn't he quit his day job and go entertain at birthday parties?” I thought I was weird to think of music as a tool for teaching. A lot of other people were thinking that way too, but I didn't know it. It felt so liberating to have a network of people who felt the same way.

PIO!: Were you still growing and learning as a teacher when you had to retire? 

Bob: Yeah! [laughs]. For the first 24 years I had a reputation for being really fun and a nice guy. Finally in my last year I started to get a reputation for knowing what I was doing. I was learning a lot about how to deal with parents. I sent a newsletter home every Friday, telling what had happened in class during the week and telling what I planned to do next week. Parents really appreciated it. Before the newsletter I had been calling up parents and talking with them about what was going on. But I'm much better at explaining things in writing than talking. Even when I used to be able to talk, I was better in writing.

PIO!: Are you still in contact with many of your former students? 

Bob: Some of the kids I've taught do e-mail me—Rachel Libon and Kat (formerly Katie) Geha in particular. They make me proud. They're doing important work and/or will. And shortly after I retired in 1994, I “adopted” about 80 children at Fort River School in Amherst, when they were in first grade. I quickly got very attached to them, and when they were ready for second grade, so was I. And so on. I've stayed with them ever since. Now they're in seventh grade. And so am I. I visit the middle school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the elementary school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I play a role I haven't seen anyone play before. Once in awhile someone says to me, “What do you do in school?” My standard answer is, “Could I get back to you on that?” I do what kids, parents, and teachers ask me to do (within reason). And I do what I think ought to be done. It fills my life.

PIO!: What's it been like for you to work with middle-school students, after all those years with younger children? 

Bob: It was hard at first. Some of the kids stay close to me, but to many, I am a reminder that they were recently children—and they don't want to be reminded. I am about 40 years older than “my” seventh graders, but being with them brings back many memories, and the memories help a lot.

PIO!: You have such a great way of respecting children and being honest with them. 

Bob: I think they know I respect and love them. And I remember what it was like to grow up. It's really hard to be a child. The world is not set up to let children have power, to let them be heard. People say, “Children are so cute,” and they write them off. Or they say, “We gotta whip these children into shape, or they'll have no self-discipline.” Not enough people are looking at children as human beings. Children are not “future human beings,” but already human beings with things to say.

Phil Hoose is a writer, conservationist, musician, father, and utterly proud-long-time CMN member. He lives in Portland, Maine.